Saturday, May 28, 2005

SCHOOL POLICE -- A BIT MIND-BOGGLING FOR AN AUSTRALIAN

When I think back over my peaceful country schooling -- where the biggest excitement was a dragonfly at the window -- this sounds like another planet. But I guess it's just another continent that makes the difference

For the third time in six weeks, police broke up a Jefferson High School brawl Thursday that students say was fueled by racial tension. Officers from the Los Angeles School Police Department used pepper spray and batons to quell the fight, which involved about 25 students on the South Los Angeles campus. The police arrested three students and detained more than 20 others, authorities said.

The incident reportedly began when two students argued about a cellphone. Students said that altercation sparked larger fights between black and Latino students across the campus. "It started in the cafeteria, and then it spread out to the PE field, to the auditorium, to the hallways, everywhere. I saw some people run out of the classrooms just to get into the fight," said Salvador Ingles, a 17-year-old senior. "Like with the last two fights, it happened that brown people, they go to one side, then black people go to the other side, and then they both collide."


School officials also reported two separate fights at Los Angeles High School, Thursday. The brawls attracted several hundred onlookers and prompted a brief campus lockdown while two students were detained. No serious injuries were reported. "I'm told there were some racial overtones" to the violence, district spokeswoman Susan Cox told the Associated Press.


The melee at Jefferson High School began about 12:40 when two Latino students argued about the phone, officials said. Administrators ordered a lockdown of the campus, and students were released from school about 600 at a time two hours later. The school nurse treated dozens of students for minor abrasions, and two students who were not involved in the fight were treated for hyperventilation. Six officers received minor injuries.


The fight occurred on the eve of a planned Day of Dialogue that district officials scheduled after similar brawls April 14 and April 18. Although students and parents have complained that the fights have had heavy racial overtones, Jefferson Principal Norm Morrow denied those assertions Thursday. "It had nothing to do with race," he said of the brawl. "The majority of our kids are good kids. We've got to get people to understand that some kids aren't here for the right reason."


Nevertheless, Morrow said that the campus was experiencing problems and that he expected many parents would keep their children home today. "I don't blame them," he said. "You don't want kids coming to a place where there are fights every day." After making that statement, however, Morrow paused and said fights did not occur at Jefferson every day.


He said that classes would be limited to half-day today and that the Day of Dialogue would go on. The event, he said, would involve professionals from local government and federal law enforcement discussing with students the reasons for the fights.

More here




ANTISEMITIC BRITISH ACADEMICS CAVE IN

UK academics have voted to overturn a boycott of two Israeli universities accused of complying with anti-Palestinian polices. Members of the Association of University Teachers had previously decided to sever all links with Bar-Ilan and Haifa universities. The academics' body now says it is time to "build bridges" between those with opposing views and support peace moves.

The debate has caused bitter argument among academics and others worldwide. The council of the AUT was reconvened in central London after 25 members - the required number under the union's rules - complained about the original vote, held in Eastbourne last month. Opponents of the boycott had complained that the debate had been curtailed and that the accusations were unfair.

Dr David Hirsh, from Goldsmiths College in London, welcomed the latest vote, saying: "A boycott is a tokenistic gesture which does more harm than good. "The need for hard work, building links with Palestinian and Israeli academics, is less glamorous but much more important."

Pro-boycott activists accuse Haifa of mistreating politics lecturer Ilan Pappe for defending a graduate student's research into controversial areas of Israeli history. The university denied this and threatened legal action against the AUT.

More here




SOCIOLOGY AS HATE-SPEECH

A Brooklyn College professor who called religious people "moral retards" was elected to head his department this month - sparking a campus uproar. E-mails expressing alarm that Timothy Shortell was now chairman of the sociology department circulated among students last week on the school's Midwood campus. Shortell has written in an online academic publication that the devout "are an ugly, violent lot. In the name of their faith, these moral retards are running around pointing fingers."

"I'm horrified by the ideology of Prof. Shortell," said Eldad Yaron, a Brooklyn College senior. This person has control right now on the content of many classes every student will take. Just imagine how fair and balanced these classes will be." Daniel Tauber, president-elect of the school's student government, said he was worried that Shortell and other faculty members would breed religious intolerance at the diverse college. "I would like to see professors in high positions who don't believe religious people are moral retards," Tauber said.

Shortell's remarks - which included lines such as "Christians claim that theirs is faith based on love, but they'll just as soon kill you" - elicited a multifaith backlash among university groups. "He's intolerant," fumed Alex Selsky of the school's Hillel chapter, a Jewish campus organization. "With this kind of unreasonable thinking, I don't know how he can be elected to head of a department." Kevin Oro-Hahn, director of the school's InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, said he hopes the university can "move beyond mere rhetoric in the pursuit of truth."

A college spokesman said there's little CUNY officials can do. "Whether one agrees with Dr. Shortell's comments, this is an election as mandated by university guidelines," he said. "His comments are public, but this is the decision of the sociology department." Shortell didn't return calls to him at his office. Brooklyn College, which has more than 15,000 students, observed its 75th anniversary this year. It was named one of the top 10 best values among undergraduate institutions in the country by the Princeton Review.

Source

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"


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