I remember how it was -- JR
Elite University Raked In Almost $700 Million From Qatar
Northwestern University has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from Qatar, a nation that has been harboring Hamas’ leaders since 2012, federal disclosures show.
Roughly $690 million in funds originating in Qatar has flowed into Northwestern University since 2007, according to records maintained by the Department of Education. Northwestern caved to several demands made by pro-Palestinian protestors last month, including by providing them with a pathway to make the university divest from Israeli businesses, The Daily Northwestern reported.
Northwestern’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine took credit for the agreement with the university. A group of law firms are suing National Students for Justice in Palestine, alleging that the organization is working to advance Hamas’ goals.
“Around the country, prestigious universities are succumbing to pressure from protestors who have damaged campuses, interfered with other students’ education and safety, and broadcast messages of hatred,” Open The Books CEO Adam Andrzejewski said in a press release. “Deals like the one at Northwestern seem inexplicable—that is, until you follow the money,” he continued.
Qatar constituted the largest bloc of Northwestern’s revenue from Muslim nations that support Palestinian independence, sending about $690 million to the university since 2007, records show. Since 2018, Qatar has sent millions of dollars to the Gaza strip that have been used to prop up Hamas, the terrorist organization behind the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel, according to CNN.
Qatar is also harboring Hamas’ political leadership, which it has been doing in some capacity since 2012, according to The Times of Israel.
Qatar’s funding included disbursements to provide scholarships for Qatari students to attend Northwestern, funds for a Northwestern campus in Qatar as well as other financial transfers lacking detailed descriptions, according to Open The Books.
Entities located in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates have also given money to Northwestern, according to federal records.
Northwestern received about $24 million originating in Saudi Arabia, records show. About $2.2 million of that was for scholarship grants to Saudi students, according to Open The Books.
Saudi Arabia has historically called for the establishment of a Palestinian state under its 1967 borders, including East Jerusalem as the state’s capital, according to the Associated Press.
Northwestern also took in $250,000 and $525,000 from Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, respectively. Turkey has been highly critical of Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks, halting trade with the Jewish state citing humanitarian concerns, and the United Arab Emirates has similarly condemned Israel’s conduct.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also defended Hamas, calling the group a “resistance movement” and refusing to label them as terrorists, Reuters reported.
Some universities are getting funds directly from entities located in the West Bank and Gaza.
Harvard University, Brown University and Indiana University of Pennsylvania collectively took in about $10 million in funds originating in the Palestinian territories between 2017 and 2023.
https://dailycaller.com/2024/05/20/elite-university-raked-in-almost-700-million-from-qatar/
*****************************************************Let’s Put Suspension or Expulsion Back on the Table for Violent College Students
Colleges are considering suspensions and expulsions for students who vandalized campuses and committed violence over the last month. These consequences are entirely appropriate, and overdue. School officials in North Carolina are even reallocating more funds to campus safety.
What took so long? The answer may help prevent violent riots on campuses in the future.
MIT officials recently announced they were suspending “dozens” of students who forced their way back into the area of campus where students had set up encampments. School personnel had warned those encamped, then cleared the tents and set up fencing around the area, telling students not to re-enter. Students proceeded to break through the fences—ignoring the warnings and destroying property.
Now, school administrators have announced sanctions are coming.
Events such as these have happened at schools nationwide. The incidents at MIT, UCLA, Columbia University and elsewhere were not examples of free speech. These were violent acts showing disregard for law and campus rules. School officials should not have waited as long as they did to call law enforcement, and the rioters who were not students, faculty or college staff should face charges. But administrators should be considering suspensions and expulsions for students involved.
College personnel are partly to blame for the disruptions that universities faced over the last month. Campus riots have a long history, but in the most recent iterations of campus unrest dating back at least as far as 2015, colleges were slow to respond to students and rioters who de-platformed or shouted down professors and invited lecturers. Middlebury College in Vermont and Evergreen State College were just a few of the sites of violent shout-downs over the last decade.
Students regurgitated the Marxist slogans from critical race theory and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) as they de-platformed speakers—and in some cases, college administrators did not punish students. Predictably, surveys over the last decade have found that students are afraid to speak their minds on campus for fear of being canceled, shouted down—or worse.
Blocking someone else’s expressive rights is not a protected form of speech. Yet surveys found that some on campus approved of violence in the face of ideas with which they disagree.
In response to the shout-downs at Middlebury and the like, state lawmakers around the country—Alabama, Colorado, North Carolina, Tennessee and more—adopted provisions to reinforce the U.S. Constitution and protect free-speech rights. But with few notable exceptions, lawmakers did not include provisions that required school administrators to consider suspension or expulsion when students de-platformed a speaker or otherwise engaged in violence.
The message to students was clear: You can be disruptive with minimal or no consequences. Today, however, students have pushed the bounds even further, creating so much disturbance that some schools were forced to cancel classes and graduation ceremonies because campuses were not physically safe for anyone.
Lawmakers in North Carolina and Arizona were among the few who included disciplinary sanctions in provisions adopted after the outbreak of shout-downs between 2015 and the school closures caused by COVID-19. School officials should copy the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees’ latest decision to close its “diversity, equity and inclusion” office and reallocate spending to campus safety.
DEI offices promote censorship by supporting bias response teams, which courts have found to “chill” speech. The offices also promote racial bias in college admissions and other school functions—none of which improves school safety or the free exchange of ideas.
Had school personnel acted decisively during riots over the last 10 years, consistently suspending or expelling violent students, perhaps disrupters would have had second thoughts. State lawmakers should revisit their conduct codes and require public college administrators to involve law enforcement and consider suspension or expulsion when students destroy school property, injure others, violate free-speech protections or otherwise commit violence.
Considering suspension or expulsion to counter—and perhaps prevent—violence is not new. Yale University officials recommended these consequences in the Woodward Report issued in 1974, a seminal document protecting campus speech.
College educators must teach students the difference between free speech and violence. The former deserves protection. The latter should be met with consequences.
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Australia: Homeschooling rises across Canberra post-pandemic
Since COVID lockdowns kept students out of schools, there's been a big rise in the number who now find home the best place to study.
There's been a 50 per cent increase in the numbers not going to school for their learning.
Official figures for the "home-educated" count 465 people of school age in the category in the ACT, compared with 305 just before the virus struck, and compared with only 166 just 10 years ago.
"School is an obsolete model," Ilaria Catizone says in a break between teaching a handful of homeschooled children who've come together to learn a bit of Italian.
She concedes formal schools work for some young people but not for all. The ones who don't quite fit the mould are often the ones opting out, perhaps because of bullying. Some parents told The Canberra Times they were unhappy with "woke" education, particularly on sexual matters.
Ilaria Catizone has been been schooling Audrey, 7, and Elody, 13, for the last three years. At the communal session, Elody also helps teach the younger children Italian through a game of bingo where numbers are called in Italian and pasta rings go on the numbered squares.
These kids are meeting in a community hall for their lesson, so homeschooling doesn't always happen at home. Sometimes, it's collective in that a group get together and learn.
The parents' motives vary.
Rebecca Bonazza said her daughter Skyler, 10, was bullied in her public school in Canberra.
"Bullying was rife. When she concentrates, she hums, and a lot of kids picked on her," the mother said.
"Kids just seem to be more nasty these days, and because she's a bit different she rarely wanted to go to school."
Her mother was also unhappy about the amount of mention of sex, both in class and outside - "woke", as she put it. "A lot of things they are told are a bit much," she said.
She felt homeschooling meant "super-young children" could be protected from "things on the internet".
"You can't protect your children from that but at home you can," she said.
So the mother has bought the daughter a pile of books about a string of subjects, including science and maths.
"We learn about the world, about money. And I plan to take her out into the world, to teach her things, to galleries. We have a lot of discussions. We go to the library. We go to book stores. She has a lot of books," Ms Bonazza said.
Skyler is not yet in her teens and her mother said she may go to college in years 11 and 12 to get formal qualifications.
But for now, home (and a community hall) is the place of learning.
It should be said the number of homeschoolers remains small compared with the number of on-campus schoolers, even though the percentage rise is big.
The latest official figures for the ACT have 465 children in homeschooling compared with 82,280 students across primary schools (47,174), high schools (23,926) and colleges (11,180).
But the rise upwards since COVID is unmistakable (as is the fall for public schools: 50,556 in 2023 compared with 51,153 ACT pupils in 2021).
One of the organisations promoting homeschooling is holding an information session at Downer Community Hall between 4pm and 6pm on Monday.
The organiser, Ms Catizone, said she would try to answer common questions like, "What about socialisation?", "Will my children learn enough?" and "What about university?".
She said kids had opportunities to socialise despite not going to school, with a public school's wide mix of types and backgrounds.
Her daughters' education is "interest-led". Her eldest daughter was curious and learns, even about formal subjects like mathematics.
"She learns a lot of maths through shopping or cooking or helping us do our tax returns. She's renovated her room, and that involved a lot of maths like measuring," Ms Catizone said.
"If she wants to go to university, she will do more formal maths."
Ms Catizone is a vegetarian and, at home, there is an interest in "ethical behaviour" which prompted her daughter to research vegetarianism, both in terms of food but also fashion.
The teenager is interested in make-up, and that provides two fields of learning. "She's done research on ethical make-up", and the daughter has researched "make-up through the ages".
"It's very important for them to do their own research," the mother said.
She rejects the idea schooling children at home gives parents an opportunity to indoctrinate children in the parents' values.
In response to the idea, she says religious schools do the same.
Ms Catizone is a convert to homeschooling but she also concedes it doesn't suit everyone. It is obviously only for those with some money and time.
There is a class aspect.
Parents who both work fixed and long hours to just about pay the bills may not be convinced about homeschooling. For them, public schools are the only option.
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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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