The U.S. Supreme Court this morning heard oral argument in the crucial First Amendment religious liberty case of Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue. The legal issue, as framed by <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/espinoza-v-montana-department-of-revenue/">SCOTUSblog</a>, is &#8220;[w]hether it violates the religion clauses or the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution to invalidate a generally available and religiously neutral student-aid program simply because the program affords students the choice of attending religious schools.&#8221;
Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/01/argument-preview-justices-to-consider-dispute-over-tax-credits-for-scholarships/">contextualizes the importance</a> of Espinoza through the prism of the Court&#8217;s recent First Amendment religious liberty jurisprudence:
<blockquote>Two and a half years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that Missouri’s policy of excluding churches from a program to provide grants to resurface playgrounds violated the Constitution. In a footnote in their opinion in <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/trinity-lutheran-church-of-columbia-inc-v-pauley/">Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer</a>, the justices emphasized that their decision was limited to the facts before them and did “not address religious uses of funding or other forms of discrimination.” [In Espinoza], the justices will return to the question they left open in Trinity Lutheran, when they review a decision by the Montana Supreme Court invalidating a tax-credit program because the scholarships created by the program could be used at religious schools.</blockquote>
The Montana state constitutional provision challenged in Espinoza is a so-called &#8220;Blaine Amendment&#8221; — an unfortunate area of law that has its insidious origins in blatant anti-Catholic bigotry. <a href="https://firstliberty.org">First Liberty Institute</a>&#8216;s Jeremy Dys explained the sordid history yesterday in a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dys-its-time-to-end-the-bigotry-of-blaine-amendments">Daily Wire op-ed</a> calling for the Court to end &#8220;Blaine Amendments&#8221; once and for all:
<blockquote>In 1875, &#8230; [James] Blaine introduced a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution that would prevent any government aid to “sectarian schools,” targeting Catholic schools in particular.
His federal amendment failed, but various states borrowed his proposal and their own constitutions were amended instead. Today, almost 40 states have a constitutional provision that prevents government aid to religious institutions. These state constitutional amendments have empowered states to legally discriminate against religious organizations when they perform the same work secular institutions do.
For years, activists have used Blaine Amendments to successfully exclude religious individuals and organizations from benefitting from public benefits. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote of Blaine Amendments in the 2000 decision of <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/530/793/">Mitchell v. Helms</a>, “This doctrine, born of bigotry, should be buried now.”</blockquote>
Ilya Shapiro, who filed a “<a href="https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2019-09/Espinoza-merits.pdf">friend of the court brief</a>” on behalf of Cato Institute&#8217;s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, is optimistic that the Court will do precisely what Justice Thomas called for it to do in Mitchell. Speaking exclusively with The Daily Wire, Shapiro opined: &#8220;The Supreme Court has the opportunity here to remove the last legal barrier to school choice, and I think it’s poised to do so. Constitutional principles of free exercise and equal protection don’t allow Montana to exclude religious groups from public benefits solely because of their religious nature. Similarly, there’s no room in Supreme Court precedent to exclude religious schools from programs structured around private choice (as opposed to, say, direct taxpayer funding of devotional education).&#8221;
In an additional <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/slugh-jewish-groups-must-support-ending-the-bigotry-of-blaine-amendments">Daily Wire op-ed</a> published this morning, <a href="https://www.jcrl.org/">Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty</a> (JCRL) General Counsel Howard Slugh also lambasted the bigotry of Blaine&#8217;s legacy. &#8220;Espinoza has a strong legal basis for her claims,&#8221; Slugh wrote. &#8220;The Supreme Court recently <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-577_khlp.pdf">indicated</a> [in Trinity Lutheran] that excluding a religious organization &#8216;from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified, solely&#8217; because it is religious &#8216;is odious to our Constitution … and cannot stand.&#8217; The Supreme Court should strike down Montana’s Blaine Amendment based on the same reasoning.&#8221;
Slugh, who filed a “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-1195/116233/20190918141339707_No18-1195JRCL.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2-39Qgpp2Hc2MEbPaRhiXeeFVGOgNpEWF0_5AMTEa6onbe90Xbsc5_yzU">friend of the court brief</a>” on behalf of JCRL, was in attendance this morning at the Supreme Court oral argument. Speaking exclusively with The Daily Wire, Slugh described what he saw: &#8220;I was very pleased with how the oral argument went. It seemed that at least five justices understood that the key issue in this case is whether it was permissible for the Montana Supreme Court to act pursuant to a law that, on its face, requires discrimination against religious people without even considering whether such discrimination is permissible under the U.S. Constitution. The answer to that question is that it is not permissible, and at least five justices seemed to support that position.&#8221;
Proponents of religious liberty and school choice ought to hope that Slugh&#8217;s intuition proves prescient.

The U.S. Supreme Court Building

Supreme Court Hears Blockbuster Case On Religious School Choice

Clarence Thomas

Constitution

Education

First Amendment

Judicial Branch

Judiciary

Lawsuit

Religion

School Choice

Supreme Court

Over the past few weeks, the stories of how visibly Orthodox Jews have been getting physically assaulted with regularity on the streets of New York have finally broken through, and people are now becoming aware of what these people have been contending with for no other reason than the fact that they are identifiable people of faith.
As disturbing as these stories are, and as much as they should horrify all Americans, there is another part of this saga that does not get discussed quite as often — a part that should concern people deeply. Not just because of what it has meant for those Orthodox Jews, but for what it means on a practical level for the rest of America — specifically, religious America.
Beyond the physical attacks have been the sustained attacks of other varieties that Orthodox Jews have been contending with from both the media and the government. For living their lives in defiance of the progressive values of modern society — and, specifically, the extremely progressive values of the societies of their home state — these people are targets.
Writing at <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2020/01/07/attacks-on-jews-are-a-canary-in-the-coalmine-for-religious-liberty-in-the-united-states/">The Federalist</a>, Alliance Defending Freedom’s Kristen Waggoner makes this point in the context of the violence:
<blockquote>It is not only religious “nones” who are susceptible to the resentment and divisiveness of identity politics. This toxic cultural movement has made it more difficult for every American, religious or non-religious alike, to engage with people who look or feel different than us. As a nation, we are becoming less tolerant. As the recent violence showed us, that puts people who hold unpopular views — like Orthodox Jews — in danger.</blockquote>
Waggoner is undoubtedly correct in connecting the more general growing lack of tolerance for religious people — and religious views and beliefs — with the way it is manifesting in violence against visibly Orthodox Jews. Furthermore, she is also right that it should concern all people of conscience across the United States, regardless of whether they personally know any Orthodox Jews.
The blunt reality, though, is that few other religious groups proclaim their religious affiliation the way Orthodox Jews do with their dress. Therefore, few others are in the same danger of being targets for people who want to take a swing at them.
But physical violence is not the only method of swinging at Orthodox Jews.
Over the last few years, and <a href="https://forward.com/opinion/432014/critics-of-haredi-schools-are-not-liars-but-the-research-shows-they-are/">under the guise of a call for “reform,&#8221;</a> progressive activists have been waging an all-out assault on the entire private school system, starting with the educational system of Orthodox Jews. These activists — mostly formerly Orthodox people who are intent on destroying their former community by <a href="https://twitter.com/RonColeman/status/1213835252348719104?s=20">tearing down</a> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/nmoster/posts/10162626559200392">their institutions</a> — have found willing allies among the <a href="https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Teachout-Nixon-urge-yeshiva-oversight-13900974.php">liberal intelligentsia</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/errollouis/status/1021460641918472192?s=20">media elite</a>.
And so, in late 2018, the state of New York announced a slate of regulations meant to ensure that all private schools followed a curriculum which was, as the law says, “substantially equivalent” to the one public schools offer.
While this gets messaged as a “fix” for the failing Jewish schools, the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-state-targets-jewish-schools-11544745611">proposal would</a> have local school boards across the state dictate to all private schools precisely what they must teach, how they must teach it, and who must do the teaching. Furthermore, the school boards would also have the authority to inspect those schools and determine whether they are passing or failing.
Virtually every single non-public school educated child is at risk here. Do you send your child to a yeshiva (Jewish school)? The government wants control. Send your child to a <a href="https://www.au.org/church-state/february-2019-church-state-magazine/people-events/new-york-religious-schools-refuse-to">Catholic</a> school? Control. Any other religious school? The government will get involved. Irreligious private school? They’ll be there.
One can only imagine what they think of homeschoolers.
The roots of the words “substantially equivalent” themselves are rooted in religious animus. As Menachem Wecker points out in <a href="https://www.educationnext.org/new-york-state-cracks-down-jewish-schools-senator-simcha-felder-rabbi-chaim-dovid-zwiebel-joseph-hodges-choate/">Education Next</a>, they were added at the New York Constitutional Convention in 1894 with intent to target a religious minority, albeit a different one. And while over a century has passed since then, its original purpose is finally being realized:
<blockquote>In reporting the legislation’s passage, the New York Tribune wrote that “the measure has been defeated in former years, owing to the fears of Roman Catholics that a compulsory education law would interfere with their parochial schools.”</blockquote>
To be clear, the real issue up for debate here is not whether the state should have the ability to ensure that every child receives an education. What is, however, is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/lefts-war-parenting-ben-shapiro">whether parents should have control</a> over how they educate their child.
This war on Orthodox Jews&#8217; religious educational underpinnings is as much an existential threat as the madmen who <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/01/13/jersey-city-shooting-shooters-had-plans-other-mayhem/4456789002/">storm their grocery stores</a> with guns and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/29/nyregion/monsey-new-york-stabbing.html">rush their homes</a> with machetes.
It&#8217;s not a secret why they are doing this. The man at the forefront of this campaign in New York, Nicholas Moster, is formerly Orthodox and openly despises his former community so deeply he <a href="https://www.lohud.com/story/opinion/perspective/2018/06/14/yeshiva-education-activist-naftuli-moster-new-city-shares-his-story/690552002/">once told a reporter</a> that his drive to change the educational system in the Orthodox schools is akin to “someone who becomes an advocate for cancer cures as he is battling the disease, but then is cured.” He has publicly ridiculed the religious practices of the Orthodox as  “<a href="https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2012/04/16/des-amours-regimentees">unhealthy and crooked</a>” and tweeted that it is a “crazy religion.”
What Moster and his organization represent is a first step in a broader war on religious and traditional values. As Supreme Court Associate Justice Louis Brandeis famously wrote in his New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann dissent, every “[s]tate may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”
In this case, New York is the laboratory and government over-entanglement in education is the experiment. The Orthodox Jews happen to be the lab rats in this scenario, and if the experiment on them can succeed, there is no reason to believe it won’t be implemented all over the country next.
&nbsp;
Eli Steinberg lives with his wife and five children in Lakewood, New Jersey. They are not responsible for his opinions in any way. You can tweet the hottest of your takes at him <a href="https://twitter.com/HaMeturgeman">@HaMeturgeman</a>.

Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn

STEINBERG: Attacks On Orthodox Jewish Education Ought To Frighten Everyone

Anti-Semitism

Judaism

On Friday, The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh retweeted a post from NPR in which the news organization writes: “Elizabeth Warren has pledged to cancel up to $50,000 of debt for 95% of student loan borrowers if she&#8217;s elected president – and she says she could cancel those debts all on her own.”
Walsh wrote above the tweet:
<blockquote>No such thing as &#8220;canceling&#8221; debt. If we&#8217;re being honest, we&#8217;d call it what it is: debt transfer. We&#8217;d be transferring debt from the people who took out the loans to people who did not take out the loans. Of course it sounds utterly unjust and crazy when you put it like that.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
No such thing as &#8220;canceling&#8221; debt. If we&#8217;re being honest, we&#8217;d call it what it is: debt transfer. We&#8217;d be transferring debt from the people who took out the loans to people who did not take out the loans. Of course it sounds utterly unjust and crazy when you put it like that. <a href="https://t.co/evrD4phn2O">https://t.co/evrD4phn2O</a>
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1218162030236008454?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 17, 2020</a></blockquote>
The article linked in NPR’s <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/01/14/796329598/cancelling-student-debt-is-easier-than-it-sounds?utm_source=twitter.com&amp;utm_campaign=npr&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_term=nprnews">tweet</a> suggests that Warren could accomplish the alleged “cancellation” of student debt without Congress.
Here’s the <a href="https://elizabethwarren.com/plans/student-loan-debt-day-one?source=soc-WB-ew-tw-rollout-20200114">direct text</a> from Warren’s own website:
<blockquote>But the Department of Education already has broad legal authority to cancel student debt, and we can’t afford to wait for Congress to act. So I will start to use existing laws on day one of my presidency to implement my student loan debt cancellation plan that offers relief to 42 million Americans – in addition to using all available tools to address racial disparities in higher education, crack down on for-profit institutions, and eliminate predatory lending&#8230;
When I am president &#8230; I’ll direct the Secretary of Education to use their authority to begin to compromise and modify federal student loans consistent with my plan to cancel up to $50,000 in debt for 95% of student loan borrowers (about 42 million people).</blockquote>
While Walsh’s tweet has more than 13,400 “likes” as of publication, and approximately 3,700 retweets, some commenters don’t seem to understand the idea that the government cannot “cancel” debt.
User @EllenGirl71 wrote: “There *is* debt forgiveness. It means that no one will be paying it back. The US government federal student loan debt can be forgiven any time the US govt decides to forgive it.”
There were numerous commenters who tried to argue with @EllenGirl71, but the following two exchanges were some of the more illuminating ones.
@MarkFidelman wrote: “Sorry Ellen, the money came from tax dollars or private investors. Someone lost in that transaction. It also sends a chilling message to future taxpayers and investors that the government can’t be trusted.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Sorry Ellen, the money came from tax dollars or private investors. Someone lost in that transaction. It also sends a chilling message to future taxpayers and investors that the government can’t be trusted.
— Mark Fidelman (@markfidelman) <a href="https://twitter.com/markfidelman/status/1218553641616867329?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 18, 2020</a></blockquote>
Ellen replied: “The borrowers are also taxpayers, and they and the country are losing in this transaction. I would prefer that they spend that $1 trillion in the economy. The status quo of high household debt is the one unacceptable choice.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">
The borrowers are also taxpayers, and they and the country are losing in this transaction. I would prefer that they spend that $1 trillion in the economy. The status quo of high household debt is the one unacceptable choice.
— Ellen (@EllenGirl71) <a href="https://twitter.com/EllenGirl71/status/1218608123830849536?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 18, 2020</a></blockquote>
In another exchange, @TheProbableMatt wrote: “It is absolutely magic. Grants &amp; gifts also cost money. Where is that money coming from? It has to come from somewhere. And that somewhere is almost always future taxation rather than budget cut somewhere else. even then the federal govt does not generate income. They take ours.”
Ellen replied: “Nothing magical about forgiving a loan. It does not get transferred to someone else. No one else owes that money now. If I forgive you the 500 I lent you, no one else has to pay me back. The money just stays in your pocket.”
Matt shot back: “And it still came out of your pocket. You are expecting the government to eat the $500. The govt doesn&#8217;t eat money. They tax. This is how economics work.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Nothing magical about forgiving a loan. It does not get transferred to someone else. No one else owes that money now. If I forgive you the 500 I lent you, no one else has to pay me back. The money just stays in your pocket.
— Ellen (@EllenGirl71) <a href="https://twitter.com/EllenGirl71/status/1218257303708880897?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 17, 2020</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none">
And it still came out of your pocket. You are expecting the government to eat the $500. The govt doesn&#8217;t eat money. They tax. This is how economics work.
— Matt Meyer (@TheProbableMatt) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheProbableMatt/status/1218258168511434752?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 17, 2020</a></blockquote>
As Walsh and others stated, debt cannot simply vanish. It must be shifted.
Here’s an imperfect and very simplified, but apt analogy.
There are five siblings. Two of the five went to college, while the other three started their adult lives working in trades. All five siblings live at home with their parents in their large house, and pay rent.
The two who went to college each borrowed $50,000 from their parents in order to obtain their degrees. So, in addition to paying their parents $700/month for rent, they shell out an additional $300/month in loan payments. That’s $1,000/month, respectively.
The two college-educated siblings are struggling, so their parents decide to “cancel” their collective debt. At this point, the combined debt of the two siblings stands at $60,000.
In order to recoup their investment, the parents who have “cancelled” the debts of their college-educated children raise the rent on all five siblings to $820/month, thus equally distributing the collective debt. Now, the college-educated siblings only pay an additional $120/month, but the three siblings who never borrowed any money in the first place have the $120/month burden as well.
This is a stripped down version of how such debt “cancellation” would work in a system in which individuals borrow money from the government.
Debt does not disappear, but is simply redistributed.

Cash.

CAMP: Student Debt Cannot Be ‘Cancelled,’ Just Redistributed

Bernie Sanders

Debt Forgiveness

Elizabeth Warren

Matt Walsh

The Trump administration moved on Friday to decimate the school nutrition standards pushed by Michelle Obama during her time in the White House, a move that the Department of Agriculture (USDA) took on the former first lady&#8217;s birthday.
The USDA <a href="https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2020/01/17/usda-announces-school-and-summer-meals-reforms">said</a> that the new proposals would give &#8220;school nutrition professionals &#8230; more flexibility to serve appetizing and healthy meals that appeal to their students’ preferences and subsequently reduce food waste. The proposed rule also encourages state and local operators to focus resources on feeding children rather than administrative paperwork.&#8221;
“Schools and school districts continue to tell us that there is still too much food waste and that more common-sense flexibility is needed to provide students nutritious and appetizing meals. We listened and now we’re getting to work,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said. “Our proposed changes empower schools to give their very best to our children nationwide and have the potential to benefit nearly 100,000 schools and institutions that feed 30 million children each school day through USDA’s school meal programs. Providing children with wholesome, nutritious food is part of our motto at USDA, which is to ‘do right and feed everyone.’”
The USDA said that the first proposed rule aimed to ensure that kids still receive quality nutrition while at the same time giving flexibility to local school districts to serve kids food that they actually are willing to eat in an effort to reduce waste. The USDA said they planned to accomplish this by:
<ul>
<li>
<blockquote>Allowing local schools to offer more vegetable varieties, while keeping plenty of veggies in each meal; Making it easier for schools to offer school lunch entrees for a la carte purchase, thereby reducing food waste;</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>Providing schools options to customize meal patterns to best serve children in different grades or smaller schools who eat together;</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>Supporting a more customized school breakfast environment by letting schools adjust fruit servings and making it simpler to offer meats/meat alternates, ultimately encouraging breakfast options outside the cafeteria so students can start their day with a healthy breakfast; and</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>Shifting to a performance-focused administrative review process that is less burdensome and time consuming, which would increase collaboration with operators to improve program integrity.</blockquote>
</li>
</ul>
The USDA said that the second proposal aims to reform the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), which serves millions of at risk kids during the summer months when they do not have access to meals at school. The proposal offers more local control by:
<ul>
<li>
<blockquote>Providing more flexibilities in choosing meal offerings, meal service times, and allowing children to take certain nonperishable food items offsite;</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>Granting tested and proven flexibilities that make it easier for sponsors and sites to participate by reducing paperwork and streamlining the application process for high-performing, experienced operators;</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>Balancing program integrity and flexibility with stronger monitoring to help sponsors maximize their resources; and</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<blockquote>Clarifying performance standards and eligibility requirements for sites.</blockquote>
</li>
</ul>
The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/17/us/politics/michelle-obama-school-nutrition-trump.html">reported</a> that Democrats on Capitol Hill believed that the Trump administration intentionally rolled this out on Michelle Obama&#8217;s birthday, even though a USDA spokesperson said that was not the case, and that &#8220;Democrats reacted furiously.&#8221;
Far-left Democrat Rep. Ayanna Pressley (MA) fumed over the announcement, writing on Twitter: &#8220;Egregious. The Occupant is trying to play petty with the food our babies eat. Add it to the list affirming that the cruelty is the point with this White House.&#8221;
Far-left Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar (MN) fired back by suggesting that the government should provide all the food that kids eat: &#8220;Counter proposal: make *healthy* school meals universal year-round. The #UniversalSchoolMealsProgramAct will guarantee breakfast, lunch, and dinner for every student in America.&#8221;

First Lady Michelle Obama Hosts 3rd Annual &#8220;Beating The Odds&#8221;

SAVAGE: Trump Targets Signature Michelle Obama Accomplishment On Her Birthday

Donald Trump

Michelle Obama

On Thursday, Campus Reform uploaded a video in which Eduardo Neret asks students at the University of Tampa “about student loan debt, and how it should be paid for.”
Neret begins by asking various students how much debt they carry from their student loans. The debts vary among respondents, from $0 to $5,000 to $24,000 to simply “a lot” of student loan debt.
“So, there have been a lot of talks in society and in politics about the federal government wiping out student loan debt,” Neret states. “Does that sounds like a good idea to you? Would you be for that?”
The students’ initial replies were unsurprising:
<blockquote>“Yes. 100%.”
“Yeah, yeah I would.”
“Absolutely.”
“Yeah, totally.”
“I think that everybody that goes to school should be able to go to school debt free and be able to start off their career with no debt to owe to anybody.”</blockquote>
A female student wearing a Budweiser T-shirt suggested raising taxes “for other people or something.” She then noted, “but that’s like other people paying for your stuff, you know?”
Neret then offered a solution to those who stated that they didn’t have any student loan debt:
<blockquote>Since you don’t have student loan debt, something we’re asking students is, would you be willing as someone who has no debt to pay a little bit more so that some of your peers who do have debt could get that erased off? Would you be willing to maybe pay more tuition, pay more taxes so that someone could get their debt lowered?</blockquote>
At Neret’s suggestion, some students were hesitant.
“Probably&#8230;maybe, maybe?” said a female student wearing a blue and white striped shirt.
When Neret asked what was keeping her from committing to the idea, she replied: “Cause like, I have to make my own money, so like, if I make my money, like, I kind of want to keep my money that, like, I make, and not have to, like, give it to my friends.”
A male student with black glasses simply stated “No.” When asked why he wouldn’t pay more taxes or tuition, he elaborated:
<blockquote>Because I’m paying my price just like everybody else is, and, you know, as long as it’s equal, then, you know, it is what it is.</blockquote>
Some students demurred, noting that it’s “not their money,” rather, it’s their parents who are paying for tuition. Other students did say they would be willing to pay extra.
Neret pressed several of the students, asking why it would be acceptable for taxpayers to pay more, but not necessarily students who don’t have any debt.
One student replied: “Everyone’s gonna pay taxes sooner or later, so, like, you know, it’s just fair for people to, I guess, help students out that are gonna be our future workers.”
A student with a Calvin Klein backpack had the following exchange with Neret:
<blockquote>NERET: Why do you think it’s maybe more fair for someone in the real world, like a taxpayer, to pay more, but not maybe someone on a campus?
CK: Because they have their own other issues that they’re still paying for, even if it’s not student debt. So, they have to take care of themselves as well.
NERET: But don’t you think maybe someone who’s working and has a family – don’t you think taxpayers have things to take care of, too?
CK: Yes, so I guess I’m not really exactly sure what I would say, but I agree that they do have things that they need to take care of, too.</blockquote>
Finally, three students offered different takes.
“I’d be in favor of, like, more things that would limit the amount that they can take out in loans, and then lowering the interest rates, and actually making school cheaper,” said a female student wearing a blue fleece.
When Neret asked her why she wouldn’t “be in favor of just wiping” out student debt entirely, she responded:
<blockquote>Because, like, the people took out those loans, so they have to pay it back, and it’s like, if they don’t, are we just gonna go into more debt for the government to pay it back?</blockquote>
A male student wearing a wrestling shirt stated that it wouldn’t be fair to raise tuition on everyone else, adding, “I think the bigger issue is making it harder to get the student loans. I think the issue with ‘anybody can get as much as they want’ is what’s causing this.”
Another male student said that while it would be great to exit school debt-free, he doesn’t believe debt erasure would be “good for us as a nation,” given the already enormous debt the United States holds.
Check out the entire video below:
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vQaDbA3-0dY" width="720" height="385" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>

Campus Reform.

WATCH: When Students Asked To Put Their Own Money On The Line For Debt Forgiveness, Do Opinions Change?

Student Loans

A Yale University student who called the cops on a student in her dorm and became the subject of harassment after the story was reported as “napping while black” says racism was not what motivated her to call police.
The College Fix <a href="https://www.thecollegefix.com/they-knew-i-was-innocent-yale-fights-foia-from-student-demanding-release-of-police-body-cam-footage/">reported</a> that Sarah Braasch, a philosophy graduate student at the school, had earlier called police on a student (who was black) “whom she believed was not authorized to be in her dormitory building, after which she said she was subject to a small amount of harassment in her dorm building,” the Fix reported.
Braasch then had a conversation with another black student, Lolade Siyonbola, in the common room of the dorm and became convinced that Siyonbola was one of the students who was harassing her. A Freedom of Information Act request from the Fix revealed a post-hearing brief that said, “the purpose of the encounter” was due to Braasch becoming “concerned that the sleeping person was among those who had been harassing her.”
The brief also said Braasch’s “unrefuted testimony shows she did not call with the purpose of having Ms. Siyonbola arrested or criminally charged,”
The incident occurred last May, and Braasch received harassment on a national level thanks to racial activists. Braasch’s harassers even demanded she be crimally charged, the Fix reported. For her part, Siyonbola used her newfound victim platform to demand, along with other Yal students, that Braasch be expelled.
“Campus officials publicly condemned the incident. She received death threats. Eventually she fled campus and has not returned, continuing her education from an unnamed southwestern state,” the Fix reported.
Braasch emailed the Fix on Tuesday, saying she is now seeking to release the police body cam footage from the incident, which she says will clear her name after being called a racist.
“I feel strongly that the footage, which I will immediately release to the public … reveals that the Yale Administration and Police told disgusting lies about me.  They knew the entire time that I was entirely innocent, and they knew that they were telling disgusting lies about me, grossly violating my Federal Civil Rights by doing so, and they knew that they were putting my life in grave danger, destroying my lifelong human and civil rights academic and legal careers, and probably driving me to suicide, which they almost did,” Braasch said in the email.
“Yale is trying to claim the exemption that the body camera footage contains uncorroborated criminal allegations.  This is simply false.  The allegations in the video are neither uncorroborated nor criminal in nature,” she added.
On December 31, Braasch posted an <a href="https://medium.com/@sarah.braasch/my-six-years-at-yale-with-the-woke-intersectional-feminists-and-how-they-tried-to-destroy-me-my-bb9fae2fd386">essay</a> on Medium saying that she would “never have a career in academia now,” because of the viral campaign against her. Still, she remained hopeful that “the decision of the CT FOIA Commission Hearing Officer will be in my favor, and the world will get to see how the Yale Administration and Police told disgusting lies about me.”
“I will never stop fighting for vindication and justice. I will never stop fighting for everyone whose life and career have been destroyed by false accusations and the moral outrage industry,” she added in the essay.

Accusation

Student Who Called Cops In ‘Napping While Black’ Incident Wants Police Body Cam Footage To Prove She’s Not Racist

Racism

Yale

A Dartmouth professor committed suicide after the school refused to allow him to defend himself from accusations that he ignored horrific allegations of abuse in his department.
David Bucci was the chair of Dartmouth University’s psychological and sciences department. He was a memory researcher as well. In 2018, several women filed a lawsuit against the university alleging rampant sexual abuse and accused Bucci (whose name appeared 31 times in the 72-page legal complaint) of enabling the abuse by not reporting it to Dartmouth administrators. Bucci, along with director of graduate studies Thalia Wheatley, were denied the ability to speak out in their own defense. Bucci had said at one point that the students who brought forward complaints “did not mention some of their gravest allegations, such as rape, and did not name the professors,” at least not at first. Wheatley would say that some of the students asked that they be transferred after “their evaluations were in” so that the professors they accused could not retaliate against them.
As The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/04/us/dartmouth-lawsuit-bucci.html?cid=db&amp;source=ams&amp;sourceId=4397916">reported</a>, Bucci and Wheatley “immediately went to the Title IX office, which handles such complaints.” From the Times:
&#8220;Much of the bad behavior took place after hours, off campus, and before Dr. Bucci became chairman. The signs of misconduct had been ambiguous, Dr. Wheatley said. The professor described as a “hugger” would go down the graduation line hugging both men and women. It was considered one of his personality quirks. … &#8221;
The lawsuit had come as standards for workplace behavior were rapidly changing. “We’re all savvier now,” she said. “If I saw that now, I would ask more questions.”
Bucci was not accused of committing any sexual abuse, yet he was likened in the media to one of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s associates, who sat idly by while his colleagues abused women.
At one point the women claimed Bucci “had called a department meeting where he browbeat the women who were planning to sue,” the Times reported. Wheatley told the Times that contrary to that claim, Bucci called a departmental meeting to “dispel rumors on Twitter that they did not really care about the women.”
Neither Wheatley nor Bucci were allowed to publicly defend themselves from the accusations, which the Times noted “blindsided” them. The Times reported that a Dartmouth spokesperson “said that the college’s general counsel and public relations office believed that the best way for [Bucci] to tell his side of the story was not by speaking out but through the legal process, mainly Dartmouth’s point-by-point rebuttal to the complaint.”
But as the Times noted, the lawsuit was filed in November 2018 and made national headlines, while Dartmouth’s rebuttal in January 2019 got “little if any notice.”
The accusers sued Dartmouth for $70 million, and because accusers often get far, far more than the falsely accused who also sue, settled with the university for $14.4 million. Dartmouth refused in its settlement to provide Bucci “the one thing Dr. Bucci had hoped for: a statement proclaiming his innocence,” according to the Times.
Bucci committed suicide in October. Dartmouth predictably ignored their role in the professor’s suicide. The Times reported Bucci had a history of “crippling depression” and was finally pushed over the edge when he was forced to remain quiet while his reputation was destroyed. The College Fix <a href="https://www.thecollegefix.com/dartmouth-refused-to-let-an-accused-professor-defend-himself-publicly-he-committed-suicide/">reported</a> that, to add insult to injury, three of Bucci’s accusers went to his funeral.

hand

He Was Accused Of Ignoring Women’s Accusations Of Rape And Wasn’t Allowed To Defend Himself. He Committed Suicide.

Sexual Abuse

Suicide

Colleges have been around for centuries. College students have also been around for centuries. Yet, college administrators assume that today&#8217;s students have needs that were unknown to their predecessors. Those needs include diversity and equity personnel, with massive budgets to accommodate.
According to Minding the Campus, Penn State University&#8217;s Office of Vice Provost for Educational Equity employs 66 staff members. The University of Michigan currently employs a diversity staff of 93 full-time diversity administrators, officers, directors, vice provosts, deans, consultants, specialists, investigators, managers, executive assistants, administrative assistants, analysts and coordinators. Amherst College, with a student body of 1,800 students employs 19 diversity people. Top college diversity bureaucrats earn salaries six figures, in some cases approaching $500,000 per year. In the case of the University of Michigan, a quarter (26) of their diversity officers earn annual salaries of more than $100,000. If you add generous fringe benefits and other expenses, you could easily be talking about $13 million a year in diversity costs. The Economist reports that University of California, Berkeley, has 175 diversity bureaucrats.
Diversity officials are a growing part of a college bureaucracy structure that outnumbers faculty by 2 to 2.5 depending on the college. According to &#8220;The Campus Diversity Swarm,&#8221; an article from Mark Pulliam, a contributing editor at Law and Liberty, which appeared in the City Journal (10/10/2018), diversity people assist in the cultivation of imaginary grievances of an ever-growing number of &#8220;oppressed&#8221; groups. Pulliam writes:
<blockquote>The mission of campus diversity officers is self-perpetuating. Affirmative action (i.e., racial and ethnic preferences in admissions) leads to grievance studies. Increased recognition of LGBTQ rights requires ever-greater accommodation by the rest of the student body. Protecting &#8216;vulnerable&#8217; groups from &#8216;hate speech&#8217; and &#8216;microaggressions&#8217; requires speech codes and bias-response teams (staffed by diversocrats). Complaints must be investigated and adjudicated (by diversocrats). Fighting &#8216;toxic masculinity&#8217; and combating an imaginary epidemic of campus sexual assault necessitate consent protocols, training, and hearing procedures — more work for an always-growing diversocrat cadre. Each newly recognized problem leads to a call for more programs and staffing.</blockquote>
Campus diversity people have developed their own professional organization — the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education. They hold annual conferences — the last one in Philadelphia. The NADOHE has developed standards for professional practice and a political agenda, plus a Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, which is published by the American Psychological Association.
One wonders just how far spineless college administrators will go when it comes to caving in to the demands of campus snowflakes who have been taught that they must be protected against words, events and deeds that do not fully conform to their extremely limited, narrow-minded beliefs built on sheer delusion. Generosity demands that we forgive these precious snowflakes and hope that they eventually grow up. The real problem is with people assumed to be grown-ups — college professors and administrators — who serve their self-interests by tolerating and giving aid and comfort to our aberrant youth. Unless the cycle of promoting and nursing imaginary grievances is ended, diversity bureaucracies will take over our colleges and universities, supplanting altogether the goal of higher education.
&#8220;Diversity&#8221; is the highest goal of students and professors who openly detest those with whom they disagree. These people support the very antithesis of higher education with their withering attacks on free speech. Both in and out of academia, the content of a man&#8217;s character is no longer as important as the color of his skin, his sex, his sexual preferences or his political loyalties. That&#8217;s a vision that spells tragedy for our nation.
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.

Graduation.

WILLIAMS: Colleges Dupe Parents And Taxpayers

Diversity

Progressivism

Two professors at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse are trying to launch the field of “fat studies.”
The College Fix reported that the professors are “working to develop and legitimize the field of ‘fat studies,’ a discipline that examines the cultural and sociological phenomenon of overweight and obese human beings.”
More from the Fix:
<blockquote>Laurie Cooper Stoll, a professor of sociology, and Darci Thoune, an associate professor of English, are both leading scholarly research in this field from the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse. Their website, “<a href="https://www.twofatprofessors.com/">Two Fat Professors</a>,” declares that the academics are “fighting fatphobia with education, community-building and a lot of sass.”
The College Fix reached out to both professors numerous times seeking comment; the pair did not respond to requests through their website, through email, or through messages left on their university phones. Their website and publications, however, offer an illuminating look at their burgeoning research.</blockquote>
The Fix reported that the two professors are “working off a thesis that postulates the voices of obese individuals are absent or sidelined in contemporary research on obesity and health.”
In the past, Stoll and Thoune have advocated for the use of “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21604851.2019.1629812?scroll=top&amp;needAccess=true&amp;">standpoint theory</a>,” which stresses “the importance of situated-knowledge and the epistemic advantage of marginalized groups.”
The two professors suggested that standpoint theory would “[elevate] the voices and research of fat scholars and activists.” The theory could also be used by “fat” scholars to “challenge…positivistic notions of science that suggest researchers can and should be ‘value-free,’” the two argued.
More from the Fix:
<blockquote>In the spring of 2020, <a href="https://www.twofatprofessors.com/publications">according to</a> their website, the professors will be editing a special standpoint theory-centric edition of the journal “Fat Studies.” That edition will feature essays such as “Thick Bodies, Thick Skins: Reflections on Two Decades of Sociology in Fat Studies” and “The Lumps and Bumps of Aesthetic Labor: Rethinking Fat Talk in Plus-Size Retail.”</blockquote>
The outlet also reported that Stoll and Thoune have written about the issue on their own blog, including an essay from Stoll about “<a href="https://www.twofatprofessors.com/post/it-happened-flying-while-fat">flying while fat</a>”:
<blockquote>To recap, to try to ensure as pleasant a flight for myself as possible and not have to deal with other passengers, I was already out $350 of my own money and was driving two hours out of my way to try to avoid being on an aircraft that is in no way accommodating for fat flyers. Not to mention, I also had to account for why I paid for the upgrade when submitting my paperwork for reimbursement. Here one runs into the awkwardness of having to explain why you&#8217;re not flying coach when the others from your organization are doing so. While I wasn&#8217;t compelled to offer an explanation, I nonetheless shared with the person completing the paperwork that as a fat person, it is an issue of accommodation.</blockquote>
Stoll then explained how she had difficulty fastening her seatbelt during one leg of the flight and claimed that she was being watched by a male passenger.
As the Fix noted, there “is a wide abundance of research on overweight individuals from a multitude of diverse sources that indicates obesity is not healthy in any capacity,” including from the National Institutes of Health, Harvard University, and John Hopkins University.
But if scholars like Stoll and Thoune get their way, all that science will be undone.

Overweight person

Wisconsin Professors Trying To Pioneer ‘Fat Studies’ Program

obesity

The popular phrase “Ok, Boomer,” is now considered offensive, at least to the University of Miami.
Barbara Gutierrez, the university’s associate director of communications and public relations, recently published <a href="https://news.miami.edu/stories/2019/12/the-dismissive-remark%2C-ok-boomer.html">an article</a> on the school’s website decrying the use of the phrase, saying it was “dismissive” and that “older folks” may see it as a “manifestation of polarization and intolerance for diverse views.” Gutierrez added that the remark is often used by “the younger generation” to show that their elders are “out of touch, technologically impaired, and politically old-fashioned.”
“Others blame it on pent up frustration by the newer generations who have inherited a planet plagued by the ravages of climate change, increasing student loan debt, and an economy that makes it difficult for them to lead independent lives,” Gutierrez wrote.
Campus Reform <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=14150">pointed out</a> that “While Gutierrez presents viewpoints of students and professors who both find the phrase offensive and those who do not, the post makes clear that the post is ‘dismissive’ and meant to portray an entire generation as ‘out of touch,’ and ‘technologically impaired.’”
One student said that he doesn’t use the phrase “Ok, boomer,” but added that “A lot of older people are out of touch with a lot of topics.” Another student said, “There are some things older people need to change.”
One proud boomer told Gutierrez that he “attended college in the 1960s and had the experience, the honor, and the pleasure of coming of age in what was, without a doubt, the greatest era of consciousness-building in the American nation.”
“As a boomer, you experienced the world at war and at peace, the civil rights movement, and the many tumultuous social, political, and intellectual struggles around you every day,” he added.
Gutierrez also interviewed several more students on their attitudes toward boomers:
<blockquote>Boomers can relish their past activism but should realize that Generation Z and Millennials are navigating different lives, said some of the students interviewed. They should also realize that some traditionally held social norms are no longer relevant. For instance, most GenZs and Millennials believe in embracing different gender narratives, said Abigail Adeleke, a junior who is studying journalism and psychology.
“Many boomers say you have to wear a dress or earrings if you are a girl,” said Adeleke. “Well, our generation is more fluid than that.”</blockquote>
There are not, in fact, many boomers who say women must wear dresses or earrings.
In mid-November, Campus Reform <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=14011">reported </a>that the University of Oklahoma’s student government would be ditching the words “Boomer” and “Sooner” in nicknames, mascots, and chants because the words are allegedly offensive to Native Americans.
“The decision to remove the ‘Sooner’ name from the Freshman Council comes shortly after the Undergraduate Student Congress passed a bill in early September to execute ‘<a href="http://www.oudaily.com/news/undergraduate-student-congress-passes-indigenous-land-acknowledgement-act/article_2cd69f36-d444-11e9-a6ab-4f8b1331ce7d.html">Indigenous Land Acknowledgment</a>,’ which includes a statement that OU students are ‘visitors on the land’ and thanks indigenous people for being generous with their land. The reading of this bill will occur before all SGA events,” Campus Reform reported.

Hipster Senior

Here We Go: ‘Ok Boomer’ Now Considered Offensive

Millennials

After a months-long investigation, a top official for the New York City Department of Education — which oversees the largest school district in the country — was arrested at an airport in Wisconsin on Sunday for allegedly attempting to meet with an underage boy for sex.
&#8220;Department of Education deputy chief of staff David Hay was arrested at General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee on Sunday on a charge of using a computer &#8216;to facilitate a child sex crime,&#8217; according to cops in Neenah, Wisconsin,&#8221; <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/30/top-doe-official-busted-for-allegedly-trying-to-set-up-sex-with-underage-boy/">the New York Post</a> reports. According to police sources, Hay intended to meet with a minor for sex.
While details about the allegations have not been released, Wisconsin defines the charge brought against Hay, &#8220;<a href="https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/948/075">use of a computer to facilitate a sex crime</a>,&#8221; as using &#8220;a computerized communication system to communicate with an individual who the actor believes or has reason to believe has not attained the age of 16 years with intent to have sexual contact or sexual intercourse with the individual.&#8221;
Sources say Hay was under investigation for several months leading up to his arrest. The joint investigation was headed up by the Neenah Police Department in cooperation with the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department.
In a press statement issued Monday, DOE spokeswoman Miranda Barbot announced that Hay has been fired as a result of the &#8220;incredibly disturbing and absolutely unacceptable&#8221; allegations and that the case has been referred to the Special Commissioner of Investigation.
&#8220;These allegations are incredibly disturbing and absolutely unacceptable,&#8221; Barbot said in the statement. &#8220;We took immediate action removing Mr. Hay from payroll and are terminating him. We referred this to the Special Commissioner of Investigation and we will fully comply with any investigation.&#8221;
While Hay &#8220;did not regularly interact with students&#8221; in his role with the department, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/30/nyregion/David-hay-arrested-child-sex-crime.html">The New York Times</a> reports, he was previously a school principal in two different Wisconsin school districts.
The Department of Education revealed Tuesday that Hay&#8217;s background check was never finalized after he joined the department in 2016, though he was fingerprinted twice, in 2016 and 2018, the Times notes.
&#8220;It is not clear whether a completed background investigation would have revealed information relevant to the current charge against Mr. Hay,&#8221; said Department of Investigation Commissioner Margaret Garnett.
&#8220;The risks presented by this example are exactly why I took immediate steps to assess and then reorganize the Background Investigation Unit,&#8221; said Garnett.
Garnett told the Times that when she took control of the department in January 2019, she &#8220;inherited a massive backlog of 6,000 unfinished background checks,&#8221; some of which dated as far back as 2015.
For his role as deputy chief of staff under Chancellor Richard Carranza, to which he was elevated in 2018, Hay was paid $168,000 annually, the Post notes.
&#8220;Mr. Hay has served under both of Mr. de Blasio’s schools chancellors: Mr. Carranza, who was appointed in the spring of 2018, and former chancellor Carmen Fariña,&#8221; the Times reports.
Hay will likely remain in custody until his primary hearing with a judge on Thursday.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-prosecutors-charge-nyc-knife-attack-suspect-with-hate-crime-reveal-contents-of-his-journals-cell-phone">Prosecutors Charge NYC Knife Attack Suspect With Hate Crime, Reveal Contents Of His Journals, Cell Phone</a>

Laptop

Top NYC Education Official Arrested For Trying To Set Up Sex With Underage Boy; Background Check Never Finalized

New York

Starting January 27, 2020, seventh- to 12-grade students attending Fairfax County Public Schools in Northern Virginia will be allowed to skip school in order to participate in “civic engagement activities.”
Hot Air’s Karen Townsend <a href="https://hotair.com/archives/karen-townsend/2019/12/27/va-school-district-allow-student-absences-classes-protest/">reported</a> that the Fairfax County Public School system is one of the largest in the country, with about 188,000 students. She also reported that the definition for “civic engagement activities” has been left vague, but that Fairfax School Board member Ryan McElveen, who introduced the policy, gave some examples, including marches, sit-ins, or lobbying trips to Richmond, Virginia. McElveen <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/one-of-the-nations-biggest-school-systems-will-let-students-take-time-off-to-protest-the-conservative-backlash-has-begun/2019/12/26/7c2ebaf8-27e3-11ea-9c21-2c2a4d2c2166_story.html">told</a> The Washington Post that the policy was just the beginning.
“I think we’re setting the stage for the rest of the nation with this,” he said. “It’s a dawning of a new day in student activism, and school systems everywhere are going to have to be responsive to it.”
Townsend responded by saying that allowing kids to skip school to protest is unnecessary and potentially dangerous:
Lots of protests are held on weekends to allow more people to join in. Allowing middle school and high school students to skip classes to go protest somewhere off campus is not an acceptable field trip. Not only is it an escalation of liberal indoctrination in the classroom but it is a public safety matter, too. What happens when the child is hurt in a crowd or is arrested? Why encourage that?
The Post, of course, decried conservative concerns about the policy as “the hyperpartisan sniping.” The outlet spoke to a Harvard professor who said new education policies are immediately determined to be either a “win” or “loss” for either political party.
“Each side is so suspicious of the other that it’s become very hard for adults to trust what’s happening in schools is legitimate, if the other side seems to be ‘winning,’” the professor said. “We’re all always looking for what’s the political agenda — and that’s why, with this new policy in Fairfax County, there’s going to be contestation about it.”
Townsend contends that “politicizing the education of our children escalates the hyperpartisanship.”
Indeed, it seems unlikely that the Left would be so accepting of the policy if it had been enacted under the Obama administration (which, of course, it wasn’t) or if a school district in a heavily Republican area adopted the policy with the clear intent to push conservative ideas onto progressive legislators.
Townsend’s original point is the most important, however. There is simply no reason to provide students a day off to go protest when they can do so on the weekends. Lobbying state legislators may not be possible on weekends, but should students really get an excused absence for traveling to Richmond?
If this is only the beginning, as McElveen suggested, what’s next? Will K-12 students be told to protest for class credit, as some college students are? And will there be protections put in place for students want to join conservative protests? Unlikely, since as the Post pointed out, it is mostly liberals who participate in protests.

Protesters

Virginia School District Will Allow Students To Skip Class As Long As They Say They’re Protesting

Virginia

On Friday, the Louder with Crowder team uploaded the latest installment of the “Change My Mind” series, which served as the second part to a previous episode about affirmative action.
The first half, which is titled, “Affirmative Action is Racist,” can be watched <a href="https://youtu.be/UfEk8UJIwTc">here</a>.
Following an approximately ten minute exchange with a University of Texas at Austin student named Ben, which is worth a watch in its own right, Steven Crowder engaged in a lengthy conversation with Raphael Xavier, an African American professor of hip hop dance.
After Crowder explained his belief that affirmative action is racist, Xavier stated that while he doesn’t think affirmative action is a “racist” practice, he admitted that he might not be as informed about it as Crowder is.
“I understand where you’re coming from, and I think that it’s a virtuous goal to want to correct the wrongs of the past,” Crowder said. “I don’t believe that the right way to do that is to then implement more systemic discrimination, whether it’s against Asians, white Americans, Mexican Americans, black Americans &#8230; and I also would argue that it has not been effective in achieving the results that it wants.”
Later in the discussion, when Crowder detailed his issues with affirmative action, Xavier wondered about the need for racial diversity in schools, seemingly comparing it to “equal opportunity.” Crowder replied that he isn’t against the natural formation of diversity “based on the premise of equal opportunity,” but that he doesn’t believe in forced equal outcome.
Xavier then stated that if diversity isn’t occurring naturally because some groups of students “are not getting the qualifications or the scores that it takes to get into [the] school,” affirmative action might be necessary to promote a more diverse student body.
<blockquote>CROWDER: Okay, so you support the idea of racial quotas to promote racial diversity?
XAVIER: Yeah, but I wouldn&#8217;t call it – 
CROWDER: I mean, I just want to make sure because you just said “quotas.” 
XAVIER: Yeah, yeah, but I wouldn&#8217;t call it racial because [pause]&#8230;
CROWDER: So, what would you call specifically allowing a black person in with lower credentials because they&#8217;re black if not racial? What would you call that?
XAVIER: Hmm, off hand, man, I would just say it&#8217;s offering an opportunity to someone who would never have the chance to do that kind of – 
CROWDER: But they do have the chance, by meeting the same criteria.
XAVIER: But they don’t come from a place where they’re – if they grew up in an environment that doesn’t allow them &#8230; to grow with their environment, to be surrounded by the thing that gives them a certain kind knowledge where they can learn these things to get into the schools.</blockquote>
Crowder criticized the idea of “diversity for diversity’s sake,” adding that affirmative action seems to have had a “net negative” impact because “black enrollment in higher-tier universities, like Ivy League, is lower now than 35 years ago, pre-affirmative action.”
He then noted that affirmative action is also having a negative impact on Asian Americans, who were discriminated against in the past as well, but now have to achieve higher test scores on average in order to be accepted into certain universities due to affirmative action.
“An Asian female right now has to score higher than a white male solely because Asian Americans have typically performed well on standardized testing, they have done very well with extracurriculars – and you know the reason for that?” Crowder asked. “They faced discrimination; they faced extreme poverty &#8230; they have very strong nuclear family households, and a strong emphasis on that.”
He continued, stating that the “biggest socioeconomic indicator” is having a two-parent household, further explaining that “nearly 80%” of black American households are single-parent households, which Crowder noted is a result of former President Lyndon Johnson’s welfare and Model Cities programs, “which incentivized single-parent households.”
Xavier responded, saying:
<blockquote>Now I’m starting to think more about, I mean, it could be racist &#8230; I didn’t think it was, but putting these things in place the way you’re saying – both of them could stand side-by-side. It is and it isn’t, depending on how you look at it.</blockquote>
The exchange continued from there, with Crowder and Xavier thoughtfully discussing single-parent upbringings, and the impact of fatherlessness across all households, but specifically Africa American households.
Crowder and Xavier’s sit-down shows how important and constructive these types of calm exchanges of opinion and information can be.
There’s so much more to not only Crowder’s conversation with Xavier, but his previous conversation with Ben and his subsequent conversation with a female student named Alejandra.
Check out the entire video here:
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZheWh1cMOFM" width="720" height="385" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>

Steven Crowder and Prof Xavier.

WATCH: Incredible ‘Change My Mind’ Episode On ‘Affirmative Action’

Affirmative Action

Change My Mind

Steven Crowder

An accused student from Johnson &amp; Wales University (JWU) may be taking his case to trial after a judge denied the school summary judgement late last month.
I <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2018/05/23/judge-gender-played-role-male-students-expulsion-due-process-fiasco/">covered</a> the lawsuit from the student, referred to in court documents as John Doe, at length last year. John had a sexual relationship with a woman referred to as Mary Smith, who also had a boyfriend (unbeknownst to John at the time), referred to as B.K.
Nearly a year after John and Mary’s final sexual encounter, B.K. (not Mary), reported that Mary had been sexually assaulted twice. Mary was asked about her boyfriend’s allegations and gave statements that contradicted the claims that she had been sexually assaulted. She said she and John were “friends with benefits.” On one night in October 2016, Mary said according to John’s lawsuit, that she was with John in his bed and the two had sex but it was rougher than usual. She got up but returned to John’s bed and spent the night with him.
John says this alleged sexual encounter never even happened, and his roommate – who was in the room at the time – said he didn’t hear anything. Another roommate said he saw Smith leaving the next morning and that she was in a good mood. A week later after this alleged sexual assault, Mary went back to John’s room to have sex with him again. She said it started consensually but eventually started “to hurt,” so they changed positions but it started hurting again. There is no indication that she told him she was in pain or asked him to stop. John said their sexual encounter was no different than their previous encounters, and Smith continued to like his social media posts afterward.
Nearly a year later, on June 1, 2017, Mary’s boyfriend, B.K., reported the alleged sexual assaults to JWU security. When Sgt. Robinson called Mary to ask about the assaults, she said “she did not want to talk about it at the moment.” When Robinson emailed her the next day, insisting she was “a victim of sexual assault” and that “we are here to support you,” Mary responded by saying she did not need any help.
Robinson contacted John, who denied the assaults.
Three months later, B.K. and Mary moved in together and decided to lodge a formal complaint against John. Mary now claimed she had been sexually assaulted and that it affected her life in one specific way &#8212; “her relationship with her boyfriend,” according to court documents.
John was “charged” with sexual assault and faced a campus hearing, where he was not allowed to see the “evidence” against him.
Mary was allowed to name B.K. as her advisor, which kept him from being questioned by John about his motivation or inconsistent statements.
John was expelled and sued.
Incredibly, the three campus “judges” who found John responsible all used the exact same phrases to claim they were impartial. Author and professor K.C. Johnson <a href="https://academicwonderland.com/2019/12/20/johnson-wales-the-disciplinary-panel-that-thought-alike/amp/?__twitter_impression=true">explained</a> how “judges” Elizabeth Zmarlicki, Tim Brown, and Caitlin Codding all tried to claim they were fair in their decision with eerily similar affidavits that raise questions about their authenticity:
<blockquote><a href="https://kcjohnson.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/zmarlickijwu.pdf">According to Zmarlicki</a>, her training led her to approach the case “without any predisposition or bias,” allowing her to reach a decision with “an open mind.” <a href="https://kcjohnson.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/coddingjwu.pdf">Codding said</a> that she too approached the case “without any predisposition or bias,” allowing her to reach a decision with “an open mind.” <a href="https://kcjohnson.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/brownjwu.pdf">What about Brown</a>? He affirmed that he approached the case “without any predisposition or bias,” allowing him to reach a decision with “an open mind.” The three JWU employees did not explain how they came up with the exact same formulation to describe how they approached to the case. (Couldn’t one of them, at least, have used synonyms to make things less obvious?) The university’s position is that outsiders must trust that when these JWU employees said, using the exact same words, that they acted without bias and with open minds, they actually did so: JWU neither recorded nor kept a transcript of the hearing.
Zmarlicki testified that the panel asked “probative” questions of both John and Mary, but she didn’t say what any of those questions were. According to Codding, the panel asked “probative” questions of each student, but she, too, couldn’t identify any of those questions. And Brown? He recalled the panel asking “probative” questions of John and Mary—questions that his affidavit didn’t detail. Again, couldn’t one of the panelists have come up with another word to describe their questioning strategy?
How did each panelist reach the decision? Zmarlicki affirmed that despite having “considered carefully the fact that John Doe and Mary Smith admitted that they had engaged in consensual sexual intercourse before the two evenings at issue,” she made a “careful assessment” to conclude that John was nonetheless guilty—because John was “consistently vague” and Mary provided “specific details.” Codding, despite having “considered carefully the fact that John Doe and Mary Smith admitted that they had engaged in consensual sexual intercourse before the two evenings at issue,” made a “careful assessment” to conclude that John was nonetheless guilty—because John was “consistently vague” and Mary provided “specific details.” And Brown? Despite having “considered carefully the fact that John Doe and Mary Smith admitted that they had engaged in consensual sexual intercourse before the two evenings at issue,” he made a “careful assessment” to conclude that John was nonetheless guilty—because John was “consistently vague” and Mary provided “specific details.” If this trio were JWU students, they would have been brought up on plagiarism charges.</blockquote>
Each of the panelists also said they deliberated for a “lengthy” period of time but could not recall the “precise duration” of such deliberation.
A previous ruling found that the only explanation for John’s expulsion was that “gender played a role.”
A recent <a href="https://kcjohnson.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/jwu-ruling.pdf">ruling</a> from a different judge noted that John’s attorney made the case that the proceeding was unfair based “virtually entirely on facts put forth or acknowledged by JWU itself,” including the suspiciously similar affidavits from the three panelists who determined John’s fate.

Couple in bed

Her Boyfriend Claimed She Was Raped By Another Man. The Accused Sued, And The Case Is Heading To Trial.

Sexual Assault

Colleges and universities have a lower standard of proof than the American legal system when it comes to allegations of sexual assault. This means that a student who is charged with sex-related crimes but found not guilty by an impartial jury can still be expelled from his school.
The difference in proof &#8212; coupled with an inherent bias in adjudicators who are trained to believe all women &#8212; makes it easy for colleges to expel students based on less evidence that is presented at trial.
This is what happened in the case of Saifullah Khan and Yale University. In March 2018, Khan was found not guilty by a jury in a court of law. While some could argue that “not guilty” does not mean “innocent,” the jurors <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2018/03/16/setting-the-record-straight-on-the-yale-sex-assault-trial/">I spoke to</a> after the trial said that they saw Khan as innocent.
“He’s innocent, and the facts prove it,” said Elise Wiener, an alternate juror who saw the same evidence as the other jurors. “He was acquitted because he deserved to be acquitted and the prosecutor should never have brought the case in the first place.”
Wiener and main juror Jim Gallulo said they didn’t believe Khan’s accuser. At one point, prosecutors showed a still frame from surveillance footage that appeared to show Khan holding up his accuser (her name has not been released and she is referred to as Jane Doe in court documents). Prosecutors claimed this was evidence that the accuser was too drunk to even stand on her own and that Khan had to practically drag her to the dorms. The defense, however, played the actual video from surveillance footage, which showed Khan and his accuser walking arm in arm and appearing to be a happy couple.
That is how every moment on the evening of the alleged sexual assault played out in court. Prosecutors spun everything as evidence that Khan was forcing Jane toward sex. For example, prosecutors claimed Khan took the accuser’s phone at one point. In reality, he was helping her find a ticket for a concert they were both attending. During the concert, Khan’s accuser threw up. Prosecutors described the situation in a way that made jurors believe the woman must have been really ill. But when defense attorneys produced the accuser’s dress from that night &#8212; which hadn’t been washed &#8212; there was only a faint trace of vomit.
The sexual encounter happened hours later. Keen observers will realize that vomiting actually removes much of the alcohol from one’s system.
Khan was found “not guilty,” and returned to Yale, but he <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/yale-student-cleared-sexual-assault-will-return-ashe-schow">still faced a pseudo trial</a> at his university. The Yale kangaroo court found Khan responsible for sexual assault and expelled him. Many of the same people involved in Khan’s expulsion have been involved in other sexual misconduct “trials” for accused students who were also found responsible based on flimsy evidence or when there was exculpatory evidence.
Khan is now suing Yale. In court documents reviewed by The Daily Wire, one of the named persons being sued by Khan is David Post. Post was the Yale administrator <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/yale-student-railroaded-by-university-kangaroo-court-is-finally-moving-on-with-his-life">who convinced a student</a> to file a formal allegation against former Yale basketball star Jack Montague after another administrator falsely told the woman that Montague had assaulted another woman on a previous occasion.
Khan was born in a refugee camp in Pakistan six months after his family fled Afghanistan to avoid potentially being killed by the Taliban. He grew up in and around the refugee camp before fleeing to the United Arab Emirates. Khan, a bright student, applied to Yale and was accepted, but suggested he attend the preparatory Hotchkiss School in nearby Lakeville, Connecticut first. Khan accepted a full scholarship to Hotchkiss and Yale. Prior to attending Hotchkiss, Khan hadn’t even learned to use a knife and fork.
Khan knew his eventual accuser previously, and attended a Halloween party where he met up with her before a concert by the Yale Student Orchestra later that evening. Jane drank during the party and became ill during the concert and threw up on her costume. Khan and Jane left early due to the illness.
The pair walked together across campus &#8212; as seen in the surveillance footage mentioned earlier &#8212; and returned to their dormitory. Khan took Jane to her room and used his key card to swipe her in. A minute later, Khan used his key card to enter his own dorm room. Khan and his attorneys say that Jane called Khan to ask him to come back to her room.
Once there, Jane asked Khan to check up on one of her friends, who had too much to drink that night. Time codes show that Khan used his key card in an area of the dorm he had no otherwise reason to be in &#8212; the area where Jane’s friend was sick. Khan returned to Jane’s room after checking on her friend, and Jane performed oral sex on Khan. Jane asked Khan to wear a condom, but she gagged on it and went into the bathroom to vomit.
While she was in the bathroom, Khan called his girlfriend at another university, with whom he had an open relationship. Khan did not understand how an American girl might feel about him talking to another woman just after engaging in sexual activity, as Khan and his girlfriend were both from Afghanistan.
Khan and Jane then engaged in sexual intercourse and fell asleep in Jane’s bed. The next morning, Khan returned to his own room.
According to Khan’s lawsuit, Jane then started telling her friends she was raped, but told a campus health care worker that she had consensual unprotected sex. Jane then publicly accused Khan of rape and went to the Yale Women’s Center where she was advised to file a formal complaint against Khan. Based on her complaint, Khan was immediately suspended and police opened an investigation. Khan was charged but acquitted at trial based on the evidence laid out earlier in this article, as well as flirtatious texts she had sent to Khan and the inconsistent claims she gave to authorities about their encounter.
Khan was allowed to return to Yale after the trial, but soon after, a man who had been acting as Khan’s media relations manager accused the Yale student of sexual assault. The man, who will not be named by The Daily Wire, had become taken with Khan and the two had engaged in flirtatious phone and text messages and participated in a threesome with an unnamed woman found on a dating app while in Washington, D.C. The male accuser was not associated with Yale in any way, but the accusation further served to rally activists against Khan.
Yale administrators then suspended Khan “for your physical and emotional safety and well-being and/or the safety and well-being of the university community,” according to a letter from Yale dean Marvin Chun.
This suspension, like the first, left Khan homeless and threatened his status in the U.S. This second suspension also caused him to lose his university health insurance. Yale suspended Khan even though he was acquitted of the first accusation and the second accusation came from someone not affiliated with the university.
Khan’s lawsuit alleges that he was suspended due to “a combination of factors including his unique history at Yale, the bitter disappointment of many Yale students and faculty that Brett Kavanaugh was expected to be confirmed as a Justice on the United States Supreme Court at or about the time of Mr. Khan’s suspension, and a prevailing culture of over-heated sensibilities regarding claims of sexual assault shared by many students at Yale and expressed under the then-common hashtag #MeToo.”
Khan is suing Yale for $110 million. In a statement to The Daily Wire, Khan’s attorney, Norm Pattis – who defended him during his previous trial – said:
The state charged Mr. Khan with every applicable variant of sexual assault. Jurors acquitted him quickly of each and every charge. Jurors told us afterwards; they did not believe the accuser. The jury got it right; Yale got it wrong. We’re out to correct this injustice.

Young couple

A Jury Acquitted Him On All Charges, But Yale Still Expelled Him. Now He’s Suing The School And His Accuser.

During MSNBC’s &#8220;Public Education Forum 2020: Education and Justice For All&#8221; event on Saturday, Democratic presidential frontrunner former Vice President Joe Biden publicly committed to &#8220;ending the use of standardizing testing in public schools&#8221; after a questioner asked about their &#8220;history of racism and eugenics.&#8221;
Biden made the comment in response to a question from a member of the audience who identified herself as a representative of a Black Lives Matter group.
&#8220;Teaching has changed drastically over the last 10 to 20 years,&#8221; the questioner said in comments reported by <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2019/12/14/joe-biden-end-standardized-testing/">The Daily Caller</a> (video below). &#8220;Instead of being allowed to use their expertise to develop engaging curricula that’s culturally responsive, teachers are often forced to use a scripted curriculum that rushes children through without giving them enough time to really understand the material.&#8221;
&#8220;Many teachers feel more like a test-prep tutor than a test [teacher] of children, and they&#8217;re concerned that both teachers and students are heavily evaluated by standardized testing,&#8221; she continued. After condemning the &#8220;narrow&#8221; focus of the tests, the questioner turned the issue to one of &#8220;racism.&#8221;
&#8220;Given that standardized testing is rooted in a history of racism and eugenics, if you are elected president, will you commit to ending the use of standardizing testing in public schools?&#8221; she asked, a question that prompted applause from the heavily Democratic audience.
&#8220;Yes,&#8221; Biden responded.
&#8220;As one of my friends and black pastors I’ve spent a lot of time with, Rev. Herring, would say: &#8216;You’re preaching to the choir, kid.&#8217; OK?&#8221; he added.
Without pushing back on the &#8220;racism&#8221; and &#8220;eugenics&#8221; claim, Biden continued: &#8220;Because look, that’s why teachers, teachers, should be able to determine the curricula in their school.&#8221;
The Democratic frontrunner then worked in a shot at some teachers, who he said were frankly &#8220;lousy.&#8221;
&#8220;I’m not trying to be nice,&#8221; he said. &#8220;There’s some lousy teachers out there, OK? There’s lousy politicians. There’s lousy senators. There’s lousy doctors. I’m not saying every teacher is a great teacher. What I am saying is: You know what it takes to communicate to a child what in fact they need to know.&#8221;
Video below via Grabien&#8217;s Tom Elliott:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">
Biden: “Yes,” I’ll ban standardized testing in American schools <a href="https://t.co/fZZMuH5wN3">pic.twitter.com/fZZMuH5wN3</a>
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1205986077124841472?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
As reported by <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/2020-presidential-hopefuls-weigh-public-education-ahead-december/story?id=67733604">ABC News</a>, MSNBC&#8217;s &#8220;Equity and Justice&#8221; forum Saturday was &#8220;organized by the Schott Foundation and 11 other public education and civil rights groups, including the NAACP&#8221; and included &#8220;more than 1,000 teachers, students, parents and community members.&#8221;
During a discussion about continued segregation in some American schools, Biden touted his &#8220;record on civil rights.&#8221;
&#8220;I&#8217;m extremely proud of my record on civil rights,&#8221; he said, as reported by ABC. &#8220;That&#8217;s why I have more people in the African-American community supporting me than anybody else. That&#8217;s why [President Obama] picked me. I make no apologies for my record on civil rights. It’s been as good or better than anybody in politics.&#8221;
During the first Democratic presidential primary debate over the summer, Biden famously got into a heated exchange with former presidential candidate California Sen. Kamala Harris about his track record on civil rights and education.
Harris <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/29/school-busing-debate-between-joe-biden-kamala-harris/">accused</a> Biden of &#8220;work[ing] to oppose busing&#8221; designed to help combat school segregation. &#8220;And, you know, there was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me,&#8221; she said.
&#8220;I did not oppose busing in America,&#8221; Biden replied. &#8220;What I opposed is busing ordered by the Department of Education. That’s what I opposed.&#8221;

Joe Biden

WATCH: Biden Commits To Ending ‘Racist’ Standardized Testing, Calls Out ‘Lousy’ Teachers

Kamala Harris

Regular readers by now are aware of Title IX, a statute that is supposed to prevent sex discrimination in educational institutes. It originally related to opportunities for women in college sports. For example, if a school had a men’s basketball team, it couldn’t refuse women a basketball team.
Over the years, however, the statute quickly evolved. In one early 90s lawsuit – against Brown University – activists argued that it wasn’t enough for the school to provide women with equal or more sports opportunities than men; the school was also responsible for generating women’s interests in sports. As Jessica Gavora <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2565804">wrote</a> while looking back at the case in 2015: &#8220;In effect the ruling said that Brown women didn&#8217;t know what they wanted. They only thought they were dancers or actors or musicians. They had to be taught that they were really athletes. They didn&#8217;t know what was good for them but the government did.&#8221;
By the 2000s, Title IX evolved again – this time it was being used to adjudicate alleged sexual misconduct between co-eds. The basis was that if schools weren’t adjudicating complaints from female students, the school was effectively discriminating against them and violating Title IX. Now, Title IX is its own department in colleges and universities, with numerous employees trained to believe all accusers.
As attorney Scott Greenfield recently <a href="https://blog.simplejustice.us/2019/12/13/6th-circuit-returns-title-ix-to-its-davis-root/">wrote</a>, “the law from which the Title IX campus sex industry was born fails to support its existence and, by its explicit words, contradicts the existence of the unlawful scheme forced upon colleges by the bureaucrats in control of the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights in their ‘<a href="https://blog.simplejustice.us/2015/09/26/the-doe-office-of-civil-rights-gone-rogue/">Dear Colleague Letters</a>.’”
One of the major hurdles to Title IX which is constantly ignored is a little Supreme Court decision you may have heard about: Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education. This decision requires harassment to be “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive, and that so undermines and detracts from the victims’ educational experience, that the victims are effectively denied equal access to an institution’s resources and opportunities.”
As Greenfield noted, the standard above never appeared in the Obama administration’s guidance regarding schools adjudicating campus sexual assault and harassment, and schools largely ignored it.
<blockquote>But <a href="http://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/19a0293p-06.pdf">a recent ruling</a> from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has upheld the Davis decision:
A victim of “student-on-student sexual harassment” has a private cause of action against the school under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX), 86 Stat. 373, codified as 20 U.S.C. § 1681, et seq., based on the formula first set out in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, 526 U.S. 629 (1999). Under that formula, the sexual harassment must meet a certain standard and the evidence must satisfy the elements for an intentional tort. Our particular focus in this appeal is on the requirements that the harassment must be “pervasive” and the school’s response must “cause” the injury.</blockquote>
This means that accusers can no longer claim schools violated Title IX simply because the man they accused didn’t get expelled. There simply aren’t any schools left today who would dare take lengths to protect an accused student, since its much easier and much less controversial to bend the rules to punish the accused no matter how little evidence exists or if contradictory evidence exists.
“In other words, unless there was substantive reason to believe that a student would persist in ‘severe, pervasive and objectively offensive’ conduct after the university was alerted to a complaint, and then was deliberately indifferent, Title IX wasn’t implicated at all,” Greenfield wrote. “The vast majority of Title IX complaints fail to meet the stringent criteria for sexual harassment, and almost none of them involve conduct that went beyond a one-time sexual encounter.”

Gavel

Court Upholds That Campus Sexual Harassment Must Be ‘Severe, Pervasive, And Objectively Offensive’ For School To Be Liable To Accuser

Title IX

False accusations affect different people in different ways. Many students who have been railroaded by their universities after being dubiously accused of sexual assault find it difficult to move on. Some require extensive therapy and medication for depression and anxiety. Many contemplate suicide, feeling their futures are over.
Jack Montague, a former Yale University basketball star, is doing his best to move on from his ordeal and move on with his life. Alice True, who runs a website called Save Our Sons, has posted <a href="https://helpsaveoursons.com/great-news-jack-montague-is-succeeding-here-is-an-update/">an update</a> on Montague’s life following his <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/yale-convinced-her-report-him-sexual-assault-ashe-schow">settlement with Yale</a> in June.
“The details of the settlement are confidential but I can tell you that Jack is happy with the deal, and he is deeply thankful for the support he’s received from the public. Although the past few years have been tough on Jack, he’s excited to put this behind him and move on to the next chapter of his life,” True wrote.
She added that Montague has recently graduated from Belmont University with a master’s degree in accounting. Montague also would like to eventually give his account of what he has gone through.
“Unfortunately, the publications that covered the expulsion and campus controversy were mostly silent about the settlement. So, Jack is now forced to rectify his public image and set the record straight. As for his standing with Yale, his status may have been changed to ‘withdrawn’ from the settlement, but because the details are confidential we are in the dark for now,” True wrote.
Montague’s ordeal began in 2015 after he was accused of sexually assaulting a woman with whom he had an ongoing sexual relationship. The two had sex on four separate occasions, and, according to Montague’s lawsuit filed in 2016, the conditions during the fourth encounter were similar to those of the others. But a year later, the woman (who has never been named) claimed the fourth encounter wasn’t consensual, even though she returned to his dorm afterward to share his bed.
During Montague’s legal action with Yale it was discovered that a Yale administrator, David Post, encouraged the accuser to file a formal report. Another administrator, Deputy Title IX coordinator Angela Gleason, falsely claimed to the accuser that a “new development” had come up in the case and that “she would not be able to keep [Roe’s] name confidential” because a previous complaint had been filed against Montague.
The accuser had not wanted Montague punished prior to these claims, but then decided she should file a formal complaint believing Montague had hurt other women.
In reality, there was no “new development.” Montague had previously been cited for a drunken antic involving a rolled up paper plate shoved down a woman’s shirt. The incident was not considered sexual, but Yale did not report this to Montague’s accuser.
True now reports that Gleason was removed as Yale’s Title IX coordinator but was able to move on to Morse College as a dean.
The Yale Daily News, which reported Montague’s story from the insinuation that he was guilty, barely mentioned the settlement and framed it as Yale settling merely due to litigation costs. But, there’s a “silver lining,” True wrote (emphasis original):
Jack’s case will likely be used for future Title IX cases regarding due process. Although Jack’s team was not granted their Title IX discrimination argument, the Spring summary judgment ruling is momentous against such discrimination. Many close to this issue argue that this judge’s ruling was the most favorable ruling given to any student recently involved in a Title IX lawsuit. The judge recognized the lack of impartiality of the UWC hearings and seemed to have a disapproving attitude towards Yale’s actions. His ruling and commentary will most likely be cited in future similar cases.

Jack Montague

Yale Student Railroaded By University Kangaroo Court Is Finally Moving On With His Life

The southern California community college that punished an autistic student for trying to make friends by offering “fist bumps” and asking to take “selfies” has officially filed a notice of appeal after a court ruled the school needed to remove the negative marks from the student’s transcript.
The student at the center of the case is Marcus Knight, who has autism, cerebral palsy, and a shunt in his brain to relieve fluid pressure. Knight and his mother, Aurora, have fought his entire life for him to be treated like everyone else. He had been taught at a young age that he could try to make friends by offering fist bumps, and that asking people to take selfies with him would be inoffensive, since Marcus has difficulty making friends due to his disabilities.
While enrolled at Saddleback College, however, these simple and inoffensive gestures left Marcus with sexual misconduct marks on his permanent record.
One female student accused him of making her uncomfortable when he asked for a fist bump. Another said Marcus had “over 300 photos” of her on his phone, but this was due to his cerebral palsy and accidentally pressing the “burst” option when taking a selfie. Another student claimed Marcus was following her and staring at her.
Marcus’ story should be one about intolerance toward people with disabilities. Instead, thanks to the #MeToo movement, it is about sexual harassment.
Marcus was not allowed to defend himself against the allegations, his mother and attorney, Mark Hathaway, have alleged. The hearing against him was cancelled after one of Marcus’ accusers refused to testify and failed to appear. Despite this, Marcus was punished with Title IX-related marks on his transcripts, making him look like a sexual predator. Marcus was allowed to continue his studies at Saddleback, but must be accompanied at all times by a handler.
Marcus’ mother, Aurora, has been devastated by her son’s treatment. She launched a <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/legal-support-for-marcus">GoFundMe account</a> to raise money to sue Saddleback. She was able to hire Hathaway, who has had numerous successes for male students denied due process.
In late November, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/autistic-college-student-punished-for-fist-bump-and-selfies-finally-clears-his-name">a court ruled</a> that Saddleback must remove the misconduct sanctions from Marcus’ transcript. At the time, Saddleback appeared to agree to remove the sanctions, but a week later, a spokesperson for the school told reporter Toni Airaksinen that Saddleback <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/autistic-college-student-punished-for-fist-bump-and-selfies-finally-clears-his-name">would appeal the sanctions</a>.
Aurora was surprised by the turn around, telling The Daily Wire at the time that she couldn’t believe Saddleback was “really out to destroy my son!!”
Now Saddleback has made their intentions official. The school on December 5th filed a notice of appeal with the court, according to a document obtained by The Daily Wire.
Hathaway, Marcus’ attorney, previously told The Daily Wire that he “would continue to fight for Marcus Knight.” Aurora said she just wants “justice for my son” and “to see him happy again.”
“I have been fighting for my son[‘s] right to be for 20 years,” she said. “All he wants is to be like everyone else. Have friends, people that loves him.”

Marcus Knight

CONFIRMED: College Will Appeal Ruling That Favored Autistic Student Punished For Fist Bumps And Selfies

California

Disability

Sexual Harassment

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday filed a Statement of Interest in a federal lawsuit brought by a college student who says his First Amendment rights were denied.
The student, J. Michael Brown, sued his former college for stopping him from trying to spread the word about Young Americans for Liberty (YAL), a student organization with which he was involved. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) filed <a href="https://www.thefire.org/complaint-brown-v-jones-county-junior-college/">a complaint</a> in U.S. District Court in September on behalf of Brown.
Brown was attending Jones County Junior College (JCJC) at the time of the incident, but has since transferred to the University of Southern Mississippi. The lawsuit says that campus police stopped Brown twice from exercising his free-speech rights. The first incident involved a large inflatable beach ball, which Brown and a former JCJC student who worked for YAL called a “free speech ball.” The two men placed the ball in a large, grassy, central area of campus and encouraged students to write messages of their choosing on the ball. When students wrote on the ball, Brown and the other former student spoke to them about free speech and other civil liberties. Brown and the former student remained with the ball for about an hour and in no way impeded students from moving around the campus. The two men then started moving the ball around campus, always in places that would not impede foot traffic. When the two placed the ball near the Administration Building, a JCJC staff person told them they needed prior approval for their activity.
The second incident involved Brown and another student holding up a sign to poll others on recreational marijuana. Campus police at that time told them they couldn’t do that as they had not sought prior permission for the activity.
“Some people get in trouble for smoking weed, but at Jones College, I got in trouble just for trying to talk about it,” Brown said in a statement at the time. “College is for cultivating thought and learning and encouraging civil discourse with your peers. That’s not what’s happening at Jones College.”
FIRE sent a letter to JCJC offering to help broaden First Amendment protections for students, but the school didn’t respond.
Now, Brown and YAL are getting some help from the DOJ, who filed a Statement of Interest opposing “repressive speech codes” on college campuses.
“The United States of America is not a police state,” said Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband for the Civil Rights Division in <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-files-statement-interest-supporting-campus-free-speech">a statement</a>. “Repressive speech codes are the indecent hallmark of despotic, totalitarian regimes. They have absolutely no place in our country, and the First Amendment outlaws all tyrannical policies, practices, and acts that abridge the freedom of speech.”
U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst for the Southern District of Mississippi and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos also weighed in on Brown’s lawsuit.
“Unconstitutional restrictions on our first freedoms to speak and assemble directly threaten our liberty as Americans,” Hurst said. “While some may disagree with the content of one’s speech, we should all be fighting for everyone’s Constitutional right to speak. I pray JCJC will do the right thing, change its policies to comply with the U.S. Constitution, and encourage its students to speak and assemble throughout our free state.”
DeVos added that Brown’s case was “yet another concerning example of students encountering limits on what, when, where, and how they learn.”
“This is happening far too often on our nation’s campuses. This Administration won’t let students be silenced. We stand with their right to speak and with their right to learn truth through the free exchange of ideas—particularly those with which they might disagree,” she added.

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