(Photo: TheBlaze TV)

It is a truth generally accepted that college campuses are mildly if not extremely left-leaning.  Students who arrive undecided (or even somewhat conservative) often leave as committed Democrats, berated by their peers and pressured by their professors into holding certain opinions.

On TheBlaze TV Thursday night, a group of conservative college students spoke about the challenges they’ve faced, and about the broader issues facing the country through their unique perspective.

Some were concerned about the IRS targeting conservative groups, wondering, if they’re targeting larger organizations, what would stop them from targeting individuals?

One girl jokingly asked if the IRS is allowed to “plead the 5th,” if she can as well when it comes time to pay her taxes?

In a “question and answer” segment with Glenn Beck, one student asked Beck if he had any advice for an aspiring journalist who is conservative.

You probably couldn’t have predicted Beck’s response.  Find out, below:

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Editor’s note: For TheBlaze Magazine‘s June cover story, Assistant Editor Sharon Ambrose dug into the history and success of — and Progressive attacks on — home-schooling.

What she found was, despite a history of proven great accomplishment in the home-education movement, the Left continues to wage war on home-schoolers. And these attacks aren’t new.

Progressives first made the case in the early 20th century that government control trumps the rights of parents. What will the assault look like in the 21st century?

Every issue of TheBlaze Magazine contains exclusive content not found anywhere else — online or in print. The magazine’s stories, research and special reports are reserved for subscribers to the print and/or digital edition.

Below are a few excerpts from the June 2013 cover story, “Government Rule vs. Home-School: Parental Guidance Not Suggested.” Get the full story only in the June issue of TheBlaze Magazine.

Click here to get a FREE issue today!

Angie Blad never planned on home-schooling her children.

The Nebraska mother of six sent her kids to the local public schools without a second thought. That is until her son, then in first grade, was not allowed to participate in a classroom learning game because he was winning too much. Instead of participating, the teacher had him sit in a rocking chair while the other students engaged in the competition.

When Blad contacted the teacher, she was told that, because no advanced programming was available for students until third grade, her son would have to sit out sometimes to allow other students the chance to succeed. This incident led Blad and her husband to start considering home-schooling as an option. That was three years ago. Today, while one of Blad’s children remains in a special education public school program, the other five are being educated at home.

Stories like Blad’s are becoming more common throughout the country as parents are choosing to teach their children at home. …

About 1.5 million children are home-schooled, according to the U.S. Census bureau based on information gathered in 2007. Home-school advocates like the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) pegs the number closer to 2 million as of 2010 and estimates that the population grows every year by 2 percent to 8 percent.

Despite its growing popularity, it may be surprising that home-schooling was considered illegal in most states a mere 30 years ago. The path of legalizing home-schooling in the U.S. can serve as a valuable case study as to how average Americans working together can create big changes.

MODERN HISTORY OF HOME-SCHOOLING

From the founding of the United States until 1900, child education laws were weak and rare, but starting in the early 20th century, compulsory education laws began sweeping across the country with strong public support.

School attendance laws were a natural follow up to newly enacted child labor laws. If children were not allowed to work, sending them to school made sense to parents. Urban families saw education as a way for their children to secure their positions within the middle class. And rural families already had a pro-education culture in place. Thanks to the mechanization of farming, rural families had more free time to dedicate to education. Parents in farming communities understood that their children would escape to the cities for an education or a job, so many rural towns had local schools already in place to keep their children close to home. Additionally, since rural schools were established with the norms and values of the local community, religious families tended to be some of the strongest supporters of the compulsory laws. … By 1918, every state in the union had laws on the books requiring children to enroll in formal schooling. In typical Progressive fashion, compulsory school laws and regulations expanded rapidly in scope.

[...]

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EDUCATION CHOICE ON THE LEFT AND THE RIGHT

Home-schooling continued to be a rare event in America until the 1970s when the upward trend began, with growth in the movement coming from two very different groups: far-Left activists and the religious Right.

Leftist hippies disenfranchised from not being able to have a larger impact on American culture headed to communes. These small communities emphasized a life of collective living, open marriages and liberal drug use. Thanks to the influence of Leftist home-schooling advocate John Holt, children reared in these communes were kept out of public school so to avoid becoming part of the establishment. Among his many philosophies, Holt argued that children should be treated as adults and could choose the best way to learn for themselves. Holt’s argument resonated with liberals, and commune children were generally raised with few rules or expectations. Most communes faded out by the 1980s, but the concept of rejecting the “status quo” of education was an idea that Americans from both sides of the political spectrum could embrace.

Home-schooling by conservative Christians in the ’70s and ’80s was part of a larger response from lessons learned in the ’60s. Studies from the early 1960s indicated that religious conservatives were the least likely citizens to be involved in politics since faith leadership encouraged social change exclusively through the church. While radical hippies may have felt like they did not influence the culture enough, their impact on American society did frighten Christians into becoming politically active. … This new political awareness led parents to take a second look at their children’s curriculum.

[...]

CRITICS SLAM FAMILY MORALS AND BELIEFS

Independently teaching children at home does have bold critics, mostly from the Progressive Left. Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s family was personally attacked by Bill Maher, host of HBO’s “Real Time.” “Rick Santorum home-schools his children because he does not want them eating that f**king apple,” Maher said on his show in 2012. “He wants them locked up in the Christian madrassa that is the family living room not out in public where they could be infected by the virus of reason.”

Leon Wieseltier of The New Republic wrote in 2012 that home-schooling is “the demented idea that children can be competently taught by people whose only qualifications for teaching them are love and a desire to keep them from the world—constitutes another insult to the great profession of pedagogy.”

Even though the radical Leftists of the 1960s helped to ignite the home-schooling trend, today’s Progressives are being discouraged from home-schooling their own. Slate’s Dana Goldstein made the left-wing Progressive stance perfectly clear in a 2012 article titled, “Liberals, Don’t Homeschool Your Kids: Why Teaching Children at Home Violates Progressive Values.” She argued that “government is the only institution with the power and scale to intervene in the massive undertaking of better educating American children.”

[...]

George Washington University Law professor Catherine J. Ross wrote in a 2010 scholarly article that “in order for the norm of tolerance to survive across generations, society need not and should not tolerate the inculcation of absolutist views that undermine tolerance of difference.” She added, “The state can and should limit the ability of intolerant home-schoolers to inculcate hostility to difference in their children.”

Law professor Martha Albertson Fineman of Emory University wrote in 2009, “The risk that parents or private schools unfairly impose hierarchical or oppressive beliefs on their children is magnified by the absence of state oversight or the application of any particular educational standards. The more appropriate suggestion for our current educational dilemma is that public education should be mandatory and universal.”

Where will home education go from here? Get the whole truth on home-schooling and the Progressive Left’s efforts to undermine and destroy the successful movement only in the pages of the June 2013 issue of TheBlaze Magazine.

Click here to get a FREE issue today!

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Math teacher Rhonda Crosswhite (Photo Credit: MSNBC)

On Tuesday, we told you about Rhonda Crosswhite, a brave, sixth-grade teacher at Plaza Tower Elementary School in Moore, Oklahoma. While she has spoken openly with media about her experience comforting students during the tornado, one of her admissions is particularly interesting.

“I did the teacher thing that we’re probably not supposed to do. I prayed — and I prayed out loud,” she said in an interview with NBC News following the violent storm.

Considering her situation at the time of the invocation, it’s understandable why Crosswhite risked facing criticism and potential claims that she violated the separation of church and state. Her life — and the lives of the children she was protecting — hung in the balance.

As the violent storm raged, the teacher found herself in a bathroom stall with six children. With the kids crying and appealing to her for protection, she openly addressed the Lord, saying, “God please don’t take these kids today.”

Previously, TheBlaze reported that Crosswhite had draped her body over the students inside of the stall, comforting them during their time of need. In addition to assuring the children that they would be fine, she also exhibited courage and bravery, telling reporters that, throughout the experience, she never thought she was going to die.

Watch Crosswhite discuss her prayer, below:

Previously, the teacher said that she had asked God to “take care of” her kids. But Crosswhite’s admission that she did something that she’s “probably not supposed to do” as a teacher opens up some fascinating discussion and debate about prayer in public schools.

Last year, TheBlaze explored this issue in-deph. The results of a poll we conducted among readers were fascinating. When asked whether it is appropriate for public school teachers to lead prayer in the classroom, the majority of readers who participated in the poll answered affirmatively. While 54 percent contend that it is appropriate, 46 percent claim that it is not (1,658 individuals answered this question).

Read more about the poll here and let us know your views on Crosswhite’s invocation. Was it appropriate? Should prayer be more welcomed in public schools? Let us know in the comments section, below.

–

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Hedin’s offense? He apparently encourages students to read books by scientists, journalists and proponents who embrace intelligent design. The description of his course, as reported by World on Campus, claims that students will “investigate physical reality and the boundaries of science for any hidden wisdom within this reality which may illuminate the central questions of the purpose of our existence and the meaning of life.”

Screen shot from the Ball State University website

While the course, “Inquiries in Physical Sciences,” is an elective, that hasn’t stopped critics like University of Chicago professor Jerry Coyne, in addition to the FFRF, from speaking out against it as an alleged violation of the separation of church and state. In addition to sharing pages from the course syllabus on his blog, he wrote:

Note the numinous implications, especially the course objective to consider the implications of physics, life, and consciousness for “indications of the nature and existence of God.” As you’ll see, the syllabus is clearly slanted to show that scientific phenomena do indeed provide evidence for God.

Note that  on page 2 (below), the course outline itself, the students are to discuss theistic evolution, intelligent design, irreducible complexity, and, for crying out loud, “miracles and spirituality!” There’s also “Beauty, complex and specified information, and intelligent design: what the universe communicates about God.”

Professor Eric Hedin (Photo Credit: Ball State University)

Not everyone agrees with Coyne, though. Despite having negative comments to throw Hedin’s way (he called him a “dingbat professor”), PZ Myers, a biologist at the University of Minnesota who is also an atheist, defended the professor’s right to tout and explore unpopular ideas in the classroom. After all, isn’t that what academic freedom is all about?

“Academic freedom is the issue here, and professors have to have the right to teach unpopular, controversial issues, even from an ignorant perspective,” Myers wrote, going on to place the course — and the situation — in context. “The first amendment does not apply; this is not a course students are required to take, and it’s at a university, which students are not required to attend. It’s completely different from a public primary or secondary school. A bad course is an ethical problem, not a legal one. It’s also an issue that the university has to handle internally.”

The FFRF, though, an atheist-activist mouthpiece, is siding more with Coyne’s camp, as the group’s letter sparked an investigation by school administrators — an inquiry that was launched just one day after the atheist group’s letter of complaint was received. While the university did not cite Hedin’s name in its response, it was clear who was being referred to.

“The university received a complaint from a third party late yesterday afternoon about content in a specific course offered at Ball State. We take academic rigor and academic integrity very seriously,” read an official response from Ball State. “Having just received these concerns, it is impossible to comment on them at this point. We will explore in depth the issues and concerns raised and take the appropriate actions through our established processes and procedures.”

What do you think about the debate — and the university’s response? Let us know in the comments section.

(H/T: World on Campus)

–

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What will the assault look like in the 21st century?

Plus, meet new brand of artists who are drawing upon faith and freedom to give a traditional tone to modern art and send a message about the America they love.

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“I’m very pleased to announce this morning that the era of CSCOPE lesson plans has come to an end,” he said.

Patrick’s office issued the following statement:

Press Release on defeat of CSCOPE in Austin

During the press conference, Dr. Kyle Wargo, a board member of the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative (TESCCC) — CSCOPE’s governing board — made it clear: “CSCOPE is no longer doing lessons,period.”

“One size does not fit all. Those lessons, every lesson, needs to be developed on a local level,” he added.

State Senator Donna Campbell,  a member or the Senate Education Committee looking into CSCOPE, was obviously pleased with the day’s news.

Senator Patrick closed his remarks by thanking all parents who got involved in their children’s education and the state’s legislators who worked together to remove the controversial program from the education system.

In the past, CSCOPE had been linked to lessons such as asking if the Boston Tea Party was an act of terrorism.

Related:

• Was The Boston Tea Party An Acts of Terrorism? Texas Schools Are Teaching Just That
• Texas Announces Sweeping Changes To Controversial CSCOPE Education Program
• CSCOPE: Exposing the Nation’s Most Controversial Public School Curriculum System

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What will the assault look like in the 21st century?

Plus, meet new brand of artists who are drawing upon faith and freedom to give a traditional tone to modern art and send a message about the America they love.

The Blaze Magazine–June 2013: Contents

POWER TO THE PARENTS: THE FIGHT FOR HOME-SCHOOL RIGHTS
*Home education in America is a proven success. But home-school families still have to remain vigilant against Progressive attacks

PLUS:
*”Good” Art: A new brand of conservative artists are focusing on a larger, positive purpose
*The ladies on “The View” are now making the case for guns
*Pentagon blocks access to “hostile” Southern Baptist homepage
*Nick Searcy calls out media and Left for Ignoring Infanticide
*Democrat claim: Don’t call anti-amnesty Ted Cruz “Hispanic”
*At least the sequester didn’t stop the “important” projects
*Which states stand to lose the most under Obama’s planned Medicaid expansion

COVER STORY

• Government Rule vs. Home-School: Parental Guidance Not Suggested
  Even though America’s home-schooled students have proven that they are accomplished and successful, the Left continues to wage a battle against home education. And these attacks aren’t new. Progressives first made the case in the early 20th century that government control trumps the rights of parents. What will the assault look like in the 21st century?

FEATURE STORY

• Actually ‘Good’ Art
  The debate over what makes “good art” is never-ending. But what about art that serves a larger, positive purpose—art that is, indeed, good? A new brand of conservative artists are drawing upon faith, freedom and life to give a traditional tone to modern art and send a needed message about the America they love.

PROGRESSIVE TRACKER

• Keeping an Eye on ‘Those Guys’: Mika Brzezinski, Mike Barnicle, Joe Manchin, Harry Reid, Candy Crowley, Sheila Jackson Lee and more

FIREWIRE

• White House Kept Funneling Tax Money to Automaker Failing to Meet Requirements
• More Global Warming Means More Prostitution?
• Sequester Didn’t Stop ‘RoboSquirrel’
• Pentagon Blocks Access to Southern Baptist Homepage
• Facebook CEO’s New Political Group Runs Pro-Drilling Ads
• No More ‘Master Bedrooms’
• Luxury Auto CEO: Zero-Emission Cars Are ‘Nonsense’
• Gov’t Seeks More Access Private Online Communications
• Idaho May Demand Return of Federal Lands

HOLLYWOOD INSIDER

• ‘View’ Ladies Suddenly Pro-Gun?
• Stuart Smalley Taps Fellow Funnymen for $$$
• Pro-Life Celeb Throttles Left on Gosnell
• Media Cover Drunk Starlet, Ignore Gosnell Murder Trial
• Farmers Barred From ‘Gasland II’ Premiere
• Pro-Gore, Anti-Fracking Media Company Launching Cable Channel
• Sharon Stone: U.S. ‘Not Leading in Almost Anything Anymore,’ but ‘Obama Is Doing a Good Job’
• PC Killing Comedy
• Celebs: Let’s ‘Modify’ the Second Amendment
• Kid Rock: ‘Pick a Side’

IN THE HOT SEAT

• Joel Cheatwood: Making TheBlaze a Reality

WORTH 1,000 WORDS

• Federalism on the Rise
• Suddenly Pro-Gun When Danger Lurks
• Hill Leaders: Pelosi Best Known, Least Like

TOP 15

• Top 15 Biggest Losers in ObamaCare Medicaid Expansion

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A preschool aide in Hawaii has received a last warning about eating her own lunch, prepared by her husband, in front of students. (Photo: KITV/YouTube screenshot)

A teacher’s assistant at KCAA Preschools of Hawaii could lose her job over the organic, homemade lunches packed for her by her husband.

KITV-TV reported, according to school policy, teachers either have to eat the food provided by the school with the children or wait to eat whatever they brought separately on their 10-minute break away from the kids.

Carissa Lee O’Connell began eating raw, organic food to try and stifle allergies and colds from which she was suffering — and it worked. Lee O’Connell can continue to bring her lunches as long as they’re not eaten in front of the children.

“Definitely upsetting because I really enjoy being with the kids, having fun and seeing them every day,” Lee O’Connell told KITV-TV. “They’re making me eat my lunch away from everybody else just because my director feels uncomfortable about the situation.”

Lee O’Connell argues a 10-minute break isn’t always enough time for her to eat privately, compared to the designated 30 minutes with the children.

“It’s definitely a possibility,” said Lee O’Connell, “but it’s not to say that it’s guaranteed that during my break time I’m not going to have a personal issue that comes up, and I have to take care of that first before I can be able to sit down to eat.”

At KCAA meals are a learning experience. The school’s website states:

Meal time provides rich learning opportunities for young children who are exploring new foods and developing food preferences. Recognized “best practices” in the area of nutrition and the young child, and in accordance with national accreditation standards and the USDA CACFP program, in which we participate, KCAA provides all enrolled children a USDA-approved breakfast, lunch and snack to help ensure they receive the nutrition their growing bodies need to thrive.

We serve meals family style; staff eat with the children and extend the learning through meal time conversations about food items being served, such as where they come from, their color and texture.

Exposing children to new foods, those that are different than foods normally provided at home, is part of the wonderful world of preschool. We provide menu alternatives for staff and children with a variety of food allergies as well as those who are vegetarian.

O’Connell’s husband, Rick, said this restriction surprises him given that the school operates lunches with subsidies through the USDA Child Nutrition Program.

“So in other words, her tax dollars can go into a program that (children) are being fed with, but she can be ostracized for eating a certain way to maintain her health,” he told KITV. “She’s got a choice to either keep her job, or keep her health. That’s just a horrible choice for anybody to have to make.”

Watch KITV-TV’s full report:

(H/T: Daily Mail)

–

Related:

• USDA Pushes Calorie, Sodium Limits for School Lunches in New ‘Guidelines’ (See Them Here)
• Exclusive: 2nd Grade N.C. Mother Says Daughter’s School Replaced Lunch for Not Being Healthy Enough
• Guess What: Michelle Obama’s Lunch Program Isn’t Kosher for Some Jewish Schools

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The letter, which states it will ”serve as a blueprint for colleges and universities throughout the country to protect students from sexual harassment and assault,” says sexual harassment includes any “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature.” This can include physical advances, requests for sexual favors and “other verbal” conduct.

(Photo: Shutterstock.com)

It is this verbal portion that has some concerned.

In a piece for the Wall Street Journal, the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Greg Lukianoff, said the “implications for professors and students are enormous.”

He wrote:

An unsuccessful request for a date, or even assigning a potentially offensive book like “Lolita,” could now be construed as harassment. As attorney and civil libertarian Wendy Kaminer commented on The Atlantic’s website this week: “The stated goal of this policy is stemming discrimination, but the inevitable result will be advancing it, in the form of content-based prohibitions on speech.”

Lukianoff is also concerned that the “verbal” restrictions won’t be contained sexual harassment issues either, noting two cases in recent years where criticism of Islam was categorized as harassment.

“An obsession with political correctness and the expansion of bureaucracy on campus are key factors in the proliferation of such free-speech abuses,” Lukianoff wrote. “But the hidden force that pushes schools to overreact to offensive, or merely dissenting, speech is fear of liability and the federal government. A growing ‘risk-management’ industry—complete with regular conferences, conventions and consultants—has arisen from efforts by university administrators trying to avoid being sued for discrimination or harassment, and to avoid the costly investigations in which the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights specializes.”

Lukianoff also pointed out how the letter states that colleges are required to take action to reports of sexual harassment occurring both on- and off-campus, punishing the accused sometimes even “prior to the completion of the Title IX and Title IV investigation/resolution.”

Watch Reason TV’s report about the new “blueprint” letter, featuring Lukianoff:

In the video, Reason’s host asks whether a comment like “you’re looking hot today” could be considered harassment. Lukianoff said, according to the new letter, it could.

“…That’s the problem. It’s so board that it turns every single student and every single faculty member on campus, at least arguably, into harrassers,” Lukianoff said.

Since any university accepting any form of federal funding would need to adopt this definition of sexual harassment, Lukianoff said he hopes that this will be the last straw to cause them to push back against the “ridiculous legislation.”

According to a 2013 report by FIRE, 95.4 percent of public schools and 90.4 percent of private schools have policies that infringe upon free speech in some manner.

Read more of Lukianoff’s position in the Wall Street Journal here.

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Photo Credit: AP

NEW YORK (TheBlaze/AP) — Columbia University is seeking to change the terms of a fellowship that can only be awarded to white students from Iowa.

The Lydia C. Roberts Graduate Fellowship stipulates that money be given only to “a person of the Caucasian race.” The New York Daily News has more:

Lucy Drotning, the university’s associate provost, filed an affidavit in Manhattan Supreme Court last week to support a prior action made by the fund’s administrator, JPMorgan Chase Bank, claiming the racist provisions set in 1920 are grossly outdated.

“Circumstances have so changed from the time when the Trust was established” that complying with the restrictions are “impossible,” the filing says.

“Columbia University is now prohibited by law and University policy from discriminating on the basis of race.” [...]

Roberts left Columbia most of her $509,000 estate when she died in 1920 and created the highly restrictive fellowship. In addition to the “whites only” rule, Roberts fellows must be from Iowa, must not study law or several other fields, and must return to Iowa for two years after graduating.

As stated, university officials filed court papers last week seeking to change the race provisions of the bequest. The Daily News reports that Columbia hasn’t awarded the fellowship since 1997.

A Columbia spokesman didn’t return an email seeking comment Wednesday.

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Raymond Walters (Photo: University of Arkansas)

It’s graduation season and while most college grads in their early twenties grasp tightly onto their single major with perhaps a minor or two, an 18-year-old University of Arkansas student received his bachelor of science for triple majoring in mathematics, physics and economics.

But his impressive degrees and age aren’t all that makes Raymond Walter unique. Walter’s intense love of learning has helped him overcome some of the physical challenges that have been sent his way as he has a severe form of muscular dystrophy. Walter plans to go on to complete double doctoral degree in math and physics at UA as well.

“I really do just love learning,” Walter said, according to the university press release. “I like to learn as much as I can. I am willing to work and I want to work and learn. There’s an element of ability, for sure, but it wouldn’t mean much at all if I didn’t work as much as I do.”

Walter is intensely aware the severity of his condition. He said this is, in part, why he is trying to accomplish so much.

“I don’t anticipate living as long as usual,” Walter, who graduated high school at at 14, said. “In some respects, there is a lot of pressure to get as much done as I can. I don’t waste time.”

Symptoms of Duchenne muscular dystrophy include muscle degeneration, which can result in the loss of the ability to walk by age 12, and learning disabilities. Walter clearly doesn’t suffer from the latter of these but he does use a motorized wheelchair. As the disease progresses, the National Institute of Health states that trouble breathing and heart disease can begin as early as age 20.

Walter’s father, Hal, who is his primary caregiver and lived on the university campus with his son, said he works incessantly to achieve his goals.

“He goes to bed after midnight, every night,” Hal Walter said, according to the press release. “He doesn’t watch movies. He doesn’t play video games. He sits at his computer with two desks worth of books open for 12 to 14 hours a day. He works constantly.”

The Vice Provost for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Danny Pugh called Hal Walter his hero.

“He and his family have changed their entire life to support Ray’s academic pursuits, including his living and caring for Ray on our campus and returning to their farm every weekend to pack in five days of work in two.”

The family’s official homestead is three hours away from campus (one way) and the men traveled home each weekend for a visit.

In his graduate studies, Walter was honored with a Distinguished Doctoral Fellow award from the university, which amounts to at least $30,000 each year for up to four years, and won what the university calls a “highly competitive” $30,000 fellowship from the National Science Foundation.

(H/T: NeatORama)

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On Monday, the Times-Record reported that the religious symbols were officially taken off the walls in high school classrooms. The decision was made at a school board meeting on Monday — one that was widely attended by the local community. Christians came with Bible-based slogans on their cars and with t-shirts defending the presence of the Ten Commandments displays. Bibles, too, were brought to the meeting. But their efforts were naught.

Photo Credit: Freedom From Religion Foundation

Despite passionate views on the matter and a calculated effort to defend the plaques, the board inevitably told the audience that the decision to remove the displays had been made.

“They wish the Ten Commandments could remain in the classrooms. Unfortunately, it is my unpleasant job to tell you the situation is otherwise,” said school board attorney Jerry Richardson.

The student at the center of the debacle, who was previously unnamed but who was recently identified and profiled on the Friendly Atheist blog, set the removals in motion after he recently complained about the plaques. The high school junior, Gabe Pulliam, is a non-believer who purportedly felt uncomfortable by the presence of the religious symbols in public school classrooms. The Friendly Atheist has more about his story (read the rest here):

Gage, an atheist for several years now, sat in classrooms with these plaques since freshman year. It didn’t take long for him to realize that they were actually illegal. After browsing Reddit Atheism (where these kinds of stories are rampant) and looking at the FFRF’s website, he finally mustered up enough courage a couple of months ago to contact them. In order to offer some proof that this was really happening, he took a picture of one of the plaques in his Biology classroom when no one else was looking. FFRF took it from there and sent the district a complaint letter last week.

Things really picked up steam in the middle of the week after a friend of Gage’s found out what he had done and told a few others. Word spread quickly. In small town Oklahoma, Gage told me, little things can become big deals when they involve religion.

Pulliam has said that he is not attacking religion and that his only intent is “to help others so they can feel equal in a world, in a town.”

The FFRF, which sent a letter to the district on May 1, highlighting Pulliam’s grievances, released a statement on Monday, proclaiming that they are pleased with Muldrow Public Schools’ compliance.

“We are pleased the school administration has removed the Ten Commandments, in compliance with the Constitution. This is settled law,” said FFRF co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Public schools cannot advance or endorse religion.”

Both Richardson and Gaylor seemed to be pointing to a 1980 Supreme Court battle (Stone vs. Graham) over a Kentucky law that mandated the Ten Commandments be placed in public schools. The court ruled that it was unconstitutional.

Reaction from some students, parents and members of the community, though, struck a different tone. Some were disappointed and others hoped to see the Ten Commandments someday return to the school.

“The commandments have been there ever since I can remember, ever since elementary school,” said Blakely Palafox, a senior at the high school, according to KFSM-TV. “I think it’s actually kind of stupid to take away something so important to our school. Those Ten Commandments have been there forever.”

For now, the situation is settled.

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Graduating students are seen during the commencement ceremony at Ohio State University on May 5, 2013 in Columbus, Ohio. US President Barack Obama gave the commencement address. (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)

The Chronicle of Higher Education released new data Sunday on the total compensation of public college leaders in 2011-12, finding their salaries to have risen by nearly 5% on average in the last fiscal year.

Four presidents at public colleges took in over $1 million, the report found, and the median total compensation rose about 4.7 percent to $441,392.

Here’s what a screen shot of the top 5 earners looked like:

(Photo Credit: Chronicle of Higher Education)

And here is a list of the total compensation the top ten (an “x” indicates they are no longer president), via the Associated Press:

1. Graham Spanier (x), Pennsylvania State University, $2,906,721

2. Jay Gogue, Auburn University, $2,542,865

3. E. Gordon Gee, Ohio State University, $1,899,420

4. Alan Merten (x), George Mason University, $1,869,369

5. Jo Ann Gora, Ball State University, $984,647

6. Mary Sue Coleman, University of Michigan, $918,783

7. Charles Steger, Virginia Tech, $857,749

8. Mark Yudof, University of California, $847,149

9. Bernard Machen, University of Florida, $834,562

10. Francisco Cigarroa, University of Texas, $815,833

The report acknowledges that the total compensation of Penn State’s Graham B. Spanier isn’t quite comparable to the others because he “received most of his money in severance pay and deferred compensation, which is money he earned during his 16-year presidency that was not previously paid out.”

Spanier was fired in 2011 over his handling of the Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.

“By including deferred compensation Spanier earned over his 16 years as president, which was part of an existing contract, the Chronicle survey obviously is not comparing ‘apples to apples’ with annual salaries of other presidents,” a university spokeswoman told the Chronicle.

Still, the report is making news as students struggle with rising tuition costs and resign themselves to years of debt to pay for it all.

Jack Stripling, a senior reporter at the Chronicle of Higher Education who helped compile the report, commented: “There’s been a continual trend where we see more presidents crossing that million-dollar mark — the rich are getting richer.”

Click here to read the entire Chronicle of Higher Education report.

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NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — A task force of elected officials in Newtown on Friday recommended tearing down Sandy Hook Elementary School, the school where 20 first-graders and six educators were killed in December, and rebuilding on the same site.

The group of 28 town elected officials voted unanimously in favor of a plan that would construct a new building in the same location.

The proposal now goes to the local school board, which has final authority.

The panel had narrowed a list of choices to renovating or rebuilding on the school site or building a new school on property down the street. Each would cost between about $48 million and $60 million.

The 430 surviving students are attending a renovated school renamed Sandy Hook Elementary School in the neighboring town of Monroe.

Officials had said that whatever choice is made, a new or renovated school wouldn’t be ready by Aug. 27, the start of the next school year.

A study found building a new school on the existing site would cost $57 million.

Sandy Hook Elementary School hasn’t housed students since the killings. Some town residents said the school should be torn down because they couldn’t imagine sending children back there. Others favored renovating the school, with some saying that tearing it down would be a victory for evil.

Residents of towns where other mass school shootings occurred have grappled with the same dilemma. Some have renovated, some have demolished.

Columbine High School in Colorado, where two student gunmen killed 12 schoolmates and a teacher in 1999, reopened several months afterward. Crews removed the library, where most of the victims died, and replaced it with an atrium.

Virginia Tech converted a classroom building where a student gunman killed 30 people in 2007 into a peace studies and violence prevention center. And an Amish community in Pennsylvania tore down the West Nickel Mines Amish School and built a new school a few hundred yards away after a gunman killed five girls there in 2006.

On the morning of Dec. 14, gunman Adam Lanza, who had killed his mother at their Newtown home, went to Sandy Hook Elementary School and opened fire with an assault rifle, killing the 20 children and the six adults. He killed himself as police arrived at the school.

The school shooting, one of the deadliest in U.S. history, has spurred national debate about gun control and Second Amendment rights.

Police have not disclosed possible motives for the Newtown killings. Law enforcement officials have said Lanza showed an interest in other mass killings and played violent video games.

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Bill Ayers (AP Photo)

Most people who read my weekly column remember how I got into the business of criticizing higher education. It began with a controversy that started in the wake of 9/11 when an anti-American student sent me an email blaming the US for the attack on the World Trade Center. When I sent an email response calling her ideas “bigoted” and “unintelligent” and “immature,” her mother, a college administrator, spearheaded an effort to have my email account searched in order to find evidence to charge me with “libel” and bring me before the campus judiciary.

Of course, there was no need for such a controversy to have occurred. I was simply expressing core political beliefs shared by most Americans. Nonetheless, the Marxist administrator/mother simply could not understand how anyone could criticize the idea – a truism in her view – that America was evil and deserved to be attacked. This view has long been common on American college campuses.

About a year after that controversy, a close friend of mine decided to change careers and enroll in a Master’s program. At her first social gathering among fellow graduate students, one of her new professors casually mentioned the fact that he used to be a member the Weather Underground. It was the first time I heard about the group that would become so widely known during the 2008 presidential race. The fact that the professor so casually revealed his affiliation with a domestic terrorist organization was intriguing. Was he merely unashamed or was it actually a badge of honor?

Academic indifference toward anti-American terrorism was at the forefront of the biggest story I have covered in my career of critiquing higher education. The story revolved around Julio Pino, an associate professor of history at Kent State University. In 2006, Pino was connected with a terrorist website called the “global war” blog. Professors at Kent State previously knew about the connection and did nothing. Pino’s activities eventually became nationally known – but only after bloggers brought him to my attention by sending me links to his writings.

When I first saw the links, I was shocked. Under a pseudonym, Pino had posted bomb making instructions. With them, he also posted exhortations to use the bombs to murder American troops. After reading the posts, I needed specific evidence proving that Pino was indeed the person who was responsible for writing them. The Kent State student newspaper had already published Pino’s writings praising Palestinian suicide bombers. I hoped and strongly suspected that he had been careless enough to tell other professors about his other blog writings.

Prof. Julio Pino 

Thankfully, Pino had indeed told his boss, John Jameson, that he was writing for the terrorist website. When Jameson admitted it to a local reporter we had our man. I ran a column exposing Pino. Drudge soon picked up the story and, before long, I got an invitation to go on Fox News to confront Pino on air. Kent State administrators just hid under their desks and waited for the storm to pass. But it did not.

After the feds learned of Pino, I was asked to meet with them and share other information I had gathered. While Pino was under FBI surveillance, Jameson foolishly allowed him to take leave for a couple of weeks of travel during the middle of the semester. Pino’s destination was the Middle East, of course.

Jameson was eventually fired from his department chairman position for authorizing Pino’s trip to the Middle East while he was being investigated for possible connections to terrorist organizations. But he was only fired because people outside of the campus community were outraged. The Kent State community never seems to have grasped the problem. These days, there are lots of pro-terrorism professors teaching in America. It’s what they do when no one else will hire them. I delve deeper into the issue of dangerous progressive values in my new book, Letters to a Young Progressive: How to Avoid Wasting Your Life Protesting Things You Don’t Understand.

Of course, Pino is still teaching and drawing a salary off of frustrated Ohio taxpayers. Equally frustrating is the fact Bill Ayers is now drawing a healthy pension off the backs of Illinois taxpayers. After being acquitted on a technicality, the unrepentant domestic terrorist has had an easy life. He transitioned smoothly from the Weather Underground to the University of Illinois -Chicago faculty all the way to the inner circle of a young politician named Barack Obama.

Last weekend, while I was starting to work on this column, Ayers visited Kent State to give a speech that outraged many Ohio citizens. When a reporter covering the speech asked Ayers whether he could be compared to the Boston Marathon bombers he feigned outrage. He claimed that he and his comrades only targeted property whereas the Boston bombers targeted people. In reality, the Weather Underground did kill people including several of their own members who died assembling a pipe bomb in New York City. The bomb was similar to the ones used in the recent Boston attacks.

Kent State’s decision to invite Ayers to speak shows that these radical thugs are more than just forgiven for their past deeds. They are celebrated for their enduring commitment to violence against their fellow countrymen. It is a systemic culture of anti-Americanism that attracts the likes of Ayers and Pino and provides a taxpayer supported platform for their public commentaries.

The rhetoric of the radical American terrorists of yesterday and the radical Islamic terrorists of today is difficult to distinguish. It all revolves around a burning hatred of America and a desire to see its downfall.

The enemy is deep inside the gates.

 Mike Adams is author of Letters to a Young Progressive: How to Avoid Wasting Your Life Protesting Things You Don’t Understand

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(Image: YouTube screenshot)

A video of the Duncanville High School student has gone viral since being posted on YouTube, showing Bliss leaving the room and giving the teacher a piece of his mind as to her teaching style.

The video starts with Bliss mid-sentence saying “…frickin’ go off on kids because they don’t frickin’ get this crap?” His world history class teacher can be heard saying “bye” in a disinterested voice.

“If you would just get up and teach them instead of handing them a frickin’ packet, yo. There’s kids in here who don’t learn like that,” the long-haired teen wearing bright red sneakers said. “They need to learn face-to-face. You’re just getting mad because I’m pointing out the obvious.”

To which the teacher responded that this isn’t the case but that Bliss was “wasting” her time.

“You want kids to come into your class, you want them to get excited for this? You gotta come in here, you gotta make ‘em excited,” he continued.

“You gotta take this job serious. This is the future of this nation and when you come in here like you did last time and you make a statement about ‘oh this is my paycheck.’ Indeed it is, but this is my country’s future and my education.”

The teacher continued to ask Bliss to exit the room, but he hammered his point home saying, “there’s a limit when I’m not b****ing but simply making an observation.”

Bliss briefly says he was ready to leave but slips in a few more words about how he’d be happy to be invited back to teach her more about how to run a class because “since I’ve got here, I’ve done nothing but read packets, so don’t try and take credibility for teaching me jack.”

Watch the clip (Content warning: some strong language):

According to the NBC affiliate out of Dallas-Fort Worth, Bliss won’t be facing any disciplinary action for his now viral statement. The affiliate notes that the original video was removed from YouTube but there are several others allowing the rant to continue to spread.

“As a district with a motto of engaging hearts and minds, we focus on building positive relationships with students and designing engaging work that is meaningful,” Duncanville Independent School District said in a statement, according to NBC. ”We want our students and teachers to be engaged, but the method by which the student expressed his concern could have been handled in a more appropriate way.”

The district expressed it is open to hearing students’ positions regarding their education.

Here’s a report from WFAA including an interview with Bliss after the rant:

Bliss said he believes someone needed to say what he did. In the report we learn that Bliss dropped out of school for a year, which is when he “realized …without that education I’m not going to make any step forward into my future,” which is why he went back.

(H/T: Daily Mail)

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When officials turned on the mandatory security cameras at one elementary school, the rest of the building lost its Internet connection because it wasn’t wired for this century. When it came time for parent-teacher conferences, fewer than half of the biological parents got invitations because the others were long gone, in jail or dead.

This is the reality facing students in McDowell County, a place perpetually ranked among the worst in the state by almost every measure. Every month, 12 people die from drug overdoses here, while more than 100 people are on a waiting list to talk to rehab counselors via Skype.

Three-quarters of all students live in a home where parents can’t find work in this one-time coal hub.

The county leads the state in teenage pregnancies. With this as the backdrop, the West Virginia Board of Education on Wednesday went ahead with a plan to alter the scope of these schools.

The state took over the schools more than a decade ago and, citing efforts underway to provide adult literacy and basic medical care for students and parents alike, gave the schools back to local leaders and their allies during a meeting in nearby Bradshaw.

The American Federation of Teachers-guided effort is called Reconnecting McDowell, and leaders hope it will stem decades of suffering, both physical and economic. If successful and sustainable, this model could help despairing rural schools elsewhere.

“In addition to reading, writing and arithmetic, we’re also acting as their parents,” principal Florisha Christian McGuire said as she walked through the halls in War’s Southside School. Classes had dismissed for the day but dozens of students stayed for after-school programs that include dinner.

“You look into their eyes and they have the eyes of someone much older. They’ve seen so much,” McGuire said.

“So my role switched from being a principal to social worker.”

The fresh approach started out as a conversation between then-West Virginia first lady Gayle Manchin and AFT President Randi Weingarten. During the past 18 months, the two called allies and pulled together more than 120 partners.

Communications companies replaced dial-up Internet service with high-speed upgrades, VH1 donated instruments for the bands, and, on Wednesday, IBM announced it would give 10 computer labs.

But that’s not to say it will be enough. Previous attempts at economic development have come in fits and starts, only to fizzle when well-intentioned visitors grew frustrated, bored or broke.

“Their heart was in the right place and they came in with the grants and instituted these programs. Everything was fine for six months and they went away and the program died,” said Manchin, now the vice president of the West Virginia Board of Education, which voted unanimously to expand the schools’ mandate.

What they’re trying to do is overlay an urban strategy on a place where cellphones often lack a signal. Boston, Cincinnati and Oakland, Calif., all have created schools where the academic leaders work with community partners on education, health and social issues. Between lessons on Shakespeare and Charlemagne, students can have their teeth cleaned or meet with a social worker.

“In 10 years, hopefully you’ll see a McDowell County that is thriving, schools are thriving and students are successful,” Weingarten said. “Back in the 1950s, Main Street looked like a teeming urban street. There was nowhere to walk and nowhere to drive.”

The county had almost 100,000 people in 1950, according to census figures. More than one-quarter of that population was lost over the next decade and that number fell by 50,000 more in 1970. By 2010, it was 22,000. As the mines that produced $1 billion in coal grew quieter, so did the cash registers. Infrastructure became a luxury.

Unemployment rushed in. Alcohol followed. Drugs weren’t far behind.

“The problem at one point was alcohol. Through the last 15 years, I would guess, that problem has changed from alcohol,” said Judy Akers, chief executive officer of the Southern Highlands Community Mental Health Center.

Her organization’s clinic in McDowell County is treating 24 people for opiate addiction and has 143 others on a waiting list for the telemedicine program.

The drug problem become so severe that officials opened a juvenile program inside the school so teachers, already combating truancy, wouldn’t have to lose more students from their classrooms when they went for counseling.

“We have good people here. We have educated people here,” said Reba Honaker, the mayor of the county seat, Welch, and a former home economics teacher. Just too few of them stay, she said.

Those who do leave behind statistics that make educators shake their heads. Some 72 percent of the students live in a home where neither parent is working. About 46 percent of students live in a home without a biological parent; many of the parents are in jail for drugs.

Many of the students will become parents before they become graduates. The county leads the state in the teen birth rate, with roughly 1 in 10 females between the ages of 15 and 19 giving birth.

McDowell County has the highest death rate for prescription drug overdoses in the country. Twelve people die each month from abusing prescription pills. Those are the extremes.

On a more basic level, there are daily challenges. Many of the students here have never sat in a dentist’s chair to have their teeth cleaned. There is no central water system so fluoride is not readily available, and it’s a long drive through treacherous terrain for anything beyond an emergency.

That will change next year if leaders can pull off their plan. The Reconnecting McDowell leaders are trying to recruit dentists to work with the schools to set up medical clinics, not just for students but also their parents. They’re also looking to expand the existing efforts to help parents’ reading skills.

The U.S. Department of Education estimates 22 percent of the adult population in the county lacks basic literacy skills. So project managers decided to introduce literacy centers not just for children, but also their parents and grandparents.

At seven locations adults sit with educators and learn basic skills. For others, there are home visits to help them learn reading skills.

“Parents want what’s best for their children,” said Jacki Wimmer, an early reading teacher who makes regular visits to seven families. “Some children come to school and they’ve never held a book.”

And for the traditional functions of a school? Those, too, need work. Of the 350 teaching positions in McDowell County, 51 were not filled at the start of the school year. Those who considered moving here couldn’t find housing. In the mountainous region, there’s no flat land to build new houses. Rental property is hard to come by.

The Reconnecting McDowell team is working on plans to build an apartment building to house 20 to 26 teachers. In the short term, schools turned to substitutes and those who didn’t have licenses. Despite the dour outlook, students and educators alike remain upbeat.

“I like my teachers. I like my friends. I like math,” third-grader Emma Cline said as she played in a computer lab after school, as she does three nights a week.

“I really, really like that my teachers care about me.” If leaders get their way, that care will take on even stronger efforts in coming years.

“You’ve got to look past the mold, the mildew, the trash and the dust,” McGuire, the principal, said as she walked through an abandoned gymnasium she hopes to turn into a community center.

The outside doors were locked but the glass on one was broken so she let herself in. “Think of how many kids could be saved here,” she said, kicking up dust with every step. “We have got to at least try.”

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But the College Fix reports there are many more former members of domestic terrorist organizations who now hold esteemed faculty positions at some of America’s most prestigious colleges and universities:

“Members of the Weather Underground make up half of this list; some are well known, like Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn, Ayers is now retired from the University of Illinois, while Dohrn is still teaching at Northwestern Law,” writes Ryan James Girdusky in a guest blog post Wednesday about the dozen or so former members of domestic terrorist organizations who are now college professors.

From Girdusky’s post (as quoted by College Fix):

“Other lesser-known members of the group include Howard Machtinger, who was charged with conspiring to bomb the Detroit Police Officers Association Building and was on the run from the law for five years from 1973 to 1978. Machtinger now works for the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.”

“Another Weatherman alumni, Mark Naison, has been a professor at Fordham University for 43 years. … Eleanor Raskin was also involved in the 1968 Columbia University occupation … She began to teach at the State University of New York in Albany and then later at Albany Law School. … ”

” … Weatherman, Mark Rudd, former spokesman for students in the Columbia student revolt of 1969 …  is now retired but spent a long career as a math instructor at the Central New Mexico Community College.”

Read the full report from Girdusky here.

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Young environmental activists performed the rap, “What the Frack,” for students at a Colorado middle school last week. (Image source: YouTube)

Students at a Colorado middle school were serenaded and sang along to an anti-fracking rap from a group of young environmental activists last week.

The “Earth Guardians” posted video of the performance, titled “What the Frack,” from Evergreen Middle School, about 20 miles west of Denver. In it, students rap along after the line, “When we say ‘what the,’ you say ‘frack’!” By Thursday afternoon, the video had been made private.

The rap demonized the process of hydraulic fracturing — “fracking” — to extract natural gas from rock, saying it “poisoned the water, poisoned the air, poisoned the people, do you think that’s fair?”

Some studies have claimed that the process of pumping water and chemicals into the earth leads to earthquakes and other effects, but other findings have questioned its significance.

Lynn Setzer, head of communications at Jeffco Public Schools, told TheBlaze that the presentation was part of the district-wide “Day Without Hate” event, started after the Virginia Tech shooting. Each school decides on their own how to mark the event, which is supposed to be about tolerance and respect, Setzer said. The event is not supposed to have anything to do with fracking.

Instead, the teacher responsible for bringing in the “Earth Guardians” did so because 12-year-old “youth leader” Xiuhtezcatl Martinez received a peace award from the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center last year, Setzer said.

“Her intent was, here is a kid who is clearly trying to make a difference, could possibly inspire other kids to make a difference no matter what the cause,” she said.

Setzer said the fracking portion of the presentation “wasn’t specifically planned.”

The conservative blog Complete Colorado reported that multiple parents complained to the school after the May 3 presentation, prompting principal Kristopher Schuh to say he would meet with the teacher responsible to “discuss what transpired and ensure that the opposite side of this issue is being clearly and fairly represented.”

Setzer said the school is sending a letter of apology to parents, along with a list of resources for both sides of the issue for families to discuss. The school will also put in place a procedure to vet guest speakers.

According to the group’s website, “Earth Guardians” is comprised of “children, youth, parents, schools, and organizations working together on behalf of leaving a better world for future generations.” Members from the organization delayed the start of a Colorado oil and gas regulation hearing for nearly a half-hour in December, chanting their opposition to fracking.

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I’m currently a student working on my undergraduate degree at Santa Clara University (SCU). SCU is a private Catholic (Jesuit) institution. After having lived in Europe and spent three tours of duty in Iraq, I have a good understanding of global issues. I thought coming to school would broaden my horizons both in business and in liberal arts. Unfortunately, both have been disappointing because of the curriculum taught at this school. We all know that academia leans way left, but the problem is how far it leans and how indoctrinated/polarized graduates are. 

Indoctrination was the norm for the Taliban in Afghanistan and for many places in Iraq under Saddam Hussein.  As Al Qaeda waged unconventional warfare against us in those two countries, we did our best to bring positive change while our enemy continued to oppress the local population.  The left in our country is conducting unconventional warfare in the classroom and our society is losing badly… 

 

Let me get a bit more specific. Our core curriculum requires students to take courses on social justice. Christianity is used to justify social justice through the redistribution of wealth and property. Most students tacitly agree with professors and make comments that will be approved of. One professor in particular is a devout socialist and anti-war activist who has been arrested numerous times over the years. In the past I would normally speak up and provide an alternate point of view for students which has, in my opinion, negatively affected my grade. This time, I have remained quiet because speaking up hasn’t made an impact in the past.

This letter is meant to emphasize the gravity of the situation and that my fellow veterans who are in the same position as I am are having similar experiences around the country. Our education system is in far more peril than most people know and this machine will continue pumping out future business leaders, politicians, and community activists, with a very narrow point of view which will only further harm our country.

 

Quotes/Lessons from school:

“Justice is the work of redeploying social power and the transformation of the social system.”

“Biblical Justice according to Christ, is the redistribution of wealth and property.”

“Always call for Revolution.”

“It’s ok to get arrested for protesting.”

“Rich people are very unlikely to go to heaven.”

“Salvation is economic redistribution of goods.”

“The vulnerable according to scriptures: Widows, orphans, poor now translates into modern day illegal aliens, gays, people in prison, Native Americans, low income earners, etc.”

“God’s justice is suspicious of the rich.”

“Justice > Charity”

 

Lastly, I want to inform you of a topic most people aren’t aware of about the Yellow Ribbon program and how it affects Santa Clara University (SCU). The yellow ribbon program is part of the G.I. Bill which some schools participate in to help veterans pay for college. SCU Undergraduate program offers 5 veterans the opportunity for the yellow ribbon on a first come first serve basis. They pay $8,100 which the VA matches as part of the yellow ribbon, totaling $16,200 per vet, each year. 5 vets at $8,100 a year is $40,500 which Santa Clara pays. I’m telling you this because of a program that SCU and the Society of Jesuits are providing at Santa Clara:

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But there may still be at least one sticking point; the ruling might not have settled the issue of whether the banners are protected free speech, according to an attorney for the cheerleaders’ school district. State District Judge Steven Thomas determined the Kountze High School cheerleaders’ banners are constitutionally permissible. In the ruling, Thomas determined that no law “prohibits cheerleaders from using religious-themed banners at school sporting events.”

In this Sept. 19, 2012 file photo, Kountze High School cheerleaders and other children work on a large banner in Kountze, Texas. A judge on Wednesday, May 9, 2013 ruled that cheerleaders at the high school can display banners emblazoned with Bible verses at football games. The dispute began during the last football season when the district barred cheerleaders from using run-through banners that displayed religious messages, such as “If God is for us, who can be against us.” Credit: AP

The Kountze school district had initially said the banners could not be displayed after receiving a complaint about them in September from the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The foundation argued the banners violated the so-called First Amendment Establishment Clause that bars government — or publicly funded school districts in this case — from establishing or endorsing a religion.

Thomas ruled that the establishment clause does not prohibit the use of such religious-themed banners at school sporting events.

“This is a great victory for the cheerleaders and now they’re going to be able to have their banners,” said Hiram Sasser, a lead attorney for the Liberty Institute, a Plano, Texas-based nonprofit law firm that represented the cheerleaders.

But Thomas Brandt, the school district’s attorney, argued that Judge Thomas also granted a school district motion in his ruling that says the district can permit the banners under the establishment clause but is not required to do so. Brandt said the motion also says the banners are the speech of the school, not private speech, so the school has a right to have editorial control of the banners.

Initially, the school district ruled the banners could not be displayed. But after a public meeting in February, the school board of trustees issued a resolution in which it wrote that the district was not required to prohibit messages on school banners that displayed “fleeting expressions of community sentiment solely because the source or origin of such messages is religious.” But the trustees said the district retained the right to restrict the content of school banners.

Brandt said while he has yet to talk to the school district about whether or not it will appeal, it may seek some clarification from the judge on his ruling.

But Sasser said there is no ambiguity in the ruling and that the banners are the cheerleaders’ protected private speech.

“We won and they didn’t,” he said, adding that he expects the school district to appeal.

The dispute began during the last football season when the district barred cheerleaders from using run-through banners that displayed religious messages, such as “If God is for us, who can be against us.”

Kountze High School cheerleaders, from left, Savannah Short, Macy Matthews, Kieara Moffett and Rebekah Richardson speak to reporters Wednesday, May 8, 2013, in Beaumont, Texas. State District Judge Steve Thomas determined the Kountze High School cheerleaders’ banners are constitutionally permissible. Credit: AP

In October, as previously reported, Thomas temporarily allowed the cheerleaders to continue displaying the banners pending the lawsuit’s outcome. Thomas at the time said the school district’s ban on the practice appeared to violate the students’ free speech rights. The Liberty Institute had argued the banners’ messages were not asking anyone to believe in Christianity or accept the faith.

The cheerleaders in Kountze, located about 95 miles northeast of Houston, were supported by various state officials, including Gov. Rick Perry and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who filed court papers seeking to intervene on their behalf. A Facebook group created after the ban, Support Kountze Kids Faith, has more than 45,000 members.

Abbott praised the court’s ruling on Wednesday, calling it a “victory for religious liberties.”

Perry in a statement said the cheerleaders “showed great resolve and maturity beyond their years in standing up for their beliefs and constitutional rights.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation’s co-president, Annie Laurie Gaylor, was disappointed with the ruling, saying the banners “carry the appearance of school endorsement and favoritism, turning Christians into insiders and non-Christians and nonbelievers into outsiders.”

The Anti-Defamation League also criticized the ruling, calling it “misguided” and saying it “flies in the face of clear U.S. Supreme Court and other rulings.”

Attorneys for the Kountze school district, in initially advising the superintendent to ban the religious statements on the cheerleaders’ banners, argued there have been several precedent-setting rulings by the Supreme Court.

In one of the more well-known cases, the court ruled in 2000 that a practice of allowing student-led prayer ahead of high school football games in Texas’ Santa Fe Independent School District violated the Constitution. In 1992, the Supreme Court made a similar ruling in a Rhode Island case that argued a rabbi’s prayer at a middle school graduation ceremony also violated the Constitution.

–

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Parents who revere the traditional ceremony found themselves surprised and frustrated by the development. One parent, Kelly Adams, said that prayer had never been an issue before and that the cancellation has some people in the district very upset.

“As Christians and a mainly Christian town I think, there were a lot of people hurt that our rights were taken away,” Adams told KAIT-TV. “My daughter graduated last year from 6^th grade and my son is graduating this year from 6^th grade, and we had a pastor open our ceremony and my daughter actually closed the ceremony in prayer.”

While parents understand that the district made the best decision it could at the time, she also decried the notion that rights would be taken away from Christian parents and afforded to non-believers.

But Adams claims that all hope isn’t lost. Rather than accept no graduation ceremony for their 6th graders, parents have another plan. They are getting together this week to find a church where the event can still be held. Collectively, they plan to host their own version of the graduation — and it’s open to everyone, regardless of belief — so that student achievement can be properly recognized, KAIT-TV reports.

“We are including everyone, everyone is invited, we want everyone to come and be a part of it,” Adams continued. “We’re not trying to be pushy or ugly to anybody, we just want them to know there is a God who loves them.”

Starnes reports that it was the Freedom of Religion Foundation (FFRF), a church-state separatist group, that sent a letter to officials. It’s unclear if two separate letters were sent by the ACLU and the FFRF, but this would not be the first time that the two groups have intervened simultaneously on a First Amendment issue.

“It makes no difference how many families want prayer or wouldn’t be offended by prayer at their graduation ceremony,” FFRF attorney Patrick Elliott wrote in his letter to the Riverside School District. “The Supreme Court has settled this matter — school graduations must be secular to protect the freedom of conscience of all students.”

(H/T: KAIT-TV)

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Bowdoin College President Barry Mills | Photo Credit: Bowdoin College

Maybe he should read Glenn’s books? Just this past week, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) gave Bowdoin an F for a failing core curriculum. ACTA urged Mills and the Bowdoin trustees to improve their offerings for students.

Mills also insinuated that Tom Klingenstein, a conservative philanthropist, was a racist for opposing racial preferences. Rather than back down and cower to the false charge of racism, Klingenstein replied by commissioning the first “full-fledged ethnography” of an American liberal arts college.

The disagreement over Bowdoin’s commitment to intellectual and racial diversity started on a golf course nearly two years ago and it has touched off a debate about higher education, with Bloomberg, National Review, The Wall Street Journal and the Rush Limbaugh Show all weighing in. Rather than publicly rebut the 360-page and 1157-footnoted scholarly report’s charges, Bowdoin’s public relations department is doing damage control while its students are attacking the philanthropist and others calling for ideological diversity.

Mills issued a statement last Monday – a week later – which addressed only a few of the report’s charges and did so poorly. “He doesn’t seem to have taken the report’s larger charges seriously,” says Thomas Klingenstein, the philanthropist who Mills accused of being a racist for questioning Mills’s commitment to racial diversity.

​TheBlaze published an extensive report on the Klingenstein study last month.  See that report here.

“What makes this report important is its detail and comprehensiveness, which gives it richness and authenticity,” Klingenstein, chairman of the Claremont Institute, told TheBlaze.

Eighteen months and hundreds of research hours later, the report - What Does Bowdoin Teach - examines Bowdoin’s commitment to intellectual diversity, its curriculum and civic identity, and found the prestigious Brunswick, Maine school lacking.

To name but one example, its freshmen seminar offerings sometimes tend toward the faddish, with titles like “Queer Gardens, Beyond Pocahontas: Native American Stereotypes; Sexual Life of Colonialism; Modern Western Prostitutes.” The report also detailed radical environmentalism, feminism, and racialism and pointed out its lack of traditional courses and commitment to intellectual diversity.

Bowdoin’s lack of commitment to intellectual diversity may begin with President Mills himself, who declined repeated requests to speak to TheBlaze, and who continues to maintain that the episode with Klingenstein occurred as he described it.  (See video below: Mills’s reference to Klingenstein starts a bit after 10 minutes. Click here for the transcript.)

In addition to insinuating that Klingenstein was a racist for questioning Bowdoin’s racial preferences in lieu of intellectual rigor, Mills doubled down and called a then-student, Steve Robinson ‘11, a “traitor” for inviting Klingenstein to come to campus to speak.

Mills also criticized assistant professor of economics Steve Meardon after Meardon wrote a letter to Mills encouraging his colleagues to take the thrust of the report’s charges seriously, only to be told by Mills “to have the guts” to make his views known publicly.

It’s a tactic that recalls Klingenstein’s treatment. “[Mills] didn’t like my views, so he turned me into a backswing-interrupting, Bowdoin-hating boor who wants to return to the segregated days of Jim Crow,” explained Klingenstein in the April 2011 issue of The Claremont Review of Books. “I explained my disapproval of ‘diversity’ as it generally has been implemented on college campuses: too much celebration of racial and ethnic difference,” coupled with “not enough celebration of our common American identity.”

President Mills declined repeated requests to speak with TheBlaze via phone. Instead, press inquiries were sent to Scott Hood, Bowdoin’s vice president, who declined to answer any direct questions about how Mills can purport to support intellectual diversity while also name calling those who disagree with him. Hood, Bowdoin’s vice president for communication, repeatedly declined to answer whether or not he thought Mills’ treatment had been appropriate and directed me to their press release.

Hood also directed me to an editorial that had appeared hours earlier by the Bowdoin Orient but none of the Orient’s editorial board returned spoke on the record.

One editorial board member admitted that while Klingensten may have had some points, the campus didn’t agree with his views on “sexual liberation, the environment, gay rights, and diversity.” She did, however, concede that there “may be a bias against conservatives” on campus. “Some students really think Bowdoin’s intellectual diversity is lacking.”

The bias may go all the way to the pages of the Bowdoin Orient’s satire issue where it depicted Klingenstein and conservative professor Jean Yarbrough, writing in their past satire issue that they, along with President Mills, had engaged in a threesome and homosexual sodomy.

Mills came to Bowdoin in 2001. Appointed the head of a search committee to select the next president of the liberal arts college, he ultimately recommended himself and set about implementing his goal of diversity at any costs. And while Mills’s convocation may have put the focus on intellectual diversity at his convocation address, he has called for racial diversity since he was brought to campus.

“The greatest desire you hear here is to make the campus more diverse – racially, geographically, socioeconomically,” Mills told the Boston Globe in 2001. He was instrumental in instituting the Posse program at Bowdoin, a controversial program which sends inner city and largely underqualified students—most of them blacks and Latinos–to campus on full scholarships.”

Although we do not know the statistics for the Posse students, we do have reason to doubt their academic qualifications as a group. A 1998 evaluation of the Posse program at Vanderbilt University found that athletes entered with an average of 1042 SAT score and maintained an average GPA of 3.13, while Posse students came in with a 900 average SAT and finished with a 2.93 average GPA. Due to the low grades of Posse students in their engineering programs, Rice and Lehigh canceled their involvement with Posse, according to the L.A. Times in 2004.

“I’m not an expert,” Mills told the Globe concerning Posse. “But you have to reach out beyond the typical places, you have to have financial aid to encourage them to be here, and, most importantly, you need to think about ways that, once people get here, they enjoy the experience and find it rewarding.”

Recalling his own time as a student at Bowdoin, Mills said, “There were very turbulent years for Bowdoin and all of higher education.” Mills continued, “Bowdoin was a much more diverse place, in some ways, than it is today. There were more African-American students. Making Bowdoin more diverse now is one of the goals of the college.”

But Bowdoin’s “understanding of diversity is literally no more than skin deep,” explained Bowdoin political science professor Jean Yarbrough in a recent letter to the editor of the Bowdoin Orient. “As a recent chair of the government department, I have seen the lengths to which the administration is willing to go to identify and recruit such candidates,” she wrote.

“Every faculty search must now include a member of the Diversity Committee, whose main purpose is to ensure that the members of the department give every consideration to diversity hires. These committee members, being drawn from other disciplines, usually have no knowledge of the field, though that does not deter them from weighing in during the selection process, sometimes quite vociferously,” Yarbrough wrote.

“Where such diversity is concerned, the administration actively pushes departments to cast the net more widely and to be mindful of even unintentional bias. What’s more, it has redefined positions to increase the likelihood of attracting diversity candidates,” a move which, according to Yarbrough, actually changes Bowdoin’s curriculum.

Though she said the report did not do a good job of mentioning when Bowdoin does a good job, “much of what the NAS report describes is, I am sorry to say, spot on.”

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Photo Credit: AP

In January, TheBlaze reported that a Chapin High School English teacher in Chapin, South Carolina, allegedly threw an American flag on the ground during class instruction and then stomped on it — an action that drew intense controversy.

Following the incident, Scott Compton was suspended from his job. Now, it’s being reported that $85,000 of taxpayer funds was paid out to the educator to avoid a legal challenge following his suspension.

But this isn’t the only sum of money that is being afforded to Compton following his controversial actions. Despite being out of the classroom since December, the teacher will continue receiving his salary through June 7, The State reports. Additionally, $31,500 in legal fees will come from taxpayer funds.

The outlet provides additional details leading up to the decision to pay the former teacher following the flag-stomping controversy:

… Taxpayers also will foot the bill for more than $31,500 in attorney fees, records obtained by The State newspaper under a state Freedom of Information Act request show.

The $85,000 payment was described as “a compromise and resolution of disputed claims,” the records say.

It was not disclosed as part of Compton’s resignation, announced March 27, a decision that the settlement says is for “family and personal reasons” not spelled out.

“Prior to his resignation, attorneys for Mr. Compton informed district attorneys that he had prepared a complaint for filing in federal court,” Lexington-Richland 5 spokesman Mark Bounds said.

The payment, according to Bounds, was made in an effort to avoid more extensive legal fees that would be incurred if the teacher decided to sue the Lexington-Richland 5 School District over the incident. The condition of accepting the offer on the former teacher’s part is that he cannot pursue defamation claims, nor can he proceed with allegations of emotional distress and breach of contract. He was previously allegedly going to seek damages over these claims.

The State notes that Compton will be given a letter of recommendation to assist with future job prospects and that he was not forced to admit fault in his resignation. Unemployment benefits, too, will not be declined or fought by the district.

Credit: Getty Images

Compton has said that stomping on the flag was not meant to be a disrespectful action and that, instead, it was intended to be a teaching opportunity in which students could learn that the nation is defined by more than the symbols that represent it. The district has maintained, though, that the action taken was inappropriate.

TheBlaze‘s Jason Howerton previously reported on the story, detailing how it made headlines. Late last year, Michael Copleand, a parent, reported hearing his teenager talking about what her English teacher did with the American flag in the classroom. Subsequently, he pressed to get the whole story.

“He drew a couple of symbols, like one of them was a cross, and he said, ‘What does this represent,’ and everybody said, ‘Christianity,’” Copeland told WIS-TV.

“Then he proceeds to take down the American flag, and said, ‘This is a symbol, but it’s only a piece of cloth. It doesn’t mean anything,’ and then he throws it down on the floor and then stomps on it, repeatedly,” he added. “I asked what was he trying to get, the point across? And she said, ‘I don’t know,’ and he said, his explanation was there would be no consequences, it’s just a piece of cloth that doesn’t mean anything.”

(H/T: BizPac Review)

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Fox News’ Jesse Watters confronts former Weather Underground radical Kathy Boudin at Columbia (Fox News)

Fox News’ Jesse Watters actually managed to track down former Weather Underground radical Kathy Boudin at Columbia University, though she wasn’t very talkative. Boudin spent 22 years in prison for her involvement in a 1981 armored-car robbery that left two cops and a Brinks guard dead in Rockland County, N.Y. She was hired by Columbia University’s School of Social Work in 2008, five years after she was paroled for her murderous crime.

After trying to make a quick escape and avoid Watters completely, Boudin eventually provided a short statement. “I have nothing but regret for the suffering I caused and I’ve attempted to lead a life that would express that remorse and regret,” she said.

Though the segment called into question her alleged regret by playing a clip of a recent speech at NYU in which she wishes that her co-defendants were out of jail and with her again. Watters said he doesn’t believe that Boudin is truly sorry because she has not reached out to the victims with so much as a letter or phone call.

But it didn’t take long for campus security to order Watters and his cameraman to leave the “private property” or they would call the police. Almost immediately after the crew confronted Boudin, someone with security was telling them: “You can’t be in here!”

“She’s shown no remorse for this crime and she’s using the college as a soap box to promote her mission to get her husband, who has a 75 year sentence, and other co-defendants out of jail,” said retired NYPD officer Arthur Keenan, who survived the 1981 Brinks robbery.

Watters, who also spoke with many Columbia students, later told Bill O’Reilly that most of the students had no idea that the school had hired a radical involved in the deadly robbery. Additionally, he said about 70 percent of the students he talked to supported Boudin teaching at the college.

Watch the segment below:

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A white teacher from a predominantly white school district is helping a group of mostly white high school students put on a spring play about whiteness.

The result: “Blanchekreist: A Collaborative Project About Whiteness,” will premier Thursday, May 9, as Roseville Area High School’s spring play.

The play is the culmination of months of research, dialogue and reflection a group of high school students engaged in under the guidance of Roseville’s drama and English teacher Samuel Tanner about what it means to be white. [...]

Tanner is pursuing his Ph.D. in critical literacy and English education at the University of Minnesota. The students’ project is the focus of his dissertation.

Well that’s convenient.  

Here’s a highlight clip from RAHS Report Daily Broadcast which shows students prepping for the play and the teacher explaining how “whiteness” is akin to a “social virus”:

I’m really intrigued by this whole concept, a class — a theater production, in fact — about whiteness.  According to the Pioneer Press, the students prepared for their roles by attending a workshop on white privilege and reaching out to minority communities.  ”A lot of them talked about how it seemed like the people or culture in power often tried to brush them off as unintelligent,” one student observed.  ”That seems to be a lot of what whiteness is about…”

(Call me crazy, but I could understand how a bunch of uppity white students studying minorities like lab rats might given them that impression…)

In the end, the students put their observations into an 87-page script, an “allegory on race relations told through the lends of a small rural town with a long history of xenophobia.”  

“This was really emotional work,” the teacher explained. “After almost every conversation we had as a group, I would spend countless hours talking with students one on one as they emotionally responded to realizing they were part of this system of whiteness.”

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(Photo: WAVY-TV)

In the latest case of a youth being punished for what used to be considered innocuous child’s play, a second grader at Driver Elementary in Virginia has been suspended for two days for making gun noises while pointing a pencil, WAVY-TV reports.

The boy’s father explained: “When I asked him about it, he said, ‘Well I was being a Marine and the other guy was being a bad guy’…It’s as simple as that.”

Paul Marshall, the father of the suspended 7-year-old Christopher Marshall, is a former Marine. 

A spokesperson for Suffolk Public Schools, Bethanne Bradshaw, explained: “A pencil is a weapon when it is pointed at someone in a threatening way and gun noises are made.”

(Photo: WAVY-TV)

“Some children would consider it threatening, who are scared about shootings in schools or shootings in the community,” she continued, adding that kids think more about school shootings these days ‘Cowboys and Indians.’”

But the boy’s father pointed out that his son is in good academic standing, has never been in trouble before and, according to the boy’s teacher, stopped pointing the pencil when asked. At some point, Paul Marshall argued, there needs to be “what used to be called common sense.”

“He’s just being a typical boy; you’re taking away his imagination,” he said.  “Enough is enough. I mean where do you draw the line? You know — a pencil?  Was it sharpened, was it not? Is it a No. 2?  I mean, what’s the big deal?”

Sitting on a swing with a camouflage hat, the boy said: “I was playing.  I’m sorry and stuff.” 

Watch the entire WAVY-TV report, below:

The other student was suspended along with Christopher.

 –

Related:

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• Second Grader Playing ‘Rescue the World’ at Recess Suspended After Throwing Pretend Grenade at ‘Evil Forces’ (With Adorable Interview!)
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• ‘It’s Ridiculous’: Three 6-Year-Olds Suspended for Making ‘Gun’ Signs With Hands During Recess
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Thanks to the work of two Pinckney Community High School students in Michigan, Torrance is able to wave his hand over a sensor and pop open his locker, the Livingston Daily Press and Argus reported. Doing this action again shuts the locker.

Nick Torrance demonstrates how he is now able to open and close his locker himself. (Image: Livingston Daily Press and Argus video screenshot)

“I think every high school student should be able to open their own locker,” occupational therapist for the Livingston Educational Service Agency Amy Uphouse said.

When she couldn’t find a device to help Torrance out with this dilemma over the Internet, she enlisted robotics teacher Sean Hickman and seniors Micah Stuhldreher and Wyatt Smrcka to help.

Through trial and error and working with Torrance, the seniors, who won first place at the SkillsUSA robotics competition in 2012, developed a system that not only helps Torrance but could help other disabled students as well. Stuhldreher and Smrcka won a $1,500 minigrant from the Society of American Military Engineers to make more robotic lockers for other disabled students.

Seniors Micah Stuhldreher and Wyatt Smrcka helped create the robotic locker to best work for Torrance’s needs. (Image: Livingston Daily Press and Argus video screenshot)

Watch this video from Daily Press and Argus demonstrating how the locker works:

The Daily Press and Argus reported Torrance’s mother, Jean, saying she hopes this new independence will give her 18-year-old son more time to be social.

“He wants to talk to girls; he’s at that age,” Jean Torrance said. “I think it’s a great project.”

The seniors who developed the system to not only fit inside the confined locker but work with Torrance’s abilities both hope to pursue careers in robotics.

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(AP File Photo)

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, former domestic terrorist-turned university professor Bill Ayers was asked how the bombings he helped organize with the Weather Underground decades ago are any different than what happened in Boston.

According to the Akron Beacon Journal Online, Ayers responded by saying there is “no relationship at all” between the acts, and even defended his decisions.

“How different is the shooting in Connecticut from shooting at a hunting range?”  the Weather Underground co-founder reportedly replied.  “Just because they use the same thing, there’s no relationship at all.”

Ayers was a keynote speaker at the commemoration of the National Guard shootings at Kent State this weekend, and was asked the question after his remarks.

The Beacon Journal’s Jim Mackinnon continues:

The United States is the most violent country that has ever been created, Ayers said.

U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., committed daily war crimes in Vietnam “and I get asked about violence when what I did was some destruction of property to issue a scream and cry against an illegal war in which 6,000 people a week are being killed,” Ayers said. “Six thousand a week being killed and I destroyed some property. Show me the equivalence. You should ask John McCain that question … I’m against violence.”

“To conflate a group of fundamentalist people [in Boston] who are nihilistic in some way with a group of people who spent their lives trying to oppose the murder of 6,000 people a week … and still the killing went on. And still the killing went on. What would you have done?” Ayers said. “There’s no equivalence [with Boston]. Property damage. That’s what we did.”  [Emphasis added]

This isn’t the first time Ayers has defended his role in the Weather Underground.  In 2001 he said: “I don’t regret setting bombs…I feel we didn’t do enough.”

Both Hillary Clinton and John McCain noted President Obama’s connections to the radical in their presidential campaigns.

The Beacon Journal has more on Ayers’ remarks.  Apparently he continued to attack John McCain, and spoke of the three friends he lost:

In his talk to the crowd, Ayers mentioned that in 1970, he lost three friends in the Weather Underground, including his lover, Diana Oughton. He did not explain in his talk how they died – they were killed when nail bombs they were making in a Greenwich Village townhouse blew up.

Telling the crowd the circumstances of those deaths would have been “inappropriate,” Ayers said afterward. “Everybody here knows,” he said.

Authorities said the bombs were intended to be used at a dance at the Fort Dix Army base in New Jersey.

“No one knows for sure but I think they were. And had they carried it out it would have been a catastrophe,” Ayers said. “But they didn’t and it didn’t happen. But what did happen is, on that same day John McCain murdered civilians. Do we have any responsibility for that? Should there be any reconciliation for that? Should he tell the truth about it?” [Emphasis added]

Click here to read the entire article at Ohio.com/The Akron Beacon Journal Online.

(H/T: Michelle Malkin)

–

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U.S. President Barack Obama gives the commencement address to the graduating class of The Ohio State University at Ohio Stadium on May 5, 2013 in Columbus, Ohio. (Photo: Getty Images)

A year to the day after kicking off his re-election campaign at Ohio State University, President Barack Obama returned to the college campus and told graduates that only through vigorous participation in their “democracy” can they right an ill-functioning government and break through relentless cynicism about the nation’s future.

“I dare you, Class of 2013, to do better. I dare you to do better,” Obama said.

In a sunbaked stadium filled with more than 57,000 students, friends and relatives, Obama lamented an American political system that gets consumed by “small things” and works for the benefit of society’s elite. He called graduates to duty to “accomplish great things,” like rebuilding a still-feeble economy and fighting poverty and climate change.

“Only you can ultimately break that cycle. Only you can make sure the democracy you inherit is as good as we know it can be,” the president told more than 10,000 cap-and-gown-clad graduates. “But it requires your dedicated, informed and engaged citizenship.”

Obama also urged the students to “reject these voices” that warn of the evils of government, saying:

Still, you’ll hear voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s the root of all our problems, even as they do their best to gum up the works; or that tyranny always lurks just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave, creative, unique experiment in self-rule is just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.

We have never been a people who place all our faith in government to solve our problems, nor do we want it to. But we don’t think the government is the source of all our problems, either. Because we understand that this democracy is ours. As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but absolutely necessary work of self-government.

[...]

The cynics may be the loudest voices—but they accomplish the least. It’s the silent disruptors—those who do the long, hard, committed work of change—that gradually push this country in the right direction, and make the most lasting difference. [Emphasis added]

Invoking the end of the Cold War, 9/11 and the economic recession, Obama said this generation has already been tested beyond what their parents could have imagined. But he said young Americans have responded with a deep commitment to service and a conviction that they can improve their surroundings. He urged graduates to run for office, start a business or join a cause, contending that the health of their democracy “requires your dedicated, informed and engaged citizenship.”

Ohio State also bestowed an honorary doctorate on Obama, applauding his “unwavering belief in the ability to unite people around a politics of purpose.”

Obama’s other two commencement speeches this season will be later in May at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and at Morehouse College, an all-male school in Atlanta.

Watch video of President Obama’s speech courtesy of MSNBC, below:

​The Associated Press contributed to this report.

–

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The 205 sun-deprived students at Bellingham Christian School were given a “sun day.”

“SCHOOL CANCELLED DUE TO GREAT WEATHER! WAHOOO!” the school’s website announced Thursday night. “Yeah! It’s a Sun Day today and everyone gets the day off from school.”

(Image: BellinghamChristianSchool.org)

Principal Bob Sampson said he wanted to give students some time to re-energize and enjoy the weather, adding that he wanted to re-create the excitement snow days get among the kids. He began teasing the possibility of giving the day off earlier in the week.

“In a world that’s got a lot hard things going, it’s fun to create a moment joy,” Sampson said, according to the Associated Press.

The forecast for Western Washington calls for a weekend of sunshine, with highs hitting the low 80s in some parts of the region on Sunday.

The sun day was also made possible because there weren’t any days off because of snow this school year.

“Kids just love the anticipation of sitting around see if school is canceled when it snows,” he said. “You know, we haven’t had any snow days, so I thought `how fun would it be to create that anticipation for kids when it’s nice out?’”

Sampson surveyed parents to make sure the day off wouldn’t cause any hardships and floated the idea with the school board before canceling school, he said. The 22 staff members will also get the day off, he added.

Sampson and another staff member will be at the school bright and early, though, to welcome any students who didn’t get the notice.

The principal asked students to take pictures of what they do on their sunny day off. He plans to show the pictures at an assembly Monday.

It’s not the first time the school has given students the day off because of sunshine. The last time was two years ago.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. Featured image via Shutterstock.com.

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The baked treats were all well and good but some took issue with the raffle, which ended up being for a shotgun and a rifle, the Salt Lake City Tribune reported.

(Photo: Dorothy Engelman via ST. George News)

The raffle for the firearm, like a couple others TheBlaze has reported on in recent months, drew criticism in the town from residents and school officials who didn’t believe it was an appropriate item.

“This is a highly inappropriate way for a team to raise money, no matter how desperately it’s needed,” Dorothy Engelman told the Tribune, saying she also notified the school after seeing it. “Having our young people hawk raffle tickets for guns seems very insensitive at the least, given recent mass shootings and the high rate of youth suicides in Utah. Is this what we want to teach our children?”

Snow Canyon Lady Warriors, a team club composed of high school and middle school student.s (Photo: Home Teams Online)

Unlike official teams of the school, the rugby team is considered a club sport and doesn’t receive any funding outside of what the girls bring together themselves.

“The rugby team has had a great season and has done such great things for our community,” Snow Canyon Principal Warren Brooks said. “We love the rugby team. We love the program. But we can’t condone this. We don’t want foolish things to mar their good name.”

Brooks told the Tribune that the school promptly shut down the raffle for the gun when it heard about what was going on. The raffle in general, regardless of the gun, was against school fund raising policies. An administrator said the club was only granted permission for a bake and rummage sale.

Head coach of the USA Rugby governed team, Cathy Hasfurther, who volunteers in the position, said she was not aware of the fundraiser but not that gun would be raffled off.

St. George News reported Brooks saying the club would face some sort of punishment for the raffle, but he wouldn’t elaborate further. The publication then reported the rules of Utah Youth Rugby, the state-level of the league, whose president said it didn’t violate any league codes.

“Unless it involves drugs, alcohol, or pornography, we do not prohibit [what the teams do],” Michael Cressler, president of the state league, told St. George News.

Another club team in the state earlier this year, the Uintah Utes hockey team, raffled an AR-15 to raise money to attend the national tournament. This Uintah High School team’s raffle was protested by a graduate but was allowed to carry on none the less and raised $5,000.

Engleman told St. George News she doesn’t second guess her decision to alert the school about the controversial raffle, but the chairwoman of the Washington County Democratic Party noted to the St. George Daily Spectrum that she has been threatened by others for her involvement.

“I’m not against the Second Amendment. All I did was exercise my First Amendment rights,” she said. “The amount of flak I’ve taken on this has been just incredible.”

–

Related:

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The Wall Street Journal explains some possible reasons:

One obvious answer is that people do this sort of thing to get attention. Multicultural identity politics, which is a dominant force on campus and a significant one off it, creates a perverse incentive structure by rewarding victims of purported hate and going easy on hoaxers…

Some hate-crime hoaxers have motives that are more personal than political. TheNew York Times, reporting in 1988 on the grand-jury report in the Tawana Brawley hoax, noted that “evidence suggested that she may have feared the wrath of her mother’s boyfriend for her late nights out.” In 1998 Associated Press reported that Cornelius Weaver, a black Louisiana man who claimed he had been dragged behind a car by three white men–similar to what actually happened to a black Texan named James Byrd–recanted and admitted he had invented the story to cover up a drug deal that went bad.

It seems to us, however, that there is in addition an important psychological component to the phenomenon of fake hate crimes. As we noted last month, the anthropologist Robert Ardrey posited a hierarchy of three basic psychological needs, of which the most important is identity, followed by stimulation and security.

A shared experience of being oppressed can be a powerful source of identity. That’s why in America groups like blacks, Jews and gays tend to identify more strongly with their groups than do their traditionally unoppressed counterparts, whites, Christians and heterosexuals. (In the case of the latter set, we are referring to the groups as a whole, not to ethnic, sectarian or sexual subsets of them.) To what extent women were oppressed by prefeminist sex roles is a complicated question, but one definition of a feminist is someone whose estimate is on the high side.

Oppression of minorities, and certainly of women, scarcely exists in America in the 21st century. Genuine hate crimes happen, but they are very rare. Few societies in history have offered more security to the previously downtrodden. But the presence of security only makes the need for identity and stimulation more pressing. Hate-crime hoaxes are an extreme way of meeting those needs.

It’s an interesting read about a truly odd phenomenon.  For more, click here.

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Our pal Robert Agostinelli shares this video of comedian Mark Schiff interviewing UCLA students on their knowledge of Israel and the Middle East (and the difference between Hamas and hummus). Oy.

WATCH:

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–

SAN DIEGO (TheBlaze/AP) — Dozens of students at a San Diego high school have been suspended for making a suggestive “twerking” dance video.

U-T San Diego reports the students from Scripps Ranch High School might not be able to attend prom or walk during commencement ceremonies.

School board member Kevin Beiser says he was told that 31 students were suspended. Other reports say 33 students were suspended this week, including the student who shot the video.

The video was shot and edited on school property. It shows students doing the hip-shaking moves of twerking.

(UT San Diego)

Seventeen-year-old Lyston McNear says he was suspended for coming up with the original idea for the video. He says it took months to create and nobody seemed offended.

Do you think the students should have been suspended?

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The woman, as TheBlaze previously reported, was apparently mocking the Catholic Church, as she handed out condoms to her peers in broad daylight; she purportedly also shaved her pubic hair into the shape of a cross.

While CMU President Jaren Cohen noted that disciplinary action hasn’t been taken , he said the incident is still under investigation. Sharing in the  Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh’s shock, he noted in a statement that he is disturbed by what unfolded. The school continues to look into the matter.

Cohen’s complete statement reads (as per KDKA):

“This act was highly offensive and, as we have said, the university has been investigating the matter and following our procedures to determine if disciplinary action is warranted.

Some people seem to equate limited communication with no action, believing that the university is doing nothing, and somehow hoping that the issue will just go away. This is not the case, and those who know me and my administration should reject such ideas out of hand.

While our process is still in motion and I cannot comment on or speculate about the resolution of the matter, I can apologize to those who took particular offense. I regret that this occurred, and I apologize to all who were offended by this, for religious or other reasons, and especially to those who witnessed this behavior.”

Earlier this week, the diocese called for the university to take action. Despite the outcry — and Cohen’s own admission that the spectacle was offensive — some feel that faith leaders are overreacting. As TheBlaze previously noted, one student told KDKA-TV that the young woman’s actions were rooted “in good fun” and that were were essentially harmless.

That said, Bishop David Zubik believes that she crossed a line.

“I think we all know that when we’re growing up we do stupid things but to cross over the line in this instance shouldn’t happen with anybody,” the Catholic leader told KDKA-TV. “What I do want to have happen is for this person to learn an important lesson.”

Here’s KDKA-TV’s initial report about the incident:

The controversial display apparently unfolded during the 4th Annual Anti-Gravity Downhill Derby, a parade organized by Carnegie Mellon’s College of Fine Arts.

(H/T: KDKA-TV)

–

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David “Cole” Withrow has been expelled and received a felony charge for accidentally leaving his shotgun in his truck at school and calling his mother to come pick it up when he realized the mistake. (Photo via “Free Cole”/Facebook)

In a matter of days, North Carolina high school student David “Cole” Withrow’s situation has changed dramatically. For one, Liberty University announced Thursday that it will extend a scholarship to Withrow after he was suspended and arrested for accidentally leaving a shotgun in his pick-up truck parked in the school lot.

Withrow, a high school senior and Eagle Scout, had been skeet shooting the day before the incident and inadvertently neglected to store his firearm. Once he realized his error, he immediately locked the gun in his truck and went inside the school to call his mom so she could come pick it up.

But a Princeton High School official overhead Withrow’s phone call to his mother and the school promptly called the police. After the gun was discovered in his truck, he was arrested and charged with a felony. The school is not allowing Withrow to return to school of the rest of the year, however, an attorney for Johnston County Schools on Thursday said he will still be allowed to graduate on time by attending an alternative school, WTVD-TV reports.

Now, Liberty University is stepping in to make sure that the high school senior will be able to continue on to college.

“In reaction to the gun control debate in America, Liberty University recently loosened – not strengthened – its concealed weapons policy on campus, and is now providing a scholarship to a North Carolina high school student who was arrested for leaving  a shotgun in his pick-up truck in the school parking lot,” the school announced in a press release provided to TheBlaze Thursday.

Jerry Falwell, Jr., the school’s chancellor, told TheBlaze in a phone interview that he heard about Withrow’s story by chance on a local evening news broadcast earlier this week and felt compelled to help. He actually called the student later that night and learned that he wanted to attend Liberty University but couldn’t afford it.

Falwell said the school is prepared to “do whatever he needs” to help him complete four years of education at the university. The official terms of the scholarship will be discussed and agreed upon at a later date when the student meets with the school’s admissions office, the chancellor added.

“We have a scholarship fund for outstanding students, such as honor students like him. So, because of what he’s been through and how he’s been mistreated for making an honest mistake…I went ahead and awarded him a scholarship,” Falwell told TheBlaze, explaining that Withrow already meets many of the scholarship requirements anyway.

“I think he’s a perfect fit for Liberty University,” he added. “We will do whatever he needs to complete four years of tuition and room and board.”

Falwell said “common sense” should have prevailed in Withrow’s case. “I think they were just trying to make a point that guns are evil,” he explained. “Our society is just going too far.”

Before it was understood that Withrow would be able to graduate by completing an alternative schooling program, Liberty University was also offering to let him wrap-up his high school requirements through their online academy.

David “Cole” Withrow (Source: WTVD-TV)

Earlier in the day, Falwell released the following statement: “When I reached out to encourage this responsible and impressive young man, I learned that he wanted to go to Liberty University, but couldn’t afford it. I told him that we would do whatever he needed so that he can attend Liberty. Anti-gun zealots tried to vilify him for doing the right thing, so Liberty has decided to award him the help he needs to attend a private Christian college. I was really impressed with Cole. He is a humble and meek Christian kid who only wants to do the right thing! We want students like Cole Withrow.”

As previously reported by TheBlaze, two school officials had reportedly brought guns onto school property in the past. One, a teacher at another high school within the district, was cited and resigned. The other is actually the assistant principal at Princeton High School where Cole spent the last four years. That person was suspended for three days and still works at the school. Neither case saw criminal charges like those Cole faces.

Liberty University allows qualified students, faculty and staff to carry concealed firearms on campus and in all buildings, excluding residence halls. You can follow Liberty University on twitter @LibertyU.

TheBlaze has reached out to Liberty University and is expected to receive comment soon. We will update this story at that time.

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Editor’s note: See update below regarding Withrow’s initially reported expulsion. 

–

David “Cole” Withrow was a senior ready to graduate with honors from Princeton High School in Johnston, N.C. He is an Eagle Scout, did his senior class project on gun safety and was even looking forward to college in the fall.

This is why when he realized he forgot his shotgun in the back of his truck after going skeet shooting over the weekend, he debated between driving back home and being counted as tardy and calling his mom from school to collect the gun.

David “Cole” Withrow has to attend an alternative schooling option and received a felony charge for accidentally leaving his shotgun in his truck at school and calling his mother to come pick it up when he realized the mistake. (Photo via “Free Cole”/Facebook)

Deciding to call his mother from the school’s front office to come get the gun, the 18-year-old’s conversation was overheard, according to Todd Starnes.

“He was overheard in a private conversation with his mother explaining what happened,” Kimberly Boykin, a friend of the Withrow family told Starnes. “He could have told a story, but he told the truth.”

“I think it’s an injustice for this young man,” she said. “He’s a good guy. He’s loved by his classmates and his teachers. You don’t become an Eagle Scout by being a bad seed.”

Photo via “Free Cole”/Facebook

As punishment, Withrow was reported to have been expelled for a year and would not be able to graduate with his class, which could have potentially off-set his plans for college. An attorney for the school has since said Withrow was not expelled and special provisions have been made for him to finish school in order to receive his diploma (see the update to this story below).

He was also charged with a felony.

WTVD reported that Withrow had been admitted to Campbell University and East Carolina University and had been awarded a scholarship, but it is currently unclear if his felony charge would impact his attendance in the fall.

The community is outraged not only because Withrow tried to do the right thing and is being severely punished, but also because school administrators within the district have been caught in similar situations in the past and received less severe retribution.

WTVD reported that two school officials had brought guns onto school property in the past. One, a teacher at another high school within the district, was cited and resigned. The other is actually the assistant principal at Princeton High School where Cole spent the last four years. That person was suspended for three days and still works at the school. Neither case saw criminal charges like those Cole faces.

“I think it’s wrong, if an assistant principal can bring a loaded handgun and doesn’t get punished? No, unacceptable,” parent Nancy Terry told WTVD.

According to the station, the Johnston County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that it’s only a misdemeanor charge if an administrator brings a gun on school property, but for students it’s an automatic felony.

WRAL has a statement from the school:

Johnston County schools spokeswoman Tracey Peedin Jones said the school system has to follow state law regarding weapons on campus.

“Please know that with student and personnel issues, we carefully balance all factors to arrive at a fair and just outcome,” she said in a statement Wednesday. “Certain items are mandated and we have no choice but to follow the law.”

Watch WTVD’s report:

A movement called “Free Cole” has begun to spread on Facebook and Twitter:

Students from Princeton High School have rallied around their classmate, petitioning the school board to at least let Withrow graduate.

“Everyone makes a mistake, he tried to do the right thing by it and it’s upsetting,” student Tyler Pope told WTVD.

Update: WRAL reported Jimmy Lawrence, the attorney for the Johnston County Schools Board of Education, saying Winthrow was not expelled, but that “provisions” have been made for him to continue education through the end of the year in order to receive his diploma.

WTVD elaborated that Winthrow will have the opportunity to attend an alternative school. It also noted Lawrence saying that according to North Carolina law and the Federal Gun Free Schools Act, Withrow’s violation would merit a 365-day suspension, but this wasn’t brought up by the Johnston County School Board.

(H/T: Townhall)

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However, one guy took it to another level by relentlessly harassing his roommate as he tried to study for his finals at Navy. The video was uploaded to YouTube on Wednesday and is quickly spreading across the web.

Look, we can’t verify with certainty that the roommate studying for his finals isn’t in on the soon-to-be viral video, but it’s entertaining to watch regardless. Let’s hope that the Internet still has some decency and the video is 100 percent real.

Watch “the worst roommate ever,” as the Huffington Post describes him, below:

(H/T: HuffPost)

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Kiera Wilmot (Photo: WTSP screenshot)

A Florida high school student has been expelled, arrested and charged for possession of a weapon at school after she mixed chemicals in a bottle, causing an explosion Monday.

WTSP reported classmates of Kiera Wilmot, 16, saying it was a “science project gone bad.” They said Wilmot “just wanted to see what happened” when one mixed household chemicals in an 8-ounce water bottle. The result, which occurred around 7 a.m. April 29, caused the cap to pop along with smoke and a small explosion.

Wilmot was arrested and charged as an adult for possession/discharge of a weapon on school property and discharging a destructive device, according to WTSP.

But students at Bartow High School don’t think Wilmot ever had malicious intent.

“I don’t think she’s that type of person. She wouldn’t hurt anyone,” student Chelsey Turner said.

Principal Ron Pritchard too said Wilmot “is a good kid” who had “never been in trouble before. Ever.” Pritchard also said that he believes Wilmot was shocked by the result the mixed chemicals had.

Watch WTSP’s report:

The Polk County School District released a statement regarding the incident:

Anytime a student makes a bad choice it is disappointing to us. Unfortunately, the incident that occurred at Bartow High School yesterday was a serious breach of conduct. In order to maintain a safe and orderly learning environment, we simply must uphold our code of conduct rules. We urge our parents to join us in conveying the message that there are consequences to actions. We will not compromise the safety and security of our students and staff.

Since being expelled, WTSP reported that Wilmot will complete the year through an expulsion program.

WTSP tried to contact the Wilmot family at their home but when they approached the door it reported hearing the voice of a teen girl yell, ”You’ve blown everything out of proportion!” Wilmot’s twin sister reportedly cried and fled a classroom when another student brought up her sister’s arrest.

(H/T: Gawker)

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Image source: NRA.org

Two Texas schools reportedly canceled gun safety programs this week because they were connected to the National Rifle Association.

Houston’s KTRH radio reported that Peck Elementary and Martin Luther King Jr. Early Childhood Education Center were set to host the NRA’s “Eddie Eagle GunSafe Program” on Tuesday. Hours after the radio report aired, the two visits were axed.

A Houston Independent School District spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment from TheBlaze on Wednesday, but told KTRH the program was canceled because they didn’t know Eddie Eagle was part of the NRA. Eddie Eagle is meant to teach pre-K through third-graders to leave the area and tell an adult if they find a gun.

The cancellation came after Peck principal Carlotta Brown told KTRH on Tuesday they were “elated to have a gun safety program in our school” and said she wasn’t getting any push back for bringing the program in.

“It is very necessary so our children know playing with guns is to be something serious,” she said. “We have to make sure all of our children are safe, all of our adults are safe, and it starts in elementary school.”

A representative from Peck Elementary could not be reached for comment; Martin Luther King Jr. Early Childhood Education Center directed questions back to the school district.

Ray Hunt, president of the Houston Police Officers’ Union, told KTRH he believes Brown knew from the start that Eddie Eagle was part of the NRA and that “somebody got in touch with her” after the station’s report because of an anti-NRA bias.

“If this program was being sponsored by HPD or the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, there would be a line of people waiting for us to come teach it to them,” Hunt said.

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According to Wyoming’s Star-Tribune, on the non-university affiliated Facebook page UW Crushes, which has since been shut down, a post appeared last week that read:

“I want to hatef— Meg Lanker- so hard,” the Facebook post said. “That chick that runs her liberal mouth all the time and doesn’t care who knows it. I think its hot and it makes me angry. One night with me and shes gonna be a good Republican b—-.”

The post in question on the UW Crushes page before it was removed. (Image: YouTube screenshot)

The UW Crushes Facebook page was one where students could send in their thoughts about people they liked on campus and the administrators of the Facebook group would post it anonymously. In a video created by students about the threatening post and the events that ensued after it, a female student said UW Crushes was, in general, innocent and a place that had some “cute” comments posted about crushes people had.

This controversial post Meg Lanker-Simons reported the post to university administrators and campus police, telling the Laramie Boomerang that as a rape survivor this is “one of the worst things someone can threaten.”

On Tuesday, though, it was revealed by University of Wyoming Police Department that they had cited Lanker-Simons herself for the threatening post. In a separate article, the Laramie Boomerang reported police obtained a warrant to search the student’s computer and found substantial evidence verifying that the offending Facebook post came from Lanker-Simons’ computer, while the computer was in her possession.”

A screenshot of the UW Crushes page before it was taken down by administrators. (Image: YouTube screenshot)

Lanker-Simons was issued a citation for interference and will appear in court May 13. If found guilty of the misdemeanor, Lanker-Simons could see up to a year in prison and up to $1,000 in fines.

Pamela Kandt with the Episcopal Women’s Caucus said Lanker-Simons is an innocent victim. Kandt told the Boomerang she believes the police “have bullied her and they have pulled a bluff.”

Regardless, the university has said that either way the issue has dredged up an important lesson, which is that UW has zero tolerance for violence of any kind.

“The fact that the Facebook post apparently was a fabrication does not change the necessity for continued vigilance in reassuring that we have a campus where everyone feels safe,” UW spokesman Chad Baldwin said in a statement. ”It’s important that this event does not undermine the progress that has been made in this area.”

Students rallied against the post and against sexual violence Monday, a few hours before Lanker-Simons received her citation from police.

Sean Miller, a senior majoring in gender and women’s studies who was the spokesman for the demonstration, told the Boomerang he felt the administration acted appropriately in handling their investigation and that the demonstration was organized ”to raise awareness in a civil, peaceful way.”

A video, created by students before the twist in who might have drafted the post in the first place, revealed how many on campus supported Lanker-Simons and used the incident as a platform to speak against violence. The video documented some of the Facebook post, the demonstration held before Lanker-Simons was given a citation and had an interview with the Associated Students/University of Wyoming president:

KOWB-TV reported Lanker-Simons’ attorney Charles Pelkey saying his client would be entering a not guilty plea.

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(Photo: AP/Brendan Hoffman)

About a month ago, Education Week reported that the Department of Education will oversee the design of assessment tests for the Common Core State Standards, confirming suspicions that the initiative is nothing less than a federal curriculum for America’s schools. Common Core’s federal control does not stop with public schools. Students in charter and private schools, as well as homeschoolers, will also have no choice but to learn what Uncle Sam wants to teach them. In essence, there’s no opting out of Common Core.

As public institutions, charter schools in state that have adopted Common Core will also have to comply with the national standards. This command and control directly undermines the freedom that has led to charters’ success. Common Core champions will claim that charters still have the freedom to choose their own textbooks and employ alternative teaching techniques – which is technically true. But now that the federal government is overseeing what’s on Common Core’s assessments, charter school teachers will have no choice but to teach their students what Washington wants to prepare their students for the standardized test. So much for school choice.

As for private institutions, many parochial schools are voluntarily taking up Common Core. The Catholic School Standards Project, for example, is encouraging local dioceses to adopt the Core. While private schools like those of the Catholic Church have every right to adopt standards that they see fit for their students, parents should beware that Common Core has a direct pipeline to Washington. As such, it would be prudent to urge teachers and administrators to thoroughly review the standards and only adopt those that complement the school’s mission.

Even homeschoolers will also be affected by the standards indirectly since both the SAT and ACT are soon aligning to Common Core. Every homeschooled student with college aspirations will have to learn the national standards or be at a disadvantage in taking college entrance exams.

Granted, there is nothing wrong with private schools and homeschool programs adopting Common Core per se. It is fundamental right of free association for private institutions to operate as they see fit. The standards may absolutely have superlative standards that schools may want to adopt.

Rather, what is wrong is the federal government’s backdoor influence on Common Core’s content. Especially since the standards sell themselves as a “state-led effort,” it is downright deceptive for the federal government to sneak into the private schools and home schools of America without proper warning. Common Core should either come out as what it really is – a federal standards initiative – or end its entanglement with Washington altogether.

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(Photo via KPIX-TV)

The Oakland Unified School District is getting extra administrators to help calm the riotous environment after video of a violent brawl between a middle school girl and a substitute teacher recently surfaced.

Captured on a cellphone sometime before winter break (the date is not specified), a parent gave the video to local CBS affiliate KPIX-TV last week.

It begins with the teacher attempting to dismiss the 8th grade girl from the class for presumed bad behavior.

“Get your butt out of here,” he says, following her to the door to the sounds of “Oooh!” from others in the class.

The two then briefly exit the door and the sounds of a scuffle emerge.

Soon the teacher reappears in the classroom, trying to quickly shut the door behind him to prevent the girl from coming back in.  Something blocks it from closing, and when the teacher opens the door he raises his leg in a low kick to prevent her from coming back in.

He fails, and she starts throwing punches.

The teacher then grabs a desk as an improvised sword and shield combo, both blocking the girl’s fists and trying to push her out using its legs.

The two proceed to scream at each other, though very little of the dialogue is intelligible because of all the bleeps.

Watch the stunning video, below:

According to WPIX, this is far from the only fight at the 360-student school in East Oakland, called Alliance Academy.  Jose Barajas, an eighth grader, told them there was recently a “riot.”

He described how he hid under a desk when “they destroyed the whole classroom.”  He continued: “They broke the desk. They threw the computers on the floor.”

In this case, the substitute was not disciplined, but the student no longer goes to the school.

The recent $3 million federal School Improvement Grant the school received appears to have done little to improve the situation, and teachers and administrators are crying out for more help.

One teacher said she has a student in her class who (understandably) gets “crying scared” during the altercations.

“They shouldn’t have to worry about being safe,” Kashmir Hyder told WPIX.  “You should never feel that at school.”

–

Related:

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• ‘Kill the Police’: Cops Arrest Hundreds of Occupy Oakland Protestors After Street Clashes
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(Photo via Christian News Network)

Parents in Redhook, New York, are outraged over an anti-bullying presentation that taught middle school students not only about terms like “pansexual” and “genderqueer,” but according to one parent had two students “pretend they were lesbians on a date.” In another role-playing situation, a female student had to ask another if she could kiss her.

The presentation, led by Bard College volunteers at Linden Avenue Middle School a few weeks ago (and without prior knowledge of the parents), had some like Mandy Coon upset. Here’s Coon’s account on the Christian News Network:

“She told me, ‘Mom, we all get teased and picked on enough; now I’m going to be called a lesbian because I had to ask another girl if I could kiss her,’” she lamented. “They also picked two girls to stand in front of the class and pretend they were lesbians on a date.”

Coon stated that she was especially irate over the matter because parents were given no warning about the presentations, nor an opportunity to opt out. She is also dismayed that college students were granted the right to come into the classroom and encourage her daughter to be sexually active.

“I am furious,” she declared. “I am her parent. Where does anyone get the right to tell her that it’s okay for her to have sex?”

The Poughkeepsie Journal reports superintendent of Red Hook Central School District Paul Finch saying workshops like these are required under New York’s Dignity for All Students Act, which states that instruction in “civility, citizenship and character” would include “concepts of tolerance, respect for others and dignity.” Topics for this would include race, nationality, religion, weight, sexual orientation and gender identity, among others.

Finch told the Journal such workshops “may require more notification to parents” in the future.

Coon told the Journal that aside from the content of the workshop for the eighth grade class, she finds it baffling that if such topics are required to be taught, “why are they bringing in other unlicensed, untrained professionals — college kids — to teach this?”

Finch said the student volunteers worked with the school’s principal, Katie Zahedi, and other guidance counselors about the workshop’s format. Zahedi explained on a Facebook forum, according to the Journal, that the role-playing mentioned by Coon was “not to pretend to be gay” but to practice saying “no.”

“In planning the discussion, we made it clear that absolutely no discussion of any sexual acts is appropriate to middle school, and they used the examples of a kiss,” Zahedi wrote. “It was a separate activity for boys and girls and ultimately about respect and safety.”

Whats more, the Red Hook School District website posted important facts to clarify inaccurate reporting about the workshop:

• Contrary to a few media reports, female students were not forced to engage in any “lesbian kissing”.
• Contrary to a few media reports, male students were not told to carry condoms.
• Contrary to a few media reports, sexual activity among young adolescents was not condoned or promoted in any way.

The school district also posted an email it sent to Fox News regarding its report of the workshop. Here’s an excerpt from the letter:

These sessions were designed by the building leadership in an effort to have eighth graders treat each other with respect and to develop in our young adolescents an appreciation for personal dignity. To suggest that we would condone or promote sexual activity among teenagers is absurd. It is equally absurd to suggest that an activity, designed to have young women feel more confident saying no to unwanted advances from boys, is in some way promoting a lesbian lifestyle. It is my understanding that the role playing activity is part of a program supported by conservatives such as Laura Bush.

The definitions given to students, while overly granular in my opinion, were put forth to make sure that students understand that all gender identities and/or sexual orientations are protected in law in New York State as part of an effort to curb harassment, discrimination, and bullying. It is our intent to adjust this document and be less granular in future lessons.

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The Michigan House on Wednesday passed a bill that prohibits any funding for Common Core, a set of math and English standards voluntarily adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia. The Michigan measure is the latest blow to the system, now under fire from Republicans across the nation and others who fear it represents the surrender of local control over schools.

“Giving our authority to control what is taught in schools to any national entity is wrong. I am glad the House is taking up the debate of whether this is appropriate,” said state Rep. Tom McMillin, Rochester Republican. The bill also must be passed by the Senate and signed by Gov. Rick Snyder to become law, though it’s unclear whether it will move beyond the House.

Regardless of the bill’s fate, Mr. McMillin’s words are indicative of a larger attitude. Fear of national control over education is what drove the Republican National Committee earlier this month to adopt a resolution strongly condemning Common Core.

The RNC took that step even though many Republican governors, including Tennessee’s Bill Haslam and Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, strongly support the system, as do former governors and education-reform champions such as Jeb Bush and Mitch Daniels.

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A new Robert Redford film entitled, “The Company You Keep,” takes what some critics call “a sympathetic look” at the organization. And in a recent interview with The Australian, Dohrn spoke candidly about the movie as well as her checkered past — one that she has undoubtedly been able to escape with intriguing success.

Today, she is most known as a law professor at Northwestern University. This is, naturally, a far cry from her once less-than-coveted position on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list. It’s a transformation that’s worth noting, as the former radical leader has reinvented herself with such fanfare that the story, itself, seems almost implausible.

Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn leave a courthouse in 1981 (Photo Credit: AP)

But before we get into the finer details, let’s take a brief trip down memory lane. To begin, if you’re looking for a quick primer on the Underground’s protest activities, The Australian has it:

The Weather Underground, commonly known as the Weathermen, was not a group of idealists partaking in street theatre and silent sit-ins. The group campaigned violently for the overthrow of the US government and committed arson, bombed banks, the Pentagon and other government buildings, led jailbreaks (including, in 1970, of Timothy Leary) and incited riots. In 1981, three former members were involved in an armoured car robbery that left two police officers and a security guard dead. [...]

Dohrn notes the group was protected by the “white-skin privilege” that they protested against: the FBI sought to indict, harass and arrest them, but not assassinate them — unlike its approach towards radical black leaders. (In 1969, after an armed FBI-police raid led to the killing of rising Black Panther Party star Fred Hampton and another party member, the WU declared war on the US government and destroyed a number of police vehicles. It also bombed a New York police station in 1970 for what it described as the assassination of activist George Jackson, one of the so-called Soledad Brothers, during a botched jailbreak.)

In discussing “The Company You Keep,” Dohrn doesn’t seem at all turned-off by the film. In fact, according to her recent comments, she believes that the movie and the book that it is based on (by the same name) are forms of art.

“It’s everyone’s dream, of course, to have these actors representing them,” Dohrn told The Australian. “It doesn’t really matter which one you pick, Julie Christie or Susan Sarandon, what could be better? But I think the idea of it was to be more of a nostalgic film than I would make.”

Photo Credit: YouTube

The meatier responses come, though, when she is asked if, as a once-fugitive member of the group, she felt that the radicals who comprised the organization got away with their crimes. In the end, Dohrn, herself, was fined $1,500 and given probation for her role in the Underground.

Later, she spent seven months in prison for refusing to testify to a grand jury about the Brinks robbery, an operation during which two police officers were killed (recently, TheBlaze also told you about Kathy Boudin, another former Underground member, who participated in this operation and who now also enjoys an academic career).

“No, I think I was 11 years underground. It wasn’t exactly a punishment,” Dohrn responded to the question of whether she escaped punishment. “I do think we won the moral war and it was hard [for] the government to call us terrorists or criminals. Certainly they tried, but we were such a home-grown product — I grew up in the midwest of America [in] a family who voted Republican all their lives, and I was the first person in my family to go to college. That’s an American story.”

Bernardine Dohrn, former leader of the radical, anti-war movement Weather Underground, and her companion Bill Ayers are escorted by federal authorities after surrendering at Cook County Courthouse in Chicago, Ill., Dec. 3, 1989. (AP Photo)

Of course, whether or not hers is a true “American story” is predicated upon one’s view of the country. According to a Jan. 14, 1981 article in the Lawrence Journal-News that covered Dohrn’s sentencing, it seems her views America in the wake of her Underground days hadn’t changed much. The judge lectured her, claiming, “we have a system for change that does not involve violence and jeopardizing the lives of others: the election process.” He then asked, “Are you ready to join us?”

“You and I have different views of America,” she responded, with the Journal-News highlighting that she sported a “slight smile” in making this statement. So, it seems that her “American” story may be subjugated to the confines of her views on the country — notions that differ greatly from many other Americans. Let’s also remember that, despite apparently having disdain for the U.S., at least during a portion of her life, Dohrn and her husband have profited greatly from its many opportunities.

As for her days in the Underground, Dohrn doesn’t have bad memories — or she at least refrains from highlighting them. She told The Australian that running and living in hiding did have an some adventurous elements.

“We didn’t want to disappear [but] we had a pretty great time of it, all things considered,” said the former Underground leader.

Dohrn reiterated that the government, at the time, was “criminal.” She also noted that the Underground’s goal was to end the Vietnam War and to achieve “revolution.” As for this latter notion, The Australian notes that she laughed a bit at the idea, acknowledging that it was absurd.

Photo Credit: AP

While Ayers and Dohrn have been given quite a bit of media attention over the past few years, other members have received far less media scrutiny. According to the law professor, most are in contact with one another and remain friends — but a few are still living their lives in secret, it seems.

While she notes that “almost all” of the original members are in touch and that they are so close their “children and grandchildren know each other,” she cited moments of disagreement among the group — but it’s apparently nothing that would tear them apart.

“Affection, I would say, characterizes our friendship these days. And most people are activists, most people are doing great organizing or educational work,” Dohrn added.

As for those still missing, she didn’t seem to spend much time discussing or lamenting their whereabouts.

“There’s probably people who are still angry who I don’t see but I think there’s a vast group of us [who] feel we had a moment; we don’t think of ourselves as living in the past,” she continued. ”We think that we’re fully engaged in the struggles of our time — climate change and peace and justice issues and the fight for equality — so we feel tremendous affection and devotion to each other” (read the entire interview here).

For more about Dohrn’s views on current affairs, watch a talk she delivered last year:

Many of these statements were more benign than those uttered by her husband in the past. In an article that was ironically published in The New York Times on Sept. 11, 2001, Ayers was more candid about his views on his past criminal history.

”I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough,” he said.

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Posted by user “rafa3l2,” an individual who claims to be the student’s teacher, the message accompanying the image reads, “One of my 4th grade students chose gay marriage as his topic for a persuasive essay. This is the result. More sense than some adults.”

The short essay, which argues why gays should be allowed to marry, makes the case that everyone should simply be happy for the “big moment” that marriage is in these individuals’ lives.

ABC has more about the intriguing story:

“Why gay people should be able to get married is you can’t stop two adult’s from getting married because there grown and it doesn’t matter if it creeps you out just get over it,” the essay reads (spelling and grammar kept in tact). “And you should be happy for them because it’s a big moment in their life.  When I went to my grandparents wedding it was the happies momment.”

The written work concludes by calling for people not to judge others’ lives. Here it is:

Photo Credit: Reddit/rafa3l2

While the letter did get some structural and grammatical critique regarding how it was written, many commended the child’s sentiment.

Of course, it’s possible that the copy was written by an individual who isn’t really in fourth grade; it’s even possible that “rafa3l2” isn’t a teacher. Then again, the errors present within the text do seem to add to its authenticity (again, those, too, could be fabricated).

Regardless, the letter is making a splash and, if it truly checks out, it’s adding fodder for those who support same-sex nuptials.

(H/T: ABC News)

–

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An email from a University of Maryland Delta Gamma sorority member sent her sisters lambasting their social behavior during Greek Week went viral last week for its exceedingly harsh tone, liberal peppering of curse words throughout and frequent use of all caps. The letter and its public spread has now led to the resignation of the member who sent it.

The email, originally tipped to Gawker, began:

If you just opened this like I told you to, tie yourself down to whatever chair you’re sitting in, because this email is going to be a rough f***ing ride.

And she wasn’t kidding. The email goes on to call out her sisters for “LITERALLY being so f***ing AWKWARD and so f***ing BORING” during their social interactions with the fraternity Sigma Nu.

“This week is about fostering relationships in the greek community, and that’s not f***ing possible if you’re going to stand around and talk to each other and not our matchup,” the letter continued. “FRATS DON’T LIKE BORING SORORITIES. Oh wait, DOUBLE F***ING NEWSFLASH: SIGMA NU IS NOT GOING TO WANT TO HANG OUT WITH US IF WE F***ING SUCK, which by the way in case you’re an idiot and need it spelled out for you, WE F***ING SUCK SO FAR.”

University of Maryland’s Delta Nu house. (Image: Google Maps)

She also calls out her sisters for cheering for opposing teams during Greek Week events.

“YOU CHEER FOR OUR G**D*** TEAM AND NOT THE OTHER ONE, HAVE YOU NEVER BEEN TO A SPORTS GAME? ARE YOU F***ING BLIND?”

After publishing the full letter, Gawker received an email from the sorority’s president telling them the “email absolutely does not reflect our chapter’s values nor Sigma Nu’s” and asking that the website either remove the letter entirely or redact the names of the sorority and fraternity mentioned.

This week, it has been announced on the sorority’s official Facebook page that the member penning the letter has resigned. Here’s the statement:

Delta Gamma has accepted the resignation of one of its members whose email relating to a social event has been widely distributed and publicized through social media and traditional media channels.

The tone and content of the email was highly inappropriate and unacceptable by any standard.

No matter who released it to the public or how it reached such a mass audience, the email content should not reflect on any sorority woman in general or any fraternal organization at large.

This is a regrettable action by a college junior – a personal email that is now on view for a global audience. And as all reasonable people can agree, this is an email that should never have been sent by its author. Period.

This email should not be depicted in any way as standard or routine or tied to any official sorority voice. It is not an official voice or message and should not be construed as such.

For the young woman who wrote it, we can only express our regret and concerns for landing notoriety in this manner.

We now consider this matter closed.

Watch this report about the resignation:

Read the full letter on Gawker here.

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