I remember how it was -- JR
California AG Sues School District to Stop Policy That Informs Parents of Student Gender Transitions
California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit Monday against the Chino Valley Unified School District for approving a policy that requires school officials to inform parents if their child wants to change their gender.
The district’s board of education approved the policy in July after many parents weighed in, some in favor and some against, but the district was slapped with a subpoena after Bonta opened a civil rights investigation in August, according to a press release.
Bonta took the investigation a step further by filing a lawsuit, arguing that his office’s “message” was “loud and clear,” according to a statement in a press release.
“Every student has the right to learn and thrive in a school environment that promotes safety, privacy, and inclusivity—regardless of their gender identity,” Bonta said. “We’re in court challenging Chino Valley Unified’s forced outing policy for wrongfully and unconstitutionally discriminating against and violating the privacy rights of LGBTQ+ students. The forced outing policy wrongfully endangers the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of non-conforming students who lack an accepting environment in the classroom and at home.”
In addition to informing parents about name and pronoun changes, the policy requires that the school informs them if their child is “accessing sex-segregated school programs and activities” or using bathrooms that don’t match their biological sex, according to the rule. The lawsuit, however, claims that the district “singled out” transgender and “gender nonconforming” students through the policy’s “discriminatory treatment.”
A district spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation that they were complying with the subpoena request but had not had the “opportunity to examine the lawsuit.”
“At this time, the District is working with its legal counsel to review the lawsuit and its contents,” the spokesperson said. “Prior to the filing, District personnel had been working with complete transparency in providing Attorney General Bonta’s office with requested documents and records. Superintendent [Norm] Enfield spoke with the [Department of Justice’s] legal counsel weekly to confirm the District was providing requested files, which had changed several times from the original subpoena.”
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The Ne Plus Ultra of Collegiate Wokeness
Observers of the American collegiate scene are likely well aware of the academic jihad against University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax and the disgraceful shouting down of federal judge Kyle Duncan at Stanford, led by a woke DEI apparatchik. But in terms of outrageous violations of American norms of academic conduct, due process, and civility, nothing compares with the treatment of Professor Scott Gerber of Ohio Northern University (ONU).
Unlike elite coastal schools like Penn or Stanford, ONU is a Midwestern private school of so-so reputation, not on lists of the 10 best colleges in Ohio, much less the nation. The university is located in the sleepy town of Ada, an hour’s drive from any metropolis, whose 2021 estimated population of 5,256 was lower than in 1970. Its greatest claim to fame is possibly not ONU but the fact that it is the home of the manufacturer of NFL footballs.
Professor Gerber teaches in the ONU law school. U.S. News ranks ONU in the bottom one-third of Ohio’s law schools and as 146th best in the nation (Stanford is #1, Penn #4). The program is a back-up choice for students unable to get into Ohio State, Case Western Reserve, or the University of Cincinnati. It has almost nothing to brag about.
But there is one important legal scholar on the ONU law faculty—Gerber—and he is also a fine teacher. His book First Principles: The Jurisprudence of Clarence Thomas is a highly praised assessment of an important Supreme Court justice. He has authored eight other books and has given presentations at such prestigious institutions as Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, and Columbia.
I talked to three law-school-professor friends of mine (all at schools ranked higher than ONU): All said that Professor Gerber is light-years ahead of anyone else at ONU Law in terms of scholarly reputation. He is also a rather popular professor whose classes are usually filled. As one student said, “He makes class fun by creating a comforting atmosphere that I haven’t felt in most classes.” Gerber is conservative, which led another student to note, “It’s refreshing to not have to listen to left views the whole time like almost every other class.”
Nevertheless, ONU is desperately trying to fire Gerber, although it hasn’t said why with any degree of clarity.
Gerber brought this matter to national attention in a May 9 op-ed in the The Wall Street Journal, “DEI Brings Kafka to My Law School.” As Gerber recounts, “Around 1 p.m on Friday, April 14, Ohio Northern University campus security officers entered my classroom with my students present and escorted me to the dean’s office. Armed town police followed me down the hall. My students appeared shocked and frightened. I know I was.”
Gerber was not given any concrete reasons after being told that he was being banned from campus, other than his lack of “collegiality.” He was directed to sign a separation agreement.
Gerber’s ordeal led me to comment, also in the The Wall Street Journal, that “if we fired every instructor for lack of perceived ‘collegiality,’ we would have a national crisis from academic villages depopulated of their faculty.” Furthermore, by disrupting classes during an academic term, ONU appears to have shown callous disregard for its own students.
The most likely real reason ONU wants Gerber gone is that he is not “woke.” He has publicly said the university’s call for diversity does not mention intellectual or viewpoint diversity, and indeed Gerber has been told viewpoint diversity is not an objective at ONU.
Gerber believes students should hear alternative perspectives on issues of the day and then reach some conclusion—that ONU should be a marketplace of ideas rather than a monopolistic mouthpiece for a single perspective on issues, be they diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) obsessions or other, more substantive matters. It’s also worth noting that Gerber is on the Ohio advisory council of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
ONU law school’s dean told Gerber to get lost, without any hearing, any due process, any opportunity to appear before an impartial panel, etc. That’s certainly in violation of ONU’s established procedures for evaluating tenured faculty alleged to have engaged in misconduct, and probably also the law. In legal wrangling since then, the Hardin County Common Pleas Court has had to constrain ONU at least temporarily from carrying out its plans.
The story is long and sordid, but the latest major act came when a student (!) informed Gerber that his constitutional law course for this fall would not be taught by him. The administration didn’t even have the decency to tell Gerber directly that he’s been stripped of courses he’s taught for years.
Dozens of noted legal scholars, such as Randall Kennedy, professor of law at Harvard, have protested this whole affair for its contempt for due process and the free expression of ideas, the heart of what universities are all about. Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, has been eloquent in his multiple cris de coeur on Gerber’s behalf.
Michael Poliakoff, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, has likewise very articulately protested this outrage, as has the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has similarly been appalled and has appealed multiple times to ONU president Melissa Baumann.
The tale is not over. There are apparently at least intermittent legal conversations going on between attorneys for Gerber and ONU, and the local court is still involved in the matter.
Universities increasingly suppress professors who dare to question woke ideology. But lots of questions nag me: Where is the ONU Board of Trustees? Why are they, the governing body, on the sidelines of an issue of this importance? Don’t they (and the university’s president) care that this crusade against a fine professor will cost both money and reputation? Why would the police from the town get involved (on the wrong side) in a private matter not involving a crime?
I used to think the biggest problem in American higher education was its grotesque inefficiency and the accompanying high costs to both students and taxpayers. Now I realize that something critical is more important: Universities increasingly suppress professors, students, and campus guests who dare question the woke ideology that has become so dominant on most American campuses.
In the wake of falling enrollments and declining public support, you would think that colleges would shape up. However, the “creative destruction” that motivates American capitalist enterprises to be efficient and innovative, constantly reinventing themselves, is largely absent on college campuses, as they are protected financially by vast government subsidies. As enrollments decline and public support weakens, hopefully the sad era of Woke Supremacy on campus is beginning to wind down. I hope it will save Scott Gerber.
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14652&omhide=true&trk=rm
**************************************************Australia: Schools force Anglican backdown on statement opposing same-sex marriage
Principals at Sydney’s Anglican schools will no longer be forced to sign a document affirming they believe marriage should only be between a man and a woman under a new proposal by the church that is set to abolish the controversial requirement.
In a draft policy statement, the Anglican Diocese of Sydney says incoming school heads must instead show they are of Christian faith and character, be actively involved in a Bible-based church and sign “a personal commitment to organisational faithfulness”.
The plan to scrap the clause opposing gay marriage – which was inserted into a general statement of faith in 2019 – comes after the matter sparked an outpouring of anger and frustration among Anglican school leaders and provoked intense backlash from parents.
The review of the rule forms part of a major governance overhaul of all Sydney Anglican diocese-run organisations, including more than 30 schools across the state.
In a report to be presented at its Synod next month, the diocese says the marriage clause has become a lightning rod for concerns about how the church imposes rules on schools.
“Feedback has focused on the relational difficulties it has created in school contexts ... with communities and alumni who are deeply influenced by a modern culture hostile to traditional Christian beliefs and practices,” the report says.
“This may create a barrier for the recruitment of governors and leaders, who, while personally agreeing with the statement, may face sanctions from their employer or be prevented from taking up these voluntary roles.”
The conservative Sydney diocese oversees a number of high-fee Sydney schools, including Shore, King’s, Barker College, Abbotsleigh, Trinity Grammar and St Catherine’s. Their councils are made up of volunteers, and are dominated by representatives of the diocese.
The extra clause, which surprised principals and councils when it was added by the Sydney diocese in 2019, said: “faith produces obedience in accordance with God’s word, including sexual faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman, and abstinence in all other circumstances”. New school heads and board members were forced to sign the statement as a condition of their employment.
Last year, parents at Australia’s oldest private girls’ school, St Catherine’s, lobbied its council to scrap the rule after it was revealed that its next principal could only accept the job if they agreed to the terms. Former Abbotsleigh head Judith Poole was brought out of retirement to serve as interim principal at the $40,000-a-year school until the end of 2024.
A similar backlash followed at Illawarra Grammar, where frustrated parents took the matter to its school council to raise their concerns the edict fails to “align with the values of mainstream Australia”. Parents at both schools say the communities were not consulted on the statement.
This month, Illawarra Grammar appointed a new principal, Julie Greenhalgh, who had recently retired after 16 years as head of inner west private girls’ school Meriden. In a letter to parents, the school said Greenhalgh was originally a member of the selection panel for the role but stepped down from the panel so that she could apply for the head position.
The school had previously told parents that more than 220 “educational leaders” had expressed interest in the principal role.
A spokesman for the Sydney diocese said while it had received feedback on the clause, it had “already been discussing ways in which the policy could be improved”.
“The review of the governance policy is ongoing. A school’s executive leadership will need to be Christian in faith and character, following the teachings of Jesus and beliefs and tenets of the diocese, but the commitment they make will be a commitment to organisational faithfulness,” he said.
School board members appointed by the diocese, and new principals, must be of “Christian faith and character” and “attend regularly and be actively involved in a Bible-based Christian church”.
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My other blogs: Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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