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EDUCATION

Ben Sasse’s Letter on Israel to Jewish Gators A model of moral clarity, compared with the mush from the Ivy League.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ben-sasse-statement-israel-university-of-florida-hamas-gaza-3cd633e2?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

In the face of Hamas’s atrocities, some U.S. college administrators at first said little or issued equivocating mush, such as what Dartmouth College put out Tuesday in its “Statement on the Israel-Gaza War.” A notable exception: University of Florida President Ben Sasse.

Here’s what Mr. Sasse wrote Tuesday in an email addressed to “Jewish Gator Alums,” which deserves to be quoted at length:

“I will not tiptoe around this simple fact: What Hamas did is evil and there is no defense for terrorism. This shouldn’t be hard. Sadly, too many people in elite academia have been so weakened by their moral confusion that, when they see videos of raped women, hear of a beheaded baby, or learn of a grandmother murdered in her home, the first reaction of some is to ‘provide context’ and try to blame the raped women, beheaded baby, or the murdered grandmother. In other grotesque cases, they express simple support for the terrorists.

“This thinking isn’t just wrong, it’s sickening. It’s dehumanizing. It is beneath people called to educate our next generation of Americans. I am thankful to say I haven’t seen examples of that here at UF, either from our faculty or our student body. . . .

“In the coming days, it is possible that anti-Israel protests will come to UF’s campus. I have told our police chief and administration that this university always has two foundational commitments: We will protect our students and we will protect speech. This is always true: Our Constitution protects the rights of people to make abject idiots of themselves. . . .

“When evil raises its head, as it has in recent days, it is up to men and women of conscience and courage to draw strength from truth and commit ourselves to the work of building something better—to the work of pursuing justice and pursuing peace. That is what we aim to do through education, compassion, and truth here at the University of Florida.”

Young Jews Brace for ‘A Day of Global Jihad’ At our institutions of higher education, the quads are alive with hate. By Maya Sulkin

https://www.thefp.com/p/young-jews-brace-for-a-day-of-global-jihad?utm_campaign=email-post&r=8t06w&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

I was a deeply unpopular student at Columbia for a simple reason: I was a Zionist. When I posted photos on Instagram of swastikas graffitied across campus, I received private messages telling me I was “attention-seeking.” When I hosted pro-Israel events, commenters online accused me of blood libel. 

I left Columbia earlier this year in part because of this bullying. And now, after more than 1,300 Jews were slaughtered by Hamas in Israel, the hatred that once hid behind my Instagram DMs is appearing in broad daylight right at my alma mater, an Ivy League bastion that has educated politicians, CEOs, and Nobel Prize winners. 

On Wednesday, female Columbia student Maxwell Friedman, 19, was arrested and charged with assault after she beat an Israeli student with a stick outside the school’s main library. 

The following day, hundreds of students gathered outside Columbia’s Alma Mater statue to cheer on the mass genocide of Jews. (In this, they were merely echoing the views published by tenured professor Joseph Massad, who described the scene of “Palestinian fighters from Gaza breaking through Israel’s prison fence” as “awesome.”) 

For hours, students encircled the quad, waving Palestinian flags and chanting the ten rally cries sanctioned by on-campus activists, including “End the Zionist occupation” and “Stop defending apartheid.” 

Many covered their faces, pulling sweatshirts over their heads in the face of cameras. A few wore N95 masks, sunglasses, and hats all at once. Earlier, one of the student groups behind the event, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, encouraged participants to cover their faces “for safety from doxxing.” 

If We Had to Be Governed by the Harvard Faculty… Here’s a list of possible candidates. James Freeman

https://www.wsj.com/articles/if-we-had-to-be-governed-by-the-harvard-faculty-6e5426ed?mod=opinion_lead_pos11

Observing unhinged campus reactions to Saturday’s murderous barbarity, some commenters on social media have been recalling William F. Buckley, Jr.’s opinion that he would rather be governed by the first series of names in a telephone directory than by the faculty of Harvard. Certainly one must be extremely wary of consenting to be governed by Harvard students. But not all of their instructors would necessarily oppress us.

On Tuesday afternoon the Journal published this disturbing report from Harvard doctoral student J.J. Kimche:

The university’s “Palestine Solidarity Groups,” a collection of some 30 student groups, issued a statement exculpating the terrorists for their acts of murder, rape, kidnapping and mayhem. “We, the undersigned student organizations,” it began, “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” The signatories—groups such as the Harvard Islamic Society and Harvard Law School Justice for Palestine—made clear that they stand shoulder-to-shoulder with this “resistance,” fashionable doublespeak for those feverishly working to wipe Jews off the face of the earth. Harvard isn’t alone: Some 50 student organizations at the University of California, Berkeley declared their “unwavering support for the resistance in Gaza.”
Most Jewish students have harbored mixed feelings toward pro-Palestinian groups on our campuses. Some sympathize with their cause; others see them as hostile; most ignore them. By and large, we have been happy to regard members of such groups as fellow travelers on the journey of learning and discovery, with whom we share spaces and engage in respectful classroom discussion. But during a moment of stunning moral clarity—such as the live-streaming of masked terrorists gleefully machine-gunning Jewish families—one would expect fellow students of all political persuasions to unite in horror and condemnation. The deepest political differences can be tolerated if we all abide by a basic framework of decency.
Not only have our fellow students failed to condemn this proto-genocide; they have justified and celebrated it.

Kids as Young as Kindergarteners Will Be Allowed to Use Cannabis at School if Michigan Passes New Law The legislation would legally allow students with approved conditions to consume medical marijuana in the form of edibles, beverages, and other low-THC products on school premises By Sandra Rose Salathe

https://people.com/kids-cannabis-school-michigan-if-law-passes-8348098

Michigan K-12 students may soon be permitted to use medical marijuana and CBD-infused products at school under a new bill presented last week.

Proposed by Democratic representatives in the Michigan House, the legislation would legally allow students to consume edibles, beverages and other low-THC marijuana products on school premises or buses.

The administration of these products would be overseen by a designated school staff member. Only students with clear written authorization detailing the timing and purpose, such as for emergency relief or symptom prevention, could use them.

“What it does is allow medical marijuana pediatric patients to have their medication in the schools the same way anyone else has their medications stored,” Michigan State Rep. Jimmie Wilson Jr., told CBS News. “The same way, whether it be in a nurse’s office or an administration office, they would go up and access their medication the same way anyone else would, and they would go back to class.”

The new initiative aims to increase accessibility to medical marijuana for eligible students.

In addition, the bill showcases Michigan’s evolving stance on drug policies, aligning with both its legal and illegal drug environment. For example, a bill introduced in September aimed to decriminalize psychedelic plants, and there was a recent revision to the drug-testing policy for new hires this month.

State Sen. Jeff Irwin (D-Ann Arbor) expressed his intent to broaden the dialogue regarding specific substances and their place in society.

Israel-bashers headline Jewish center’s speaker series at Temple University I wonder what historian Murray Friedman would think of what his center has become in the hands of his successors. Moshe Phillips

https://www.jns.org/israel-bashers-headline-jewish-centers-speaker-series-at-temple-university/

While attention has been focused on the anti-Israel literary festival at the University of Pennsylvania, harsh critics of Israel are also being featured just across town—at Temple University’s American Jewish Studies Center, also in Philadelphia.

The line-up of speakers during the 2023-24 academic year at Temple University’s Feinstein Center for American Jewish History features one critic of Israel after another. It seems that you have to be angry at the Jewish state in order to qualify to be part of the series.

One of the speakers who already delivered their talk was Eric Alterman, whose latest book, We Are Not One, depicts Israel as an oppressor and derides American Jews for supporting it.

Speaking at Tel Aviv University last year, Alterman announced his personal break with Israel. “I’m sorry; I’m abandoning you and your colleagues,” he declared. “I’m going to devote my attention to rejuvenating American Judaism. Those are my people. I used to have in my will Israeli peace groups, I’m changing my will and I’m funding American Jewish scholarly and charitable institutions.”

In a recent issue of the Jewish Review of Books, a prominent Jewish scholar questioned some of the distortions in Alterman’s book. Alterman responded by denouncing the reviewer as “chief of [the magazine’s] pro-Israel thought police.” That kind of slur gives you a sense of his temperament.

To discuss the current judicial reform debate in Israel, the Feinstein Center chose Gilat Bachar. She’s one of the leaders of a legal initiative to reclassify Israeli anti-terror actions as “policing” (rather than combat) so that more Palestinian Arabs can sue the Israeli government.

It’s interesting to note that nine years ago, Bachar chose to serve as an intern at the extremist HaMoked center, which defends Palestinian Arab terrorists. Does that disqualify her from speaking about Israeli affairs at the Feinstein Center? No. But it does give you a sense of her orientation when she talks about Israeli legal controversies.

Another Feinstein speaker is Talia Lavin. She was forced to resign from the staff of The New Yorker after she falsely accused an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent of having a Nazi tattoo. It was actually the symbol of his platoon in Afghanistan, where he risked his life to keep terrorists from coming to the United States to maim and kill innocent people like Lavin.

Drag University at Princeton Guess what’s happening at the #1-ranked American university. by Hugh Fitzgerald

https://www.frontpagemag.com/drag-university-at-princeton/

There is a new program, a new subject for study and teaching, at Princeton University, that should gladden the hearts of diversity, equity, and inclusivity devotees everywhere. It stretches the boundaries and pushes the envelope. Who could object? Well, you could, and I could.

Princeton, according to the latest list compiled by U.S. News and World Report, is ranked #1 among American universities. Think of that. #1.

And Princeton, no doubt hoping to solidify its status as #1, has just announced a new program that will train students in the Art of the Drag. Robert Spencer wrote about this here, and there is more here: “New ‘Drag University’ program at Princeton to fund students’ budding drag careers,” by Logan Dubil, The College Fix, September 28, 2023:

A new “Drag University” program launched at Princeton University will train students in the “artform.”

The program is offered through the school’s Gender + Sexuality Resource Center and is open to all undergraduate and graduate students interested in the world of drag, according to the center’s Instagram page.

Throughout the 2023-24 school year, enrolled participants will cover an array of topics, including the history of drag, “Sewing 101,” choreography, face painting, photoshoots and other topics, according to the program’s registration form.

The form was updated this week to note: “At this time we have reached our capacity for our scholarships, but you are more than welcome to attend our workshops.”

Prior to its update, the form stated the first six enrollees who attend the Sept. 19 orientation and commit to the program will receive scholarships to fully cover the cost of supplies, according to a copy screenshot by The College Fix.

A Glimmer of Hope in Higher Education The Open Discourse Coalition, a new organization that champions free speech, is thriving. By Susan J. Crawford and Kenneth G. Langone

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-glimmer-of-hope-for-free-speech-in-higher-education-colleges-universities-civil-discourse-7330474?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

The president of Bucknell University, John Bravman, stood behind a placard bearing the words “Freedom of Expression” last month and kicked off a yearlong forum on the subject. Mr. Bravman introduced columnist George Will, who inveighed against censorship for 45 minutes, skewering both political parties in the process.

It was a dream come true, considering the cancel culture flourishing on many college campuses. In 2021 we wrote a letter in these pages with the headline “Alumni Are Fed Up and Ready to Fight Back.” We saw what was happening at our alma mater and colleges nationwide and decided to do something about it.

We began Open Discourse Coalition, an alumni and student-supported organization. The coalition is an independent, nonprofit organization with an office blocks from Bucknell University. Its goal is to advance the school’s mission to offer students diversity of thought with an unwavering commitment to free speech.

Prominent speakers, confident they will be heard, have been drawn to Bucknell to discuss and debate national issues, with students from the right and left turning out in large numbers. Experts on some of society’s thorniest topics have civilly discussed, disagreed and answered challenging questions from students.

It “was not nearly as polarized as what I expected,” one student wrote in response to a program. Another: “I was pleasantly surprised at how civil the conversation [was] and highly appreciated the respect both views gave each other.” One professor told us it was the first time he heard two differing perspectives on gun control at the same program in more than 20 years on campus.

Heather Mac Donald But Johnny Can’t Spell G-A-Y With large majorities of their students incompetent in English and math, Los Angeles schools are ramping up efforts—for more gay pride and gender indoctrination.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/but-johnny-cant-spell-g-a-y

It has been almost 90 days since Gay Pride month. According to the Los Angeles Unified School District, that is too long a hiatus from the imperative of immersing young children in the arcana of gay and trans identity. So throughout the week of October 9, many elementary school classrooms in Los Angeles will celebrate “National Coming Out Day,” which falls on October 11.  

October is itself LGBTQ+ History Month, the Los Angeles Unified School District bureaucracy has reminded what it calls the district’s “fabulous educators.” Other LGBTQ+ programming will take place throughout October, picking up where Gay Pride month left off.  The goals for the so-called Week of Action are ambitious: to turn six-year-olds into budding gender and critical race theorists.

An LAUSD teacher forwarded me the district’s “toolkit” for teachers laying out that agenda. Use of the toolkit, decorated with a Black Power Fist superimposed on neon rainbow stripes, is nominally optional, but elementary school teachers who forego LGBTQ programming during the Week of Action will surely risk stigmatization. (The district did not respond to queries regarding expected classroom participation rates.)

At the Week of Action’s start, teachers should engage kindergarten and first-grade students in discussions about identity, aided by an activity called an “Identity Map.” Pupils chart their experiences of discrimination or privilege along 12 axes, including race, gender identity, sexuality, mental health, and body size. This mapping allows seven-year-olds to see themselves through the “lens of intersectionality.” Teachers then post the identity maps on the wall for a class discussion about students’ multiple “identities.”

Each elementary school day during the Week of Action can be devoted to a different LGBTQ+ celebrity, whose identity will be announced in morning assemblies, suggests the toolkit.

Monday is Jazz Jennings Day. Jennings’s fame rests on being one of the youngest children to date to claim a trans identity. “Assigned male at birth,” as Jazz’s publicity materials inevitably put it, Jazz allegedly asserted female identity at age two, and was diagnosed with gender dysphoria at age four. Subsequent surgery tried to cut Jazz’s body into a simulacrum of a female one and resulted in undisclosed “complications.” On Jazz Jennings day, the LAUSD recommends that kindergartners engage in the fabulous activities of “Which Outfit” and “Which Hairdo.” (One day is not enough to acknowledge the fabulousness that is Jazz. January in the LAUSD is devoted to holding Jazz and Friends Reading Events, supplemented by reading inclusive books in every grade.)

A Student Wants to Join West Point. But He’s the Wrong Race The people who took down affirmative action at Harvard are coming for the military. by Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/a-student-wants-to-join-west-point-but-hes-the-wrong-race/

B is a high school student with a 4.2 GPA. One of his grandfathers fought in the Army on D-Day. Three of his family members are currently serving in the military. He would like to attend West Point Academy and continue a proud family tradition of military service, but there’s one problem.

He’s white.

The United States Military Academy is highly selective, but not in the way that it should be.

In 2019, Vice President Mike Pence addressed the graduates, hailing them as “the most diverse class in the history of the United States Military Academy” with the “highest number of Hispanic women graduates”. He told them that, “I couldn’t be more proud to stand before the graduating class of 2019 that includes the highest number of African American women cadets in the history of the United States Military Academy!” That’s been the emphasis at West Point for too long.

Earlier this year, West Point put out a press release boasting of its 38% minority enrollment as part of what a new lawsuit alleges is a practice of achieving its “desired percentages … of blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities” through systemic discrimination in admissions.

As the lawsuit filed by Students for Fair Admissions on the behalf of B, the anonymous student, lays out, “West Point sets benchmarks for the percentage of each class that should be filled by ‘African Americans,’ ‘Hispanics,’ and ‘Asians,’ and it meticulously tracks its compliance with those figures down to a tenth of a percentage point.” The problem is too many white people.

During the Biden administration’s defense of racial discrimination in Harvard’s admissions policies, the federal brief complained that, “white service members are 53% of the active force, but 73% of officers.” West Point’s goal is to match the percentage of officers to the number of enlisted men and so there needs to be only 53% white officers. The white officers must go.

The Year in Teacher Union Double Dealing The unions and their leaders are more agenda-driven, anti-parent, and hypocritical than ever. by Larry Sand

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-year-in-teacher-union-double-dealing/

This has been an egregious year for the country’s teachers unions. Okay, you may be thinking, so what else is new? But 2023 has exposed them as hypocrites par excellence.

The National Education Association convention in July provides myriad examples. While one might think a gathering of teachers would be concerned with the lack of literacy in public school students, he would be dead wrong. This year’s NEA convention in Florida was strictly political, and sex- and gender-obsessed ideas were front and center.

This year’s New Business Items (messages of concern from the hoi-polloi to the NEA aristocracy) were indicative. For instance, NBI 4 asserts, “The NEA will inform states and locals of the following sample language that may be put in contracts and policies that is LGBTQIA+ inclusive. The language will be as follows: ‘Parental leave’ instead of ‘maternity leave,’ ‘parent’ instead of ‘mother’ or ‘father,’ ‘birthing parent’ instead of ‘mother’ or ‘father,’ and ‘non-birthing parent’ instead of ‘mother’ or ‘father.’”

NBI 88 wants the NEA to declare a national educator day of action whose purpose is to rally – among other things – to “protect LGBTQIA+ students and educators including the right to gender-affirming care…and stop book bans.”

And speaking of “banned” books, the NEA’s “Great Summer Reads for Educators” included kiddie porn like Gender Queer, which graphically depicts young people indulging in various kinds of sex. (Interestingly, this “banned book” is available on Amazon and in local public libraries. The union’s snit is over the fact that parents do not want the book in school libraries – just as Playboy and Penthouse do not grace their shelves).

The NEA also released a toolkit that offers teachers suggestions on how to circumvent rules that require them to call a student by their given name rather than a chosen “transgender” name.

Also, according to the most recent LM-2 form submitted by the NEA to the IRS, the union raked in $377 million in dues and agency fees during 2021. However, a mere $32 million was earmarked for representational activity, allegedly the NEA’s top priority, while it spent $66 million on political activities.