Indoctrinating Students at Temple University
On January 9 and 10, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives will hold a new round of hearings at Temple University on the question of political advocacy in the classrooms of the state’s public universities. The hearings are the result of HR177, a resolution passed by the House last July calling for the formation of a Select Committee to inform the legislature of the state of intellectual diversity and academic freedom in Pennsylvania higher education.
In the introductory section of the course,The Social Construction of Race: Racism and White Privilege, Gilbert uses a number of readings that indict the U.S. as a locus classicus of systemic, institutional racism. One required reading, Peggy McIntosh White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack summarizes the view Gilbert embraces: It seems to me that obliviousness about white advantage, like obliviousness about male advantage, is kept strongly inculturated in the United States so as to maintain the myth of meritocracy, the myth that democratic choice is equally available to all. Keeping most people unaware that freedom of confident action is there for just a small number of people props up those in power and serves to keep power in the hands of the same groups that have most of it already. On one Internet forum, an anonymous Temple student who took Gilberts course had this to say: I had one class this semester [Urban Society: Race, Class, and Gender in the City in which the professor compared, amongst other things, not allowing gays to marry and homophobia to the Nazi holocaust and fear of Jews which killed over 11 million people. The professors are out of control... [Gilbert] obviously has an agenda that she is pushing as well as flipping out if anyone challenges her in class. It seems ridiculous to me that I am REQUIRED by the university to take this class, as it is not presented in an unbiased fashion and does not allow descending opinions. I cannot prove, but I will assert that students who do speak against her in class receive lower grades than those who just go along with her little game and don’t challenge what she says.// Operation Wetback Revisited — It was 1931. The administration of President Herbert Hoover backed a policy that would repatriate hundreds of thousands of Mexican Americans, more than half of them United States citizens. Up to 2 million people of Mexican ancestry were relocated to Mexico during the 1930s, even though as many as 1.2 million were born in the United States. In California, some 400,000 Latino United States citizens or legal residents were forced to leave. Now California, for its part, wants to say it is sorry… On Sunday, Senate Bill 670 – the so-called “Apology Act for the 1930s Mexican Repatriation Program” – becomes official. It acknowledges the suffering of tens of thousands of Latino families unjustly forced out of the Golden State that was their home.// Wacky Pat Robertson More Zionist Than Sharon — Israel has suspended contact with evangelist Pat Robertson for suggesting Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s stroke was divine punishment for withdrawing from the Gaza Strip. The controversy has cast doubt on plans for a Christian tourism center that would showcase the growing flow of money and influence from U.S. church groups. The decision, announced Wednesday by Israeli officials, does not affect other Christian groups that also consider it their spiritual duty to support Israel as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Israeli leaders see the Christian allies as tireless lobbyists in Washington and elsewhere. The evangelicals also funnel millions of dollars each year to Jewish settlers in the West Bank and — before last year’s pullout — the Gaza Strip. ”You read the Bible and he says’This is my land,’ and for any prime minister of Israel who decides he is going to carve it up and give it away, God says, ‘No, this is mine.”’ Robertson is leading a group of evangelicals who have pledged to raise $50 million to build the Christian Heritage Center in Israel’s northern Galilee region, where tradition says Jesus lived and taught. Under a tentative agreement, Robertson’s group was to put up the funding, while Israel would provide land and infrastructure. Hirchson had predicted it would draw up to 1 million pilgrims a year, generate $1.5 billion in spending and support about 40,000 jobs. But the fate of the project is now in question, said Ido Hartuv, spokesman for the tourism ministry. “We will not do business with him, only with other evangelicals who don’t back these comments,” Hartuv said. “We will do business with other evangelical leaders, friends of Israel, but not with him.”// TNB Baltimore Po-lice: WBAL-TV 11 News reported the testimony revealed that a 22-year-old woman claimed the officers gave her a choice: either go to jail for possession of marijuana, or have sex with a police officer to avoid charges. An affidavit in the case, in part, reads: “He asked, ‘What are you willing to do to stay out of jail?’” And, “The officer was trying to get them to have sex with all three officers.” According to police documents, the alleged victim said she “agreed to have sex for her freedom” and that Officer Jemini Jones “removed a condom from the lower drawer of the first left desk in the office and took her into a smaller attached office.” The documents indicate the alleged sexual intercourse took place in the smaller attached office. The warrant issued for the officers’ arrests indicates that “a police desk containing condoms and fingerprints belonging to victim, as well as bodily fluids and hairs belonging to a victim,” were confiscated.
According to police documents, a search of some police officers’ lockers at the Southwestern District station turned up substances that authorities suspect to be marijuana, heroin and cocaine. No drug charges have been filed so far in this case. The police department confirmed earlier in the week that it has launched an internal investigation into the officers, but declined commenting on the case. The officers had been suspended with pay pending the outcome of the investigation. // TNB – Marion Barry: D.C. Council member Marion Barry tested positive for cocaine use in the fall in a drug test ordered by a court after he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor tax charges, according to two sources familiar with Barry’s case. Barry, who served four terms as mayor and was elected to the Ward 8 council seat in 2004, has since begun treatment for drug use, the sources said, but Barry’s failure to pass the mandatory drug test puts him in legal jeopardy. Because he violated the terms of his release, Barry, 69, faces an increased risk of serving the maximum 18 months behind bars — rather than probation — for his failure to file tax returns for six years. He is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 8, but a federal judge could jail him or sanction him at any time. Barry, interviewed last night in his Howard University Hospital room, where he’s being treated for hypertension, said he did not deny accounts of his drug test and treatment but declined to discuss his case. “Write what you want to write,” he told a Washington Post reporter. “That’s my official quote. No more, no less.” // Two Men Charged In Slayings of 7 in Richmond Homes
Police Suspect Robbery Was Motive In Attacks on Two Families Last Week: Two 28-year-old men have been charged with the killings of seven people in Richmond. The victims, including two children, were members of two Richmond families who were slain this month in their homes, police said. Ricky Gray, who grew up in Arlington, and Ray J. Dandridge, whose address was listed by police as unknown, remained in custody yesterday in Philadelphia, where officers aided by a SWAT team captured them Saturday at a house. Gray and Dandridge could be extradited to Virginia as early as today, authorities said. Richmond Police Chief Rodney D. Monroe said police found members of one of the families — Percyell Tucker, 55, his wife, Mary Baskerville, 47, and her daughter Ashley Baskerville, 21 — dead Friday night at their home in the 3400 block of Broad Rock Road. The house had been ransacked, and several items were taken, including the family’s car, a police report said.
Police said they quickly tied those killings to the New Year’s Day slayings of Bryan Harvey, 49, his wife, Kathryn, 39, and their daughters, Stella, 9, and Ruby, 4, in their home in the 800 block of West 31st Street. All seven victims had been bound, police said. They said the Harveys’ throats were cut and their home set on fire. Police have not said how Tucker and the Baskervilles were killed. // TJB – Swastika Scam: A French woman who alleged she had been the subject of an anti-Semitic attack invented the story, police sources say. The alleged admission came shortly after the she was taken into custody – four days after the alleged assault on a train in the suburbs of Paris. The 23-year-old woman said six men cut her clothes and drew swastikas on her body, assuming that she was Jewish. The woman has been detained for falsely reporting a crime, state prosecutor Xavier Salvat told AFP news agency. She could face up to six months in prison and a 7,500-euro ($9,200) fine if convicted. The case sparked widespread condemnation amid concern that racist and anti-Semitic attacks are on the rise in France.