J.K. Rowling and the Cursed Woman

Breaking the transgender spell has cost the author a lot.


Did she impose the Unforgivable Curses? Did she condemn anyone to Azkaban? No; she claimed that a woman should not have forfeited her job for maintaining that men and women are different. And she followed that up by arguing that in fact they are different.

The position J.K. Rowling defended was one which, a few years ago, nearly everyone would have agreed with. In fact, I believe that today also nearly everyone would agree. But a violent and vocal minority not only believe otherwise but viciously attack anyone who disagrees with them. Ms Rowling has been the target of vicious verbal attacks and has even received death threats.

It is sad to see the three principal actors in the Harry Potter stories criticising the author without whom they would not be millionaires. Harry, Hermione and Ron would be ashamed of them.

It is an evident biological and psychological fact that men and women are different; a matter of science and of common sense: they complement each other. This is so obvious that no reasoned case can be made against it: which is why those who oppose it must resort to blind emotion and even physical threats.

Rowling’s statement in defence of her position is moderate and reasonable, yet it has provoked outrage. But the critics have not answered her arguments. Why? Because they can’t.

Through her personal experience and her study of the issues involved she has become deeply concerned about the detrimental effects the trans rights movement is having, and its push to erode the legal definition of sex and replace it with gender.

She points out that there is an explosion of young women wishing to transition, and increasing numbers are taking steps that have permanently altered their bodies and taken away their fertility. In those transitioning “autistic girls are hugely over represented in the numbers”.

Rowling refers to researcher Lisa Littman, who wrote a paper expressing concern about Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, and who “…had dared challenge one of the central tenets of trans activism, which is that a person’s gender identity is innate, like sexual orientation. Nobody, the activists insisted, could ever be persuaded into being trans”.

Littman was “subjected to a tsunami of abuse and a concerted campaign to discredit both her and her work”.

Rowling shows great sympathy for young people who want to transition, partly because of her own experience when young. She suffered severely with OCD, and her father said openly that he would have preferred a son. Had she been born 30 years later she might have tried to transition. “The lure of escaping womanhood would have been huge.”

Noting that we are living through the most misogynistic period she had experienced, she points out that it’s not considered enough for women to be trans allies. “Women must accept and admit that there is no material difference between trans women and themselves.”

That statement expresses the essence of the problem: women are expected to annihilate themselves. Instead of there being two complementary ways of being human, male and female, the trans activists would blur the distinctions and cancel out the distinct qualities of each sex.

This program has dire consequences for both men and women, but holds special dangers for women, as in the insistence that biological men (there’s really no other kind!) be free to use women’s bathrooms and showers.

As Rowling observes: “When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he is a woman – and as I’ve said, gender confirmation certificates may now be granted without any need for surgery or hormones –then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside”

It should really be no surprise that Rowling takes the stand that she does, for it is in accord with the healthy outlook on human nature implicit in the Harry Potter stories. Women there are portrayed as equal to men, but expressing their humanity in a feminine way. Large families are implicitly defended, as in the Weasley family: seven children with a loving father and mother: a rather poor family but happy.

And when Harry and Ron become romantically interested in girls, it is a healthy attraction.

An underlying theme is the power of a mother’s love, exemplified by Harry’s mother sacrificing her life to save him from the evil Lord Voldemort.

In fact, the theme of a mother’s unique love for her children is manifested when Molly Weasley hurls herself into battle against the formidable Bellatrix Lestrange, in order to defend her daughter Ginny. It is shown too when Narcissa Malfoy, in gratitude to Harry for telling her that her son is alive, lies to Voldemort, thereby risking her own life.

The Potter stories show a contrast between a healthy world and the world of Voldemort and his Death Eaters. And in this vendetta against Joanne Rowling we see something of a parallel. She defends a healthy view of Woman against a sick view that implicitly annihilates Woman.

J.K Rowling deserves support for her courageous stand. And it is good to read in her letter that the overwhelming majority of responses she received were positive, grateful, and supportive.

Professor Dumbledore warned the students at Hogwarts that a time may come “when you have to make a choice between what is right, and what is easy” (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, chapter 37) It is all too easy right now to buckle to a fashionable trend, against all reason.

COLUMN BY

John Young

John Young is a Melbourne based writer on theological, philosophical and social Issues. He is author of several hundred articles and three books: The Natural Economy, Catholic Thinking, and The Scope of… More by John Young

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Supreme Court Hands Huge Victory to Families on School Choice

In a 5-4 decision Tuesday, the Supreme Court held that families have a right to seek the best educational opportunities for their children, by preventing states from blocking the participation of religiously affiliated schools in state school choice programs.

In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, the court ruled that the application of a “no-aid” provision in Montana’s Constitution violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, since it barred state tax credit scholarships from being used at private religious schools.

In a huge win for families, the high court held that states cannot apply the no-aid provision to discriminate against religious schools by excluding them from private school choice programs.

In 2002, the court’s ruling in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris held that the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution did not block parents from choosing schools that are the best fit for their children, including religious schools.

In these trying times, we must turn to the greatest document in the history of the world to promise freedom and opportunity to its citizens for guidance. Find out more now >>

Tuesday’s decision in Espinoza removed the largest state constitutional obstacle by holding that so-called Blaine Amendments cannot be used to deny choice to parents.

Under the U.S. Constitution, states no longer may prevent parents from choosing religious schools if they are participating in a school choice program.

“A state need not subsidize private education. But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools simply because they are religious,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the opinion of the court in Espinoza.

This decision struck a blow to the notoriously anti-Catholic Blaine Amendment in Montana’s Constitution that sanctioned explicit discrimination against religious schools in funding. Montana’s discrimination hurt families who have a wide variety of values and preferences when it comes to their children’s education.

As the Supreme Court had previously noted, Blaine Amendments have an “ignoble” history. The amendments are named after Sen. James G. Blaine of Maine, who in 1875 sought a federal constitutional prohibition of aid to “sectarian” schools.

“Consideration of the amendment arose at a time of pervasive hostility to the Catholic Church and to Catholics in general, and it was an open secret that sectarian was code for Catholic,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the court’s Mitchell v. Helms decision in 2000.

As Jarrett Stepman and one of us, Lindsey Burke, wrote previously in the Journal of School Choice:

Catholics sought to establish their own schools, and proposed that funding should follow, as it had to the common school (proto-public schools).

Supporters of the common school movement perceived a threat to its mission in such proposals. … Against this backdrop, Blaine [Amendments] sought to prevent aid to Catholic schooling as part of a wider reaction to increased Catholic immigration.

Blaine’s effort to amend the U.S. Constitution failed in 1875, but his effort still served as a major impediment to school choice, continuing to thwart modern-day school choice programs in the 21st century.

That’s because 37 states went on to adopt similar amendments, sometimes referred to as “baby Blaine Amendments.” Prior to today’s ruling, in states such as Montana, many of these state Blaine Amendments and similar “compelled support” clauses restricted or outright prohibited the use of taxpayer funds at private religious schools.

This timeline shows when states adopted Blaine Amendments and similar “compelled support” clauses.

The Supreme Court made it clear Tuesday that the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution prohibits discrimination against religious schools on the basis of their religious status—a status that provides families with more education options that best meet the needs of their children.

The high court said that if states create a publicly available benefit, such as a scholarship program, they must allow religious schools to participate. The states that have Blaine Amendments in place are now prohibited from excluding religious school options.

In Mitchell v. Helms, Thomas wrote of Blaine Amendments: “This doctrine, born of bigotry, should be buried now.” On Tuesday, the Supreme Court’s decision in Espinoza took us one step closer to achieving that goal.

Now is the time for states to cast aside these 19th-century rules rooted in prejudice that unfairly punish religious families, students, and schools. The Constitution requires states to provide a level playing field for religious and secular education.

The legal impediment to school choice programs is now gone, and it’s up to state legislatures to move forward advancing education choice.

The court made it clear that policymakers across the country now have the power to enact robust school choice programs. They should do just that.

COMMENTARY BY

Lindsey M. Burke researches and writes on federal and state education issues as the Will Skillman fellow in education policy at The Heritage Foundation. Read her research. Twitter: .

Emilie Kao is director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion & Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation. Twitter: .


A Note for our Readers:

This is a critical year in the history of our country. With the country polarized and divided on a number of issues and with roughly half of the country clamoring for increased government control—over health care, socialism, increased regulations, and open borders—we must turn to America’s founding for the answers on how best to proceed into the future.

The Heritage Foundation has compiled input from more than 100 constitutional scholars and legal experts into the country’s most thorough and compelling review of the freedoms promised to us within the United States Constitution into a free digital guide called Heritage’s Guide to the Constitution.

They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!

GET ACCESS NOW! >>


EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Christianity/Judaism is our Foe … Word manipulation is Control

“Christianity is our foe. If animal rights are to succeed, we must destroy the Judeo-Christian Religious tradition.”Peter Singer, founder of Animal Rights.

“Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.”  – David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club


And you thought the Environmental movement was about the environment. Today nothing is as it seems.  How do you control millions of people? You lie to them.  The purpose of the Environmental movement:  MONEY, POWER, CONTROL

Remember Michelle Obama and her famous statement about changing history?  The altering of history enhances dumbing of the people by infusing meaningless values prompted by emotional trigger words rather than facts.  Values not facts are now promoted in school.  Facts are truths which give people the security of knowing where you are like being home with a warm fuzzy feeling you can always count on.  Facts ground you because wherever you are, facts never change and will bring you home.  You can always count on facts to be the same for everyone. People can communicate on facts alone. Facts when known, bind individuals together.  Facts are the fastest way to unite people because they are the same for everyone. People knowing the same fact can organize quickly and come together efficiently.  To conquer people, facts must be destroyed. Once values, which are ever changing opinions, replace facts, individuals become confused and are easily led and often become part of a gang, crowd or mob for security.  This is called identity politics aka division.  People are identified and divided by things over which they have no control like Race or Gender.

By calling division “DIVERSITY”, participants think they are allowed individual opinion when in reality all groups must think the same.

By using identity politics, one group becomes the haves while all in opposition are destroyed economically or by violence.    School programs like: School to Work, NCLB, CCS eliminate facts and indoctrinate value driven emotion by training individuals what to think not HOW TO THINK. Once you conquer someone’s emotion you can control them. The school curricula focus on emotions to control the mind.

Emotion creates a trigger which when used subliminally elicits required responses like flash mobs, demonstrations and other events often used to divide people. America is divided through emotional triggers like:  race, global warming, religion, then back to race. Divided people can easily be conquered as social justice dictates which group will receive favors or grants for believing while other groups are demonized and blamed.  The Haves vs Have Not’s arguing, monopolizes the media, diverting attention from real issues.  The end result is loss of Freedom, Family, God and America.

“We can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans..” Bill Clinton USA Today–3-11-93, page 2a.  Why Bill, what are you afraid of? Or Nancy?

The easiest way to change the belief system of American individuals through lies and deception is through Outcome Based Education (OBE) replacing Competency Based Education (Carnegie – 8 Year Study 1933-1981.)  When the outcome is predetermined, no skill, common sense, logic or reason is necessary to complete the task. , All you do is follow someone else’s value to arrive at the required conclusion.  Jeannie Georges in her book Outcome Based Education and Higher Thinking Skills found, the motive and the process are worse than the outcome.  Outcome Based Education requires:

  • Cleanse the Slate – eliminate history
  • Dumb them Down – Omit factual education and replace with values
  • Modify the Behavior – Stimulus response – Skinner Pavlov animal training
  • Confuse Values – no right and wrong, no consequences for actions, gender manipulation
  • Assess , Remediate, Reassess –  make sure they are trained

The New World Order Globalist Mafia (aka Global Mafia) believes dumb people require less resources from their government enabling the Global Mafia to maximize profit for themselves. They dreamed up SUSTAINABILITY and tell the masses, “You must do more for less to save the planet.”  If they don’t want people mobile, they demonize gas and the auto blaming them for any environmental change.  Surprise, the sheeple will comply.  Example; bike paths and walkways that interfere with business. .

OBE education fits the bill.   OBE uses word manipulation. Word manipulation is one of the most favored techniques used to divide people. By using the same word with multiple meanings, groups can not have conversations since both believe in their one definition of the word.   Example, the Global Mafia does not want competition so the Global Mafia indoctrinates Human Capital to believe making a profit is bad because others don’t have the same as you.  The Global Mafia will just have to take some of yours … more taxes, more regulation, nationalize this…to level the playing field and make it “fair” for everyone.  The Global Mafia never shares their stash, only yours.  The Global Mafia believes: What is theirs is theirs and what is yours is also theirs. Profit is bad for you good for them.

Let’s see how word manipulation works with candidates using the constitution. Question: Do you believe in the constitution?

When vetting our potential legislators we often ask – Do you believe the Constitution as the supreme law of the land? 

When the answer is yes, we rejoice, donate and vote.  Those of us who do not understand word manipulation, never ask the second question – Do you believe that the Constitution is living breathing flexible – or bed rock solid, the same for all Americans?  The Global Mafia taught their followers to choose #1.  The Global Mafia includes attorneys who manipulate Constitutional laws into case law to favor special interest lobbyists.  This new law divides and conquers the people as they protect believers and quite non believers.  All the while the populace is tricked into believing they are selecting a constitutional candidate. The constitution to the Right stands for FREEDOM.  To the Left the Constitution means Slavery.  Unless you define the word Constitution before you talk, you will wind up in a fight.

If you are unsure of your legislator, Google: Aspen Institute and your legislator’s name.  The Aspen Institute is a Global Mafia think tank supported and funded by the Islamists and Global Mafia, including Soros, Gates, Saudis, American Taxpayer and the usual suspects.  Our legislators go to the Aspen Institute to be trained into globalization – the elimination of America. Would you be surprised to learn Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan and Debbie Wasserman Shultz are graduates? As a result of this training, there is no right and left, no Democrats or Republicans.  All progressives are in the same Global Mafia and filter through the RNC and DNC.  Democrats are taught to have no responsibility, love big government and let government handle every aspect of their lives. The Global Mafia can then own everything while leaving crumbs for the common folk.  This type of government is communism.  Republicans who learn Fabian economics based on maximizing debt and public private partnerships are fascists.  Together they are members of the Global Mafia Club/Progressives in both the RNC and DNC sitting in Congress and the administration.  Just listen to those who want open borders and the demise of America.  “In orders to save the planet, we must destroy capitalism,”  Maurice Strong, UN Environmental Programme.   Maurice made his money in OIL while he demonized oil.  No competition is allowed in a communist society.

Those who know history remember from the decline of the Union of Soviet Socialists Republic that Communists learned quickly a funding source must be integrated into their communist plan or globalism can not succeed because the people who have given everything up, can no longer fund the give away projects promoted by the Left.  Wall Street joined with the Government on a crash course to “relieve” the American middle class of all equity.  The 2008 crash was designed to take the money, businesses through regulations and land through foreclosure, of the middle class in order to complete a wipe out using the manipulated word of “fairness.” Blocks were bought by Hedge Funds for pennies on the dollar.  They threw the owners out instead of making a deal.  The stimulus money Obama gave to the banks would have paid every mortgage in the US. Instead the Hedge Funds tore down and rebuilt SINGLE FAMILY HOMES into multi-use buildings with work on the first few floors while you live upstairs.  No car necessary to go to work. These complexes aka sustainable developments were empty for a long time until illegal immigration.. Homeless Americans live on the streets and in cars while illegals get a handout and an apartment.  Yet no one can figure out why our cities declined. Drugs and “mental illness” are the result of these criminal policies not the cause.  Follow the money.

People who rely on the government for handouts or freebies suffer from lack of confidence and lack of pride.  Word manipulation trains them to be satisfied, mediocre people with nothing to be proud of.  Rather than elevate the people to ownership, the Global Mafia tells them that pride is evil.  Proud people will rise up when something is worth protecting. When you have nothing to protect, there is nothing to be proud of. Schools now run by the Global Mafia indoctrinate pride is bad, Human Capital having massive debt is fine.  They never say that people with massive debt will never be able to own anything (the true goal of the Global Mafia). The same people who brought us the failed NCLB and Common Core are now promoting a Work Force Program.  Training IS NOT education.

Americans talking and acting together are the worst thing that can happen to The Global Mafia.  Why?  Simple: There are more of us than them.  The Global Mafia is very small. The Global Mafia is afraid of our large numbers and what will happen once we find out their game plan. Therefore, to beat anything, it is imperative that we communicate and become individuals not just members of a group. It is imperative we choose real people for office not those selected by the Global Mafia in the Democratic and Republican party. Ask the second question.

Then the biggest challenge:  We must stop talking to each other (preaching to the choir) and start working with the low information voters.

Why? They are unhappy and lack leadership.  70-80% are unhappy and don’t know what to do.

How? You must become a caring American individual and interact.  The simplest solution is always the best solution…

Solution for Action:

Goal:  Communication with low information voters.

Method: Let’s use their strategy.  Never let a crisis go to waste.

Find a crisis.  Pick something simple, non political like …

We have a crisis in America.  Americans are not being taught cursive writing in school. Talk about anything education Not Political.

Why is cursive important?

  1. Cursive helps eye hand coordination in young children and reinforces left brain/right brain connections.
  2. Your signature can never be duplicated. It is yours alone. To the Global Mafia People, the collective, are only bodies to work, not people able to make choices. They do not need a signature, individualism doesn’t count.  Print, make an X, no pride necessary.
  3. Most old historical documents, American, religious and family are in cursive. Imagine how the Constitution and Bill of Rights will change when no one can read it.

“People who can not read are slaves forever.” Fredrick Douglass, slave who became an advisor to Pres Lincoln (R).

Action: Can your group or you, individually, go to a local group or church and offer to teach cursive.  Together you can make a plan to bring cursive back to school by going to school board meetings. Doing things together bring respect and trust and will break barriers used to stereotype a group. Imagine the great conversations you all can have when you begin to talk and gain trust and respect.   You will break the racist barrier. You will find you have a lot in common.

This simple task will bring people together on an individual level. Individuals can gain trust of each other and will actually begin conversations.  Imagine if the last cursive activity was to read the original constitution.  While reading you get a chance to explain its value. When people learn liberty, freedom and the pursuit of happiness, they will step up with pride and protect America.  Only unity will make that happen.  United we stand, divided we fail.

I will not comply.

Will you?

©All rights reserved.

Democrats Exposed as the Racists They’ve Always Been

They say that out of every bad thing comes a good thing. Ask any mother who has been through a 20-hour labor!

The same can be said of the criminal behavior of the Marxist-inspired radicals––Antifa and Black Lives Matters––which eclipsed the legitimate outrage that followed the horrific murder of George Floyd by a white policeman, Derek Chauvin, in Minneapolis, MN.

This crime called for reform of the Minneapolis Police Department, which had ignored 18 grievances against Chauvin. But that is not what happened.

Instead, the peaceful protests against this savage act were obliterated by the professionally orchestrated, bountifully financed rampage of the above-mentioned anarchists-cum-terrorists through American cities and suburbs, leaving a massive swath of destruction that included dozens of black-owned businesses and dozens of white-owned businesses that employed black citizens. So much for Black Lives Matter!

What a beautiful tribute to George Floyd––God spare all of us such a memoriam!

A SHAMEFUL EXPOSÉ

However, the good that came out of this disgraceful, destructive, criminal behavior was the willingness of many black conservative commentators and writers to tell the American public what Democrats and their leftist media lackeys have been concealing from the public for decades.

  1. Since the 1960s, the welfare system rewarded single black mothers with lifetime financial support which resulted in every generation for the last 60 years with fatherless homes–in short, the destruction of the black family. When the mothers worked outside the home to make ends meet, their children were left to the streets to admire the rich pimps, drug pushers and other criminals who became their role models….a doomsday scenario for every child.
  2. Public schools run by Democrat-controlled unions and benefits-infatuated teachers and administrators allowed generations of illiterate students to “graduate” without the knowledge or skills necessary to be productive members of society. Just mention the name Eva Moskowitz to any leftist and you will be assaulted with vile language and the deep hatred Democrats feel toward the woman who runs upward of 25 Charter Schools in New York City, schools attended by children from black ghettos who pass the Regents with flying colors, score high marks on the SATs, graduate from high school and go on to top-flight colleges (without the “benefit” of Affirmative Action). This is tragically unlike the children who attend public schools and go on to survive either through lives of crime or welfare dependency.
  3. The result: a disproportionate number of blacks––mostly men––in prison, representing a complete waste of potentially vibrant and contributory lives.
  4. And the women? Most Planned Parenthood facilities are located in minority neighborhoods… on purpose! In fact, 25 percent of abortions performed each year are on black women. The founder of these baby-destroying factories, Margaret Sanger, as John Nolte reports, was an impassioned eugenicist  who spoke before Ku Klux Klan groups. On December 10, 1939, in a letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble of the Eugenics Society––in the context of discussing the Negro Project, which she developed in concert with white birth-control reformers––Sanger wrote: “We do not want word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population…” The Planned Parenthood Federation of America aborted 345,672 babies during the 2018 fiscal year, which equals approximately 86,500 dead black babies. So much for Black Lives Matter!
  5. Democrats conceived of and implemented Sanctuary Cities which flout federal immigration law in protecting illegal aliens from deportation and prosecution. These laws go further in providing cradle-to-grave benefits like taxpayer-funded free food, free housing, free medical care, free schooling, and of course welfare payments. The result, of course, is that the states who subscribe to this communist philosophy are both crime-ridden and bankrupt. The cost is in the multibillions of dollars, which could and should have been spent on better schools, jobs and living conditions for black citizens, but never is and never was. So much for Black Lives Matter!

John Nolte asks what the following cities have in common:

Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Fayetteville, Atlanta, New York, Nashville, Seattle, Portland, Philadelphia,  Chicago, Milwaukee, Salt Lake, Washington DC, Detroit, Indianapolis, San Francisco, Kansas City, Houston, Charlotte, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Denver, Dallas, Phoenix, Tampa, Baltimore, Oakland, Louisville…

  1. They’re all run by Democrats, many for generations.
  2. They’ve all been looted and burned by left-wing Antifa terrorists and other Marxist groups over the past few weeks.
  3. These riots are wholly owned, supported, indeed applauded by the Democrat Party.

Here is but one example:

Make no mistake: all of the above actions were taken with one overriding goal in mind: to accumulate votes for Democrat candidates. The strategy was obviously to keep minority populations dumb and dependent, the better to convince them that hope for a better future lay right around the corner.

If you go to horrible schools, you’re not going to keep up on politics and you are going to listen to sermon-spouting “reverends”––like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and Jeremiah Wright, et al––who tell you what to think and who to vote for, while they are making millions and their gullible acolytes are barely getting by. So much for Black Lives Matter!

TO THE RESCUE

But now that President Trump enacted the unprecedented prison-reform First Step Act, and created an economy in which black people have enjoyed the highest employment rate in American history––money in their pockets, unlimited opportunity, increased awareness of the slave mentality of the Democrats––which political party will this minority population vote for?

As I said, good comes out of bad. A black vote of 20 percent, and quite possibly 30 percent for President Trump, will teach the Democrats that even their most cherished “value”––abortion––is not enough to keep the black population loyal to their historically empty promises and innate racism.

©All rights reserved.

Who’s Educating the Protesters?

Protesters over the last few weeks have taught us, among other lessons, there is little room for dialogue or voicing of dissenting opinions in our body politic anymore.

In fact, many principled or simply well-meaning professionals, celebs and even business owners have been destroyed by what is now known as the “cancel culture.”

The question is, how are the protesters — by and large a group of twenty-somethings — driving the entire society?

The answer is that they are not alone. They are first and foremost being driven by their educators – public school teachers, college professors and those who have risen in the hierarchical ladder to become university administrators.

Many are extremist ideologues who (rightly) figured out that if you want to change society, you have to influence the youth.

Take the case of the prestigious Stanford University. Its dean of students, Monica Hicks, recently sent out an email to students in which she effusively quoted Assata Shakur, a fugitive on the FBI’s most-wanted terrorists list.

In 1973, Shakur (born Joanne Chesimard) and two accomplices shot two police officers, killing one “execution-style” after being pulled over for committing a bank robbery.

Shakur was arrested, convicted and sent to prison in 1977. She escaped in 1979 when other domestic terrorists broke in to rescue her. She now resides in Cuba.

Dean Hicks’s email was a friendly missive wishing students well and safety – both from COVID-19 and violence — as they engage in the current protests.

Providing them encouragement and strength of heart (she herself was planning to “shelter-in-place”), she added what she called a “loving refrain” from Shakur at the end of her letter to the students.

Quoting Shakur is particularly egregious considering that the protests are directed against police and the fact that at least two police officers have been killed by them and close to 400 wounded.

Then there was the recent case of a public school teacher in Rhode Island who was caught defacing a statue of Christopher Columbus (a felony crime).

Another case worth mentioning is that of San Francisco State University’s (SFSU) Rabab Abdulhadi.

Abdulhadi was recently given the American Association of University Professors’ (AAUP) Georgina M. Smith Award in recognition of “her commitment to global scholarship that builds mutual understanding … evident in the collaborations she has initiated.”

Those “collaborations” include “[cultivating] ties with Hamas-dominated universities, trivializ[ing] the kidnapping and murder of Israeli high-schoolers and endors[ing] hate speech,” according to Canary Mission, a group that monitors and exposes antisemitism in academia.

While leading a mission to “Palestine” (which was funded by SFSU), Abdulhadi also “collaborated” with Leila Khaled and Sheikh Raed Salah, both of whom are affiliated with U.S.-designated terrorist organizations.

Abdulhadi, a founding member of the antisemitic Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) Movement against Israel also believes that Jews who favor the existence of Israel should not be allowed at the university at all.

Meanwhile, those that don’t adhere to the current cancel culture’s strict rules of what constitutes acceptable behavior have found their heads on the chopping blocks.

UCLA just launched an investigation into a lecturer for reading to his class Martin Luther King’s famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and showing a documentary that included a description of lynching. W. Ajax Peris, an Air Force veteran, used these materials while teaching a class about racism against blacks in America. The letter written by King contained the “n-word.”

After students complained that the reading of the letter and the description of lynching caused them distress, Peris was swiftly condemned by the chair of the political science department as well as two other department heads. His case has already been referred to the university’s Discrimination Prevention Office, which urged students to come forward with more complaints.

Bowing to the mob, Peris issued both written and video apologies, which did nothing to stop calls for his firing.

Another UCLA professor, Gordon Klein, is now living under police protection after he rejected a request by a black student to postpone the final exam for minority students. Klein, who has been teaching at UCLA for decades, told the student that such a policy a would not follow principles of equality (and rather, would be racist in itself).

For having such an opinion, Klein received death threats on social media, credible enough that he is now living under police protection. In the meantime, he has been removed from teaching and is being investigated by the dean for his “troubling” behavior.

UCLA apologized to Klein’s students for his “inexcusable” and “very hurtful sentiments.”

Cases like these have abounded over recent years. Yet the crescendo of the cancel culture in light of the recent protests is something we would do well not to ignore.

It’s the same culture that won’t accept New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees for standing for the national anthem or let famed Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling have an opinion about supporting a woman who lost her job for her views against males in women’s changing rooms, dorms, prisons and sports teams.

For the record, Rowling’s offending tweet read:

For those who want to maintain a society where differing opinions can be freely expressed and debated, the time to step up is now.

In addition, voting is power. Politicians should be made to be accountable by being willing to stand up for everyone’s First Amendment rights — including teachers and professors at schools and universities, the vast number of which are funded, at least in part, by taxpayer dollars.

Radicalism is the belief that there is only one way to live.
Extremism is forcing others to live by that way. 

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Memories of eugenics president erased from USC campus

‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ Well, maybe.


The past week has seen statues and monuments whose subjects were linked to racism defaced or destroyed in the UK, UK and Australia. The memory cleansing movement also reached the University of Southern California (USC), with a slightly different twist.

The USC President, Carol Folt, swiftly removed the name and bust of her one of her predecessors, Rufus Von KleinSmid, from a prominent historic building on the campus. She was responding to years of agitation to expunge memorials to Von KleinSmid.

In his day, Von KleinSmid was a prominent figure in the United States. He began his career as a professor of education and psychology. In 1914 he became president of the University of Arizona, and moved from there to USC in 1921. He was president of USC for 25 years until 1947.

On his watch, USC experienced a huge expansion and slowly became the major university that it is today. Von KleinSmid was awarded a National Institute of Social Sciences Gold Medal in 1942 and was honoured by 20 national governments for his achievements.

Unfortunately, USC’s president was also an ardent eugenicist. He co-founded the Human Betterment Foundation in 1928, a Pasadena-based think-tank which promoted compulsory sterilization for the improvement of the species. Dr Folt described him as “an active supporter of eugenics [whose] writings on the subject are at direct odds with USC’s multicultural community and our mission of diversity and inclusion.”

There’s no doubt that Von KleinSmid’s views are not acceptable in polite company nowadays. A brief glance at a pamphlet which he wrote in 1913 yields such gems as:

We must all agree that those who, in the nature of the case, can do little else than pass on to their offsprings the defects which make themselves burdens to society, have no ethical right to parenthood. To deny them this privilege is, in the language of John Harris, “no infringement of liberty, it is a curtailment of unbridled license which is a disgrace to our civilization (?) and to our vaunted Christianity. ”

Or

The average worth of the individual to society is constantly lowered because of both the lack of productiveness among the worthy, and the fecundity of the defective. There can be no question of the outcome of the tragedy when society must depend finally upon an average ability too feeble to stand upon its own feet. It is estimated that one million of our population are incarcerated in public institutions, while three times that many, through their own incapability, pull a dead weight against society’s progress.

So there’s no point in denying that Von KleinSmid was a eugenicist, although he could argue in his defense that progressive American intellectuals before World War II shared his views — people like birth control activist Margaret Sanger, African-American rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois, inventor Alexander Graham Bell, botanist Luther Burbank, President Theodore Roosevelt, Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr and others too numerous to list here.

This is just a small incident in the wider movement to purge the US of racism. But it raises a few questions. Von KleinSmid’s sentiments are echoed every day by gynaecologists advising pregnant mothers to abort their Down syndrome child. In fact, a discrete investigation at the USC Keck School of Medicine might be in order if the university wants to purge itself of eugenics.

Isn’t it better to ask how eugenics has evolved rather than to expunge it from the public record? And damnatio memoriae (the Roman habit of rubbing out inscriptions and beheading statues) seems an odd way to obliterate interest in eugenics, which actually seems to be growing by leaps and bounds.

As we all have heard many times, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”.

Interestingly, this is the best-known maxim of the Spanish-American philosopher, novelist and Harvard professor George Santayana – who was — yes, you guessed it — a eugenicist! “Some races are obviously superior to others,” he wrote in his highly praised five-volume 1906 book The Life of Reason. It figures: all that remembering stuff corrupts the soul.

So what do we do now?

Here’s a suggestion. Forget it; forget everything. Just make it up as we go along. That way, when we do end up repeating the atrocities of the past, no one will notice.

Michael Cook

Michael Cook is the editor of MercatorNet More by Michael Cook

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Attack On Homeschooling

Since 1999, homeschooling enrollment has tripled, and this trend is only showing signs of continued growth.

Although today’s 2.5 million homeschoolers may not seem like a large number, it’s a remarkable figure considering that American homeschooling has only been legal in all 50 states since 1993.

On this week’s Mic’d Up, Michael Voris interviews Corey DeAngelis, director of school choice at Reason Foundation.

For many years now, DeAngelis has been on the front lines fighting against the attempt to discredit homeschooling. As of late, he’s been in a battle with Harvard, owing to the university’s effort to smear homeschooling — especially a law professor’s repeated calls for it to be banned.

Studies consistently show that parents choose homeschooling due to the overall environment of other schools, the quality of academic instruction and the lack of moral instruction.

When looking at test scores, homeschooled children consistently outperform the general population of students.

Looking at the Scholastic Aptitude Test, or the SAT, homeschoolers score about 72 points higher than the national average.

Turning to the American College Test, or the ACT, the national average is 21 out of 36, whereas homeschoolers are just under 23 out of 36.

In 2009, The Home School Legal Defense Association commissioned a study that found that “Homeschoolers are still achieving well beyond their public school counterparts— no matter what their family background, socioeconomic level or style of homeschooling.”

In regard to moral instruction, public school advocate John Dewey, known as the “father of American education,” co-founded the atheistic American Humanist Association —its motto: “Good without a God” — and went on to serve as its first president.

COLUMN BY

Trey Brock

EDITORS NOTE: This Church Militant column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

Evidence Suggests Kids Are Extremely Low Risk For Coronavirus

While much still remains unknown about the coronavirus, a consensus has emerged that the virus presents an extremely minimal risk for children.

As the Summer months arrive, debate has emerged over whether or not it’s safe for schools to reopen. Most colleges throughout the U.S. have already stated their intentions to reopen their campuses this Fall, and two-thirds of college students feel safe returning even without a vaccine, according to a recent poll. However, managing to return younger students to school could prove more complicated.

President Donald Trump recently clashed with White House coronavirus task force member Dr. Anthony Fauci over the possibility of K-12 schools reopening in the Fall, noting that the virus presents an extremely low risk to children. On the surface, the president is indisputably correct. A study published in late April estimated that roughly 1/3 of children ages 6-10 who had the coronavirus were asymptomatic, and concluded “the role of children in transmission is unclear, but it seems likely they do not play a significant role.”

As of mid-May, in the coronavirus epicenter of New York, just nine children under the age of 18 had died with the virus, accounting for a total of 0.06% of the state’s deaths. On the flip side, nearly three-quarters of coronavirus deaths in the state came among those 65-years-old and older.

Fox Sports commentator Clay Travis noted that the odds of people under the age of 24 dying from the coronavirus are statistically lower than them getting struck by lightning. The odds of someone under the age of 24 dying of the coronavirus is roughly one in 1 million, while the odds of someone in that age group getting struck by lightning is roughly one in 700,000.

It is for these reasons that college campuses appear almost certain to open up, and major revenue generators, such as college football, appear likely to begin their season on time. Colleges will be easier to reopen than K-12 schools, as college campuses also serve as living spaces and thus can be insulated if necessary. However, K-12 schools do not have those advantages and will likely face more roadblocks to reopening as a result. While the kids are extremely low-risk, extra concern will have to be paid to older teachers, and kids with live-in relatives who are older or have pre-existing respiratory conditions. A USA Today poll published last week found that 20% of teachers said they would be “unlikely” to return to school in the Fall, even if they are allowed to.

Parents worried about their children returning to school in the Fall can rest easy, as evidence overwhelmingly shows that kids are low risk for the coronavirus. However, reopening schools and daycare facilities will present more roadblocks than just securing the health and safety of young children.

COLUMN BY

WILLIAM DAVIS

Repoprter

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A Premeditated Crime Against America’s Most Disadvantaged School Children

Who cares about urban school children? Not Democrats and teachers unions.


Why are America’s prisons filled with so many young black men? Are they inherently bad? Too shiftless to succeed? Too stupid to learn? Actually, none of the above. Most black men who do time were cheated out of a decent education by the inexcusably sorry public schools they had no choice but to attend. And why do so many young black women fall into the demeaning lifestyle of government dependency? Are they inherently bad, too shiftless to succeed, too stupid to learn? In every case, no. Like their male counterparts, they too were robbed of a decent education by the grossly substandard public schools that failed to educate them.

Spending Money Like It Grows on Trees

The harm America’s biggest school systems have inflicted on urban kids who want to learn has gone on for so long that it’s tantamount to a premeditated crime against the most disadvantaged children in our society.

Consider the plight of minority students who have no choice but to attend the horrendous public schools in the nation’s capitol. For the school year 2010-2011, the District of Columbia Public School District spent nearly $600,000 per classroom of 20 students — $29,345 per pupil, to be exact — yet 8th graders in the District finished dead last in a national proficiency test in math and reading. Dead last! For that school year, DC’s public schools were the uncontested winner in the race to the bottom, with every other urban school district in America breathing a sigh of relief that they were edged out as the worst of the worst. From border to border and coast to coast, inner city children are being robbed of a chance to learn by school systems that give little more than lip service to providing disadvantaged kids with a good education.

Since the 1960s, urban school districts have received astounding sums from the U.S. Department of Education, yet their abysmal results have repeated like a broken record year after year after year. The 2009 stimulus bill signed into law by President Obama allocated $98 billion of additional funding to the DOE, nearly all of which went to the same Democrat-run school systems that have failed decades on end to adequately educate minority children. Despite that intolerable failure, their answer to the problem is always more money.  But while children who want, need and deserve a decent chance to learn are getting the educational shaft, school superintendents and legions of other lavishly-paid, off-campus administrators are taking gargantuan bites out of school budgets:

● From 1999-2010, Dr. Beverly Hall was superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools, a system that habitually graduated less than half its high school students. The year before she resigned, Hall was paid a salary of $389,000, plus given a chauffeured limousine and other lavish perks. Many big-city school superintendents are paid more than their state’s governor. As head of one of the worst performing school districts in American history, the superintendent of Baltimore City Schools is paid $320,000, $50,000 more than Maryland’s governor.

● When federal grants — a.k.a. political slush funds — land in their lap, urban school districts squander much of the money on lavish junkets disguised as “education conferences.” With one of the lowest high school graduation rates in the Atlanta area, the DeKalb County School District blew through a $382,000 grant from the Obama administration’s 2009 stimulus package by treating 184 senior administrators to a relaxing four-day stay at a luxury resort hotel & spa in Hollywood, California.

School Choice Offers a Way Out for Children Who Want to Learn

The surest way to ensure that inner city children receive a quality education is through federally-funded school choice vouchers. Established in 2004 as a school choice pilot project by President George W. Bush and a Republican Congress, the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program provided thousands of minority students in the nation’s capitol with $7,500 scholarships.

The program enabled 1,700 black and Hispanic kids from low-income families to get out of DC’s sorry and unsafe public schools, and into the same kind of safe, high-performing private academies attended by the likes of Chelsea Clinton and the Obama daughters. Although the program was enthusiastically supported by eager-to-learn minority kids and their parents, President Obama and Democrats in Congress terminated it in 2010 at the behest of teachers unions, the Democratic Party’s most loyal constituency.

School choice scholarship

Fifty-nine years ago, a black baby who would never set foot in a public school was born to a mother who chose to enroll him in top-rated private academies as he grew up. So what impact did private schooling have on his life? He’s done quite well. His name? Barack Obama, who exercised school choice for his own children, but denied it to disadvantaged children in the nation’s capitol.

During his 2020 State of the Union address, President Trump used the occasion to announce that Philadelphia 4th-grader Janiyah Davis was being awarded a school choice scholarship. Janiyah and her mother were given seats of honor in the Special Guests section anchored by First Lady Melania Trump.

Janiyah had been on a scholarship waiting list. Speaking to her from the podium, President Trump said, “Janiyah, your long wait is over. I can proudly announce tonight that an Opportunity Scholarship has become available, and it’s going to you.” As stone-faced Democrats sat on their hands, the announcement was met by a roar of approval from the rest of the audience.

Unfortunately for inner city kids like Janiyah, Democrats at both the federal and state level erect endless hurdles to school choice. Pennsylvania is one of 18 states that accept applications for federal school choice scholarships, but its Democrat governor vetoed legislation that would have expanded school choice to 50,000 children in the state.

The Trump administration is pushing hard for a national, 50-state voucher program for urban kids from low income families, but is obstructed at every turn by Democrats doing the bidding of teachers unions. Democrats eagerly subsidize Planned Parenthood so unborn urban babies can have a womb funeral, yet are fiercely hostile to the idea of providing a first-rate education to black and Hispanic children whose mother chose to give them a shot at life.

The Public School Pecking Order

The following quote is attributed to Albert Shanker, former president of the American Federation of Teachers: “When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing children.” Whether Shanker said that is disputed. But even if he didn’t, that’s the attitude teachers unions and Democrats have about where children stand in the public school pecking order.

The unholy alliance between Democrats and teachers unions

The unholy alliance between Democrats and teachers unions has cynically exploited urban school children for nearly six consecutive decades. The harm they’ve caused has been so thorough, so devastating that it’s hard to conclude anything other than they couldn’t care less about the disadvantaged children for whom they piously profess infinite concern.

Below are links to short videos that will break your heart.The first shows eager-to-learn minority students in the nation’s capitol literally begging President Obama to save their opportunity scholarships; the second shows a bewildered African American mother asking why oh why did the president she’d enthusiastically supported kill her daughter’s school choice scholarship.

Who cares about urban school children? Not Democrats and teachers unions.
Disadvantaged Kids Beg President Obama

Bewildered Mother Asks Why

©All rights reserved.

10 Key Education Recommendations for Reopening the K-12 Classroom

Homeroom has taken on a literal meaning over the past two months. Parents, while always their children’s first and foremost educators, have had to fully embrace homeschooling as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. And although that has been working great for many families – some 40% now say they’re more likely to continue homeschooling even when schools reopen – for others, it is either not the right fit for their child or doesn’t work with their job requirements.

Many families rely on that custodial function of the physical K-12 school to enable them to go to work. And although teleworking is likely to become a more prominent feature of American life moving forward, many families are eager to reunite their children with their teachers and classmates in person, in their public, charter, or private schools. Governors, school districts, and principals should plan to reopen schools safely as soon as possible.

The National Coronavirus Recovery Commission recently released a comprehensive set of 264 recommendations to guide America through this pandemic, while protecting both lives and livelihoods. The work of local school leaders in the public and private sectors will play a critical role in helping America get back to work, and the economy back on track.

What follows is a list of 10 recommendations put forward by the commission geared specifically toward K-12 schools across the country.


In these trying times, we must turn to the greatest document in the history of the world to promise freedom and opportunity to its citizens for guidance. Find out more now >>


1. K-12 schools should act proactively in concert with state and local health officials to assist school administrators in making reopening decisions. School leaders should review all aspects of the school’s facilities and operations, looking for ways to best prevent transmission. That includes student transportation to and from school; class schedules, density, and layout; rotation of teachers instead of students; pedestrian traffic patterns; and the use of personal protective equipment and hand sanitization. They should implement thorough cleaning and sanitization guidelines for all surfaces, especially eating areas, locker rooms, and bathrooms.

2. State and local governments should allow K–12 schools to open this fall and selectively quarantine any students, faculty, or staff who show COVID-like symptoms by sending them home. Districts that have low incident rates should begin plans to reopen, and all school districts should have emergency response plans (including quick transitions to online learning) if they are forced to close again. If a student is sent home due to illness, or if a school has to close, the school should continue to provide online instruction for students who are sent home. For parents who choose to keep their children at home, schools should continue to offer online instruction while enabling students to demonstrate proficiency in mandatory subjects.

3. State and local governments should make decisions based on data for the local district, and even the specific school, not the entire state. If the cases in a single school that is not geographically connected to another school or schools rise beyond the number deemed appropriate by health professionals, in-person operations in an entire state or district do not need to be suspended.

4. State and local governments should consider suspending in-person operations schoolwide only if a school’s COVID-19 cases increase beyond an acceptable number as determined by health professionals. In the event of a local outbreak, school personnel should consult with health officials as to whether social distancing rules should be applied to certain events, such as athletic events, but such disruptions should be implemented only on an as-needed basis.

5. States should help families return to work and students maintain education continuity by making education funding student-centered and portable. Families across the country are currently unable to access the public schools they pay for through their tax dollars and are looking for continuity in their children’s education. In order to help families maintain education continuity, states should restructure per-pupil K–12 education dollars to provide emergency education savings accounts (ESAs) to students, enabling them to access their child’s share of state per-pupil funding to pay for online courses, online tutors, curriculum, and textbooks so that they can continue learning.

6. States with online schools lift any barriers to access, including caps, enrollment restrictions, or grade prohibitions for students in grades K–12. Every student should have equal access to online education regardless of zip code or district boundary, and all students—regardless of academic need or socioeconomic circumstance—should have access to online education options.

7. Congress should provide spending flexibility with existing education dollars. The CARES Act passed in April allowed schools flexibility to carry forward unused Title I spending and repurpose existing professional development spending for online instruction. Congress should build on this flexibility and allow states to use all of their existing federal education dollars for any lawful purpose under state law.

8. Congress should make federal funding portable for children from low-income families and children with special needs. Congress should immediately make funding authorized under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) student-centered and portable, allowing children with special needs to access learning services to which they are entitled under federal law. Similarly, Congress should allow federal Title I dollars for low-income districts to follow students to private online education options of choice.

9. Congress should also support the education of military-connected children. The children of active-duty military families currently do not have access to the public schools nearest to the base to which their parents are assigned. Congress should provide the children of active-duty military families with education savings accounts, enabling them to access online tutors, online courses, textbooks, and curricula to provide educational continuity during this time.

10. Congress should expand access to 529 savings accounts. Congress should allow Americans to access their 529 savings plans for homeschooling expenses. Currently, 529 saving plans can pay for a broad range of education-related costs, such as college expenses and, more recently, private elementary or secondary school tuition. Yet homeschooling expenses are excluded from the eligible uses of 529 savings accounts. Immediately expanding qualified expenses to include homeschooling—reflecting the fact that nearly every American family currently has to homeschool as a result of COVID-19—would be a timely and targeted policy.

Students can’t afford to have their education put on hold, and parents, as taxpayers, should have access to the money that is spent on behalf of their children in schools across the country. These 10 recommendations will help quickly get American education back on track, safely and more effectively than ever.

For the complete list of recommendations, visit the National Coronavirus Recovery Commission’s website at CoronavirusCommission.com.

COMMENTARY BY

Lindsey M. Burke researches and writes on federal and state education issues as the Will Skillman fellow in education policy at The Heritage Foundation. Read her research.Twitter: .


A Note for our Readers:

This is a critical year in the history of our country. With the country polarized and divided on a number of issues and with roughly half of the country clamoring for increased government control—over health care, socialism, increased regulations, and open borders—we must turn to America’s founding for the answers on how best to proceed into the future.

The Heritage Foundation has compiled input from more than 100 constitutional scholars and legal experts into the country’s most thorough and compelling review of the freedoms promised to us within the United States Constitution into a free digital guide called Heritage’s Guide to the Constitution.

They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!

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Big-City Schools: Where America’s Most Vulnerable Kids Languish

Democrats and Republicans alike say they’re fully committed to seeing that every child receives a quality education.  Bipartisan agreement notwithstanding, school children in urban America have gotten the short end of the learning stick for a long, long time.  How can anyone defend the following statistics?

  • In 2010-2011, public schools in the nation’s capitol spent$29,345 per pupil — nearly $600,000 per each classroom of 20 students —  yet the District’s 8th graders finished dead last in a nationwide proficiency test in math and reading.
  • According to a 2015 report by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, 96 percent of 8th graders in Detroit’s public schools tested not proficient in math, and 93 percent tested not proficient in reading.
  • According to a 2017 investigation by Project Baltimore, 13 of the city’s 39 public high schools had zero students who tested proficient in math.  Zero!  Of the 3,841 students in the remaining 26 high schools, only 14 tested at or above proficiency in math, less than one-third of one percent.

For a half-century running, Democrat-run urban schools have robbed minority children of a realistic chance for a decent education.  In addition to earning an F-minus in their assigned duty to adequately educate students under their care, the three school districts named above have something else in common: they all are run by highly-paid Democrat administrators whose foremost priority is catering to the demands of teachers unions, one of the Democratic Party’s most loyal constituencies.

In school systems with teachers unions exist, Democrats look the other way as the interests of teachers take precedence over the interests of children.  And no wonder. The overwhelming share of union dues paid by teachers is money-laundered straight through to the coffers of the Democratic Party.  According to a Brookings Institution study, nearly 99% of teachers union political donations in 2012 went to Democrats.  In 2016, teachers unions gave $43 million to Democrats, $260,000 to Republicans.

Teachers First, Children Second

Once sub-standard teachers have tenure, a Herculean effort is required to get rid of them.  The teachers-first, children-second pecking order in the school systems cited below exists in virtually every urban school district in America, where a king’s ransom of precious educational funding is frittered away to protect bad teachers.

  • New York City public schools operate 16 reassignment centers, also known as “rubber rooms.”  Rubber rooms are off-campus facilities where teachers accused of incompetence or gross misconduct are warehoused, as their glacial, union-mandated appeals process drones on, often for years.  While receiving full pay and benefits, teachers in rubber room limbo spend each six-hour day napping, reading magazines, playing cards or other leisure activities.  Despite constant complaints that it would do a better job of educating minority children if only it’s given more money, the city’s bloated and incompetent public school system squanders $150 million a year paying hundreds of unionized teachers to do little more than kill time while waiting to find out if they’ll be fired.  Wasting $150 million would be one thing if the city’s public schools did even a minimally acceptable job of educating disadvantaged minority children, but New York City has some of the sorriest public schools in America.
  • Getting rid of bad teachers is so difficult in Democrat-run school districts that Milwaukee’s public schoolscameup with a mitigation plan called The Dance of the Lemons.  Because teachers union contracts protect all teachers, including those deemed unfit to teach, school principals in Milwaukee found it virtually impossible to fire bad teachers.  To cope with the problem, principals hold a meeting at the end of the school year, where one principal swaps his or her worst teachers in exchange for another principal’s worst teachers, with both principals hoping the lemons they get won’t be as bad as the lemons they swapped.  How are the interests of students served when unfit teachers are shuffled around from one school to another in an endless game of musical chairs where every bad teacher gets a seat?
  • New York City and Milwaukee aren’t the only places where unionized, Democrat-run schools fail miserably at adequately educating minority children.  A 2010 investigation by L.A. Weekly found that the Los Angeles Unified School District spent$3.5 million trying to fire seven teachers for poor classroom performance.  Only four of the seven were eventually fired at the end of their union-mandated appeals process, which dragged on for an average of five years at an average cost of $875,000 per fired teacher.  Despite blowing through enormous sums of education funding, Los Angeles public schools graduated just 44% of its high school students in 2006, making it one of the worst-performing school districts in America.  Graduation rates in Los Angeles have since improved, but only after the Democrat-controlled California Department of Education changed its formula for determining graduation requirements.

Inexcusably sorry public schools in Democrat-run cities are nothing new.   They’ve existed continually for the last half-century, with millions of minority students left unprepared to succeed in later life.

The High Cost (to Students) of Bad Teachers

Just as it’s true that good teachers can have an extraordinarily positive impact on the future lives of their students, it’s also true that bad teachers can cause lasting harm to the futures of their students.

According to a study cited by Eric A. Hanushek, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, “a high-value-added teacher in grades 4-8 has a noticeable impact on subsequent long-term outcomes, including college attendance, earnings and family creation.”  How can young adults who were stuck with sub-standard teachers in the public schools they attended possibly do well in later life?  To be fair, socio-economics also plays a role in poor outcomes, but which party is responsible for the welfare-for-votes policies that inevitably lead to broken homes, generational poverty and chronic despair?

School Choice to the Rescue

How can our society help urban students get out of rotten public schools, and into the same kind of safe, high-performing private academies attended by children of affluent families?  The surest way is through federally-funded school choice vouchers.

Unfortunately, the mutually back-scratching alliance between Democrats and teachers unions blocks school choice at every turn.  In doing so, their unholy confederation wreaks unmitigated havoc on inner city communities by robbing generations of urban children of a realistic shot at a decent education.

Although Democrats and teachers unions know better, they say private schools aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.  Anyone who thinks that should ask the two brothers in the video below.  Their story should be the story of every disadvantaged child in America.

© All rights reserved.

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University of Florida pro-Palestinian group falsely accuses ‘Zionists’ of ‘ethnic cleansing’ Palestinians from 1947 to 1949

None of that really happened, of course. Nor did any of Ihmoud’s other claims. Israeli troops did not engage in “systematic massacres and evictions during the destruction of Palestinian villages in 1948.” As The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process shows, the Arabs, for the most part, left Israel because they were ordered to do so by Muslim Arab leaders. The Arab Higher Committee actually exhorted Arabs to leave the new State of Israel, and they obeyed in large numbers.

This action had been contemplated for a considerable period: in May 1946, fully two years before the State of Israel proclaimed its independence, Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam, secretary-general of the Arab League, stated that “Arab circles proposed to evacuate all Arab women and children from Palestine and send them to neighboring countries, to declare ‘Jehad’ and to consider Palestine a war zone.”

When the war came, many of the Arab Muslims left of their own accord, to the consternation of others who were determined to wage jihad. The Arab newspaper Ash Sha’ab, based in Jaffa, lamented on January 30, 1948, that “the first group of our fifth column consists of those who abandon their houses and businesses and go to live else- where…. At the first sign of trouble they take to their heels to escape sharing the burden of struggle [jihad].”

Others left because the plan to get the Arabs out of harm’s way until the Jews were destroyed and Israel was defeated was being implemented. The Economist magazine reported on October 3, 1948: “Of the 62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa not more than 5,000 or 6,000 remained. Various factors influenced their decision to seek safety in flight. There is but little doubt that the most potent of the factors were the announcements made over the air by the Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to quit…. It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades.”

The Jordanian daily Falastin complained on February 19, 1949, that “the Arab state which had encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help these refugees.”

The Near East Arabic Broadcasting Station confirmed this on April 3, 1949: “It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees’ flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem.” The Egyptian daily Akhbar el Yom on October 12, 1963, reported that the grand mufti had issued the same call to Arabs to leave: “The 15th May, 1948, arrived…. On that day the mufti of Jerusalem appealed to the Arabs of Palestine to leave the country, because the Arab armies were about to enter and fight in their stead.”

The Jordanian daily Al Urdun reported on April 9, 1953: “For the flight and fall of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their dissemination of rumors exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs…. By spreading rumors of Jewish atrocities, killings of women and children etc., they instilled fear and terror in the hearts of the Arabs in Palestine, until they fled leaving their homes and properties to the enemy.”

 

“U. of Florida Pro-Palestine Club Posts Antisemitic Messages to Social Media,” by Tom Ciccotta, Breitbart, May 17, 2020:

The University of Florida’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine posted several antisemitic messages on Instagram this week. The group previously came under fire after they were accused of hurling antisemitic remarks at a campus guest lecturer from the Israeli Defense Force.

The Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Florida came under fire this week for a post on Instagram that accused “Zionist forces” of engaging in an “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians between 1947 and 1949.

“Rooted in 19th century Zionist thought that called for the est. of a Jewish state on indigenous Palestinian land. Passed in Nov. 1947, UN Resolution 181 divided land between Palestinians and Jews. In March 1948, the Plan Dalet military strategy enforced by Israeli Parliamentary force that called for the “destruction of villages,’” the Instagram post from Friday reads.

Student protesters from the Students for Justice in Palestine reported hurled anti-semitic remarks at guest lecturer Yoni Michanie, an Israeli Defense Force reserve member during an event in November. The protesters reported called Michanie a “Nazi” and a “war criminal” during the event. Michanie shared a video from the event on Twitter in November….

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The CDC’s Guidelines for Back-to-School Under COVID Sound Traumatizing

Parents may prefer to continue homeschooling and distance learning.


When schools reopen in the US amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, they will be even more restrictive than they already were. Schools have long controlled students’ movements and imposed constraints on where they can go, when, and with whom. With virus concerns, those controls will increase in quantity and intensity.

NPR recently proclaimed that “disruption from the pandemic constitutes an ‘adverse childhood experience’ for every American child.” While many children are sad to be away from their friends and activities, being home with their family members for a prolonged period of time is hardly an “adverse childhood experience” for most American children. Returning to schools with extreme virus control and social distancing measures, however, could very well be traumatic for many kids.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued its recommendations for school reopening, including encouraging daily temperature checks and/or symptom checking, face coverings for all staff and children over two, desks spaced six feet apart, staggered schedules, no cafeteria or playground use, installed partitions and physical barriers, no field trips, no toy sharing, and restrictions on outside visitors, including parents.

As images emerge from countries around the world that have reopened schools, US parents are getting a glimpse of what extreme social distancing measures could look like here, including the latest from Chinese schools in which social distancing “wings” are strapped onto children’s backs to ensure that they stay far apart from each other. It’s no wonder that a new RealClear opinion poll found that 40 percent of parents intend to choose homeschooling or virtual schooling for their children when the lockdowns end. And many European parents are refusing to send their children back to school.

These strict social distancing efforts at schools arise as more evidence suggests that children are largely spared from the dangers of COVID-19 infection. Even as concerns have risen recently over a Kawasaki-like inflammatory disease related to COVID-19 that has impacted some children, the risk appears miniscule. According to The Wall Street Journal:

A study in the journal Lancet last week reported 10 children with the inflammatory syndrome in Bergamo, Italy—the city with the highest rate of fatalities and infections—about 30 times higher than the normal incidence. Most were older and suffered more severe cardiac symptoms than those typically found with Kawasaki. But the authors also estimated that probably no more than 0.1% of children who had been exposed to the virus were affected. All hospitalized patients had been discharged, and the authors recommend treating patients with steroids to calm their immune system.

The Journal article goes on to state:

During these times parents and doctors need to be especially vigilant. But as a society we also need to keep in mind that the risks to children from the coronavirus are small, especially relative to others. The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity projects that children under 15 are 6.83 to 20.07 times more likely to die of the flu or pneumonia than coronavirus—assuming 150,000 COVID-19 fatalities in the U.S. this year—and 128 times more likely to die of an accident.

We should care deeply about children’s health and safety, but like much about this pandemic, it’s important to make sure that the response isn’t more damaging than the virus itself. Many parents and educators are rightfully concerned about children’s mental health during these lockdowns, but when lockdowns end and schools reopen, children’s mental health could be worsened with extreme social distancing measures that remove any of the potentially enjoyable pieces of schooling, such as playground time, extracurriculars, and gathering with friends.

Stripped of these accessories that can often compensate for the more oppressive parts of conventional schooling, it’s not surprising that some parents and students would choose to continue with homeschooling or virtual learning until the pandemic ends.

COLUMN BY

Education in Kosovo

Primary education is provided for students here. It consists of schooling from grade one through five. This is a requirement by law for all children and students enroll at the age of six. The second component of education is the lower secondary educational system, which is usually for teens around 12 to 15 years of age. It provides education through grade nine. This is publicly funded and free of charge.

From here, students move on to secondary education. This is either professional education or general education. Most students spend three to four years at this level. This level of education is not a requirement under law, though. Most students who enroll in it do so to learn trades and skills that they will use to build their careers and lives with. These schools have a goal to prepare students for vocational work directly out of school or to prepare them to enter university.

Higher Education in Kosovo

Much of the country is rebuilding and reorganizing. This includes the educational system in the country. Universities and educational institutions provide higher education in Kosovo. Both private and public schools are available here at this level. Students are able to earn an associate’s degree, which generally takes under two years to complete in a specialized area of study, a bachelor’s degree, which takes between three and four years to complete, or a masters degree, which can add an additional two to three years of education on. Post graduate education to earn a PhD is also available. Many students enroll in these programs part time, though full time education is still widely available as well.

It is important to note that many of the schools, under the guidance of the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology is being altered. The goal is to align the educational system along the lines of other European countries.

The Best Universities in Kosovo:

  • University of Pristina, located in the city of Pristina as a public university
  • AAB University, located in the city of Pristina as a non-public university

Each of these schools set the requirements for enrollment both at the domestic and the international level. Students generally will need to apply directly to the school to learn about qualifications and costs for tuition. These can range significantly with private schools tending to be more expensive than public universities. International students are welcoming, though, at both.

Travel Visa Requirements

Once you decide to obtain your education in Kosovo, you can apply to enroll in one of the universities. Once you do that, you can obtain the required student travel visa. An application with the Kosovo government, though a consulate or embassy can help students to do so, is required. A fee is paid at this time. The individual must also submit a letter from the school indicating their acceptance into the program of student, as well as information about the student’s living arrangements.

Students will need to show they have financial stability enough to live in the country and support themselves while doing so. The country does not provide health insurance to international students. Purchasing a policy from a third party is often a good idea, though a student who enrolls in a travel package may already obtain this.

Universities in Kosovo are trying their best to try to encourage overseas students to study in Kosovo, in their capacities. There much to be done in this regard, but the interest from international students is there.

For example, at AAB University, there are many interested students from abroad who want to study there. The two main faculties, in which they enroll, are: Computer Science Faculty and English language and Literature Faculty.

Local students are very much interested to study abroad, to experience the European dream. This is done by different exchange programs, such as: Erasmus+. Their interest and willing to study abroad is to gain knowledge, come back and implement and serve that knowledge to their country.

©All rights reserved.

Scottsdale Community College Censors Islamic Terror Course Material

Scottsdale Community College (SCC) failed to serve as scholars in an academic institution when the college buckled to local Muslim pressure surrounding three quiz questions.

Teaching a course on Islamic terrorism, Dr. Nicholas Damask, who wrote his doctoral thesis on the subject and has taught at Scottsdale Community College for 24 years, asked the following questions in a class quiz:

  1. Who do terrorists strive to emulate? (Answer: Mohammed)
  2. Where is terrorism encouraged in Islamic doctrine and law? (Answer: The Medina verses [i.e., the portion of the Qur’an traditionally understood as having been revealed later in Muhammad’s prophetic career])
  3. Terrorism is _______ in Islam. (Answer: Justified within the context of jihad.)

A Muslim student raised offense with the professor over the questions and, after a couple of private emails back and forth, the student initiated a social media campaign against Damask.

Forty-eight hours later, the death threats got so bad that the professor and his wife, along with their eight-year-old grandson and 85-year-old parents went into hiding.

Instead of upholding the right to academic freedom, Scottsdale Community College threw the professor under the bus.

In a online statement (see below), the college’s president, Christina Haines, not only apologized for the quiz questions, she said the questions would be removed from future tests and the student would receive full credit for the quiz:

“SCC deeply apologizes to the student and to anyone in the broader community who was offended by the material. SCC Administration has addressed with the instructor the offensive nature of the quiz questions and their contradiction to the college’s values. The instructor will be apologizing to the student shortly, and the student will receive credit for the three questions. The questions will be permanently removed from any future tests.”

As he made clear to the college from even before the statement was issued, Damask has no intention of apologizing. In his own statement, Damask said, “All quiz questions on each of my quizzes, including the ones in question here, are carefully sourced to the reading material. On this quiz, questions were sourced to the Qur’an, the hadiths, and the sira (biography) of Mohammed, and other reputable source material.”

Commenting on the quiz questions and the case in general, Muslim reformer and Clarion’s National Correspondent Shireen Qudosi, writes:

As I shared in my 2016 Congressional Testimony on Radical Islam, the answers to these questions depends on who you ask. It depends on which groups are in question, which version of Islam is being practiced, and how terrorism is defined by the group in question and whether they feel the practice is validated by faith.”

“And as my colleague Dr. Zuhdi Jasser and I discussed in a University of Minnesota Town Hall last year along with Asra Nomani, there are many difficult questions [about Islam] and they deserve an honest conversation.

“In an event themed “Honoring Islam by Asking ‘Appalling Questions,‘” we took on some of the toughest questions from the audience, and when necessary, we listened.

“These questions don’t deserve to be shut down. If the question is felt to be incorrectly stated or misleading, then it’s an opportunity for us as Muslims to reshape the question or ask more questions around it.

“Islam has a rich history of dialogue and debates that have shaped the evolution of faith. Only in the last few generations have those debates been shut down in part due to the growth of an Islamist influence and in part due to their unwittingly Western liberal accomplices.

“As a Muslim Reformer, I say it’s an act of faith to have the most difficult conversations possible. Those conversations are my heritage as a Muslim. They’re also what have kept me tethered to my faith, strengthening my resolve that the problem isn’t Islam — it’s Muslims, including those who like shutting down questions.

“Whether that kill switch is activated through exile or death (during the most violent periods in history) or it’s done through the psychological violence of censorship, the result is the same:

  • Death of inquiry
  • Death of free will
  • Death of opportunity to grow closer to God by using the intellect commanded of us in scripture.

“Furthermore, as Dr. Jasser points out in a statement, Dr. Damask is a respected scholar who earned a PhD in political science and a master’s in international relations from American University. Dr. Damask’s dissertation was on terrorism and its funding in the mid-90s.

“Dr. Jasser’s statement also breaks down the timeline of this incident, which he describes as ‘social media instigated cultural terrorism.’

“That cultural terrorism was initiated by what I would called ignorant belligerence when the unnamed student responded to the quiz questions with an email saying,

“‘You have insulted my religion … I’m sick to my stomach.’

“Dr. Jasser’s statement describes the exchange between Dr. Damask as he attempts to engage the student with respect to no avail.

“As a Muslim who comes from a culture of violence against free speech ignited by toxic behavior — which results in everything from psychological abuse to violent murder over interpreted offense of religion — hearing a phrase like “you have insulted my religion,” absolutely terrifies me, because I know exactly the frame of mind of that person:

  1. They have shut down all rational faculties.
  2. They’re operating from the amygdala, the part of the brain associated with primitive animal instincts such as fear and anger (again confirming that this is no longer a rational actor).
  3. This is not someone who has studied Islam. This is someone with immense personal insecurities who has clutched onto religion as a protective identity marker. When that identity is threatened, they become threatening.
  4. This is someone who, based on behavior patterns of others that have said similar phrases before erupting in violence, would feel comfortable being a bystander to violence, or initiating and partaking in it to protect their world view and interpretation of reality.
  5. This is someone dangerous. This is not someone who needs college; they need a deradicalization program.

In his statement, Jasser not only pointed out the “unprofessional and incompetent conduct of the school’s top administration” in handling the complaint but how the school’s response only added “fuel to the fire,” especially in light of the fact that within 48 hours of the story going public, the professor and his family were forced to flee their home.

Jasser also noted the negative impact this case will have on future academic freedom at Scottsdale Community College and other institutions. Most tellingly, Jasser asked:

Should the Muslim community be treated like adults or infantilized and coddled after every one of their tantrums? What’s the impact of that bigotry of low expectations upon general radicalization? 

Jasser interviewed Damask on his podcast “Reform This!” You can listen to the podcast titled “Snowflake College” by clicking here.

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