Oklahoma public schools will teach about the Bible and the Ten Commandments

State Superintendent Ryan Walters (R) announced Thursday that teaching the Bible and the Ten Commandments will be mandatory in all public school classrooms effective immediately, The Wall Street Journal reports. The plan is to incorporate both into history lessons.

Every teacher and every classroom in the state will have a Bible. Teachers will be required to teach from the Bible in the classroom. The Bible will be displayed prominently in grades 5-12.

“This is a historical argument,” Walters told the WSJ. “The left can be offended, but that’s our history.”

“The Bible is a necessary historical document to teach our kids about the history of this country, to have a complete understanding of western civilization, to have an understanding of the basis of our legal system, and frankly, when we are talking about the Bible, one of the most foundational documents used for the constitution and the birth of our country,” Walters wrote on X.

Walters has been an outspoken critic of “woke” ideology, often expressing concerns for its negative effects on public education. State Superintendent is an elected position in Oklahoma, and Walters campaigned on the promise to fight back against the radical Left and the indoctrination of Oklahoma school children. He easily won his election, with 57 percent of the vote, in 2022.

Other states are also taking action. A new law in Louisiana mandates the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms, as Heartland Daily News reported. Texas officials also plan to put a copy of the Ten Commandments in every public-school classroom.

While there is strong support among conservatives to bring the Ten Commandments and the Bible back into the classroom, opponents, such as the ACLU and the teacher’s unions, are pushing back and taking action.

A group led by the ACLU has already filed a lawsuit against the new Louisiana law. The American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation issued a joint statement.

“We are preparing a lawsuit to challenge H.B. 71,” the statement reads in part. “The law violates the separation of church and state and is blatantly unconstitutional.”

“The First Amendment promises that we all get to decide for ourselves what religious beliefs, if any, to hold and practice, without pressure from the government. Politicians have no business imposing their preferred religious doctrine on students and families in public schools.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) expressed his support for the new law in his home state of Louisiana, The Hill reports. Although the law is being challenged in court, Johnson says he thinks the law will stand the constitutional scrutiny.

“And I think it should pass court muster,” Johnson told reporters. “I think there’s a number of states trying to look to do the same thing, and I don’t think it’s offensive in any way. I think it’s a positive thing.”

“It’s not an establishment of religion,” Johnson said. “It’s not. They’re not trying to enforce any particular religious code. They’re just saying this is part of the history and tradition.”

“The modern interpretation of the establishment clause in the First Amendment has been an unmitigated disaster,” writes Auron MacIntyre in an opinion article for The Blaze.

“By expelling biblical education from public schools in the name of secular neutrality, we effectively banned Western culture,” MacIntyre writes. “Now, our children speak the shared language of gay race communism instead.”

“When Christianity was purged from American public life through a radical interpretation of the First Amendment and civil rights law, an ideological void was left at the center of our institutions, and nature abhors a vacuum. LGBTQ ideology stood ready to fill that void.”

https://heartlanddailynews.com/2024/07/oklahoma-public-schools-will-teach-about-the-bible/

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Schools Arbitrarily Giving Days Off

The world seemed to almost stop in March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic prompted nationwide lockdowns and school closures that thrust students into remote learning situations en masse.

While the lockdowns happened quickly, the reopenings did not. Due to the decentralized structure of America’s public education system, the federal government could not order schools to return to in-person learning. With the decision left up to the discretion of each school district, the date when students returned to in-person classes varied greatly.

Since the lockdowns, some schools have adopted a more lenient attendance policy, starkly contrasting the pre-2020 education environment.

In October 2021, a North Carolina school district voted to close campuses for a “day of kindness, community, and connection,” essentially a mental health day that would not have to be made up at the end of the year.

The following month, two Virginia school districts sent students home early on select Wednesdays to combat teacher burnout, per NBC News.

In November 2021, sudden school closures for various reasons affected 858 districts and 8,692 campuses around the country, according to Burbio, an organization that tracks school district websites, per KERA News.

Legislators in parts of the country have passed laws allowing students to take mental health days, including states such as California, Maine, Washington, and Oregon.

More recently, schools announced they would let students stay home to watch the total solar eclipse on April 8 instead of using the opportunity for an in-class learning experience. Some school districts in North Texas closed their doors, including Waxahachie ISD and Greenville ISD.

Frisco ISD announced that while it would not cancel classes, student absences with a parent note would be excused.

It almost seems as if schools can now shut down at any time for any reason.

Alongside the chronic cancellation of classes, student absenteeism remains high across the United States in the aftermath of the pandemic lockdowns.

“Our relationship with school became optional,” said Katie Rosanbalm, a psychologist and associate research professor with the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University, according to The New York Times.

Quintin Shepherd, the superintendent of Victoria ISD in Texas, told NYT, “If kids are not here, they are not forming relationships.”

He went on to note that the lack of relationships on campus has led to discipline issues, academic struggles, and even violent behavior.

Students’ lack of attendance and schools’ habits of canceling classes present a dangerous combination. Some experts suggest that a cultural shift occurred in the wake of the pandemic lockdowns and school districts’ transitioning to online learning, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.

At Dallas ISD, only 41% of students scored at grade level on the 2021-2022 STAAR exams, according to the Texas Education Agency’s accountability report. Meanwhile, nearly 20% of its graduating Class of 2022 did not earn a diploma within four years.

https://dallasexpress.com/education/schools-arbitrarily-giving-days-off/

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Chicago Public Schools Announces Pay for Laid-Off Employees as Teachers Union Decries Staff Cuts

Facing a murkier financial outlook and a budget deficit, Chicago Public Schools has launched “layoff prevention pools” that will guarantee displaced employees positions at other schools — and pay through the next school year.

The district said approximately 600 staffers lost their positions earlier this month. This year, it extended the layoff safeguards — previously in place for teachers — to teaching assistants and other support staff as well. The Chicago Teachers Union held a press conference Thursday to decry at least 330 layoffs of its members, which leaders said disrupt key relationships they build with students and leaves staff in limbo over the summer.

The summer shuffling of staff is a common practice, as student enrollment fluctuates on some campuses. But this year it comes amid a change to the district’s funding formula and as CPS officials have delayed releasing a full budget proposal until July, even though the fiscal year ends this week. Typically, the Chicago Board of Education votes on its annual budget in June.

Instead at their regular meeting Thursday, school board members got an earful from CTU members, as well as some assurance from district officials that school-level funding will stay stable despite an almost $400 million deficit as federal COVID recovery money runs out.

District CEO Pedro Martinez told board members his team needed more time to do due diligence and communicate about the new funding approach, which provides key staff positions to all campuses and uses their level of need to allocate additional dollars.

“There’s no denying that CPS is facing a challenging financial outlook,” Martinez said. “But I remain confident that when our 2024-25 budget is complete, the overall level of funding provided to schools will be maintained or likely increase from what we experienced compared to the last school year.”

The district, which has added thousands of new positions to its payroll in recent years, said it will maintain roughly $500 million in funding increases for schools made since the 2021-22 school year. It stressed that overall, schools will employ more people in the fall compared with this past school year, including 500 more teachers, 600 additional special education paraprofessional positions, and almost 90 more restorative justice coordinators. The district has more than 39,000 employees.

The union said it received a list of laid-off members earlier this week.

Union leaders said most would likely be rehired at other schools, but they argued that the district can do more to avert uncertainty for its employees and disruption to school communities when educators who have bonded with students are reassigned over the summer.

Grisel Sanchez has been working as a bilingual teacher assistant for the past two years at Mark Twain Elementary, supporting and translating for students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

“I translated almost every assignment that was given to (eighth graders) to make it easier for them to understand the material so they could pass their class and graduate,” Sanchez said during the CTU press conference.

On June 7, however, Sanchez said she was called into the office and told her position was being cut and that she could apply for jobs at other schools.

Edward Ward was laid off as a restorative justice coordinator at Sherman School of Excellence this month. He was also let go last year from Beidler Elementary from a similar role. The repeated layoffs, he said, are damaging to the relationship building that a restorative justice coordinator does.

“We are not disposable, and you’ve made a huge mistake to cut those positions, because at the end of the day, it’s our students who suffer,” Ward said.

The district, which has added thousands of new positions to its payroll in recent years, said it will maintain roughly $500 million in funding increases for schools made since the 2021-22 school year. It stressed that overall, schools will employ more people in the fall compared with this past school year, including 500 more teachers, 600 additional special education paraprofessional positions, and almost 90 restorative justice coordinators.

Officials said the district adjusted support staffing to reflect enrollment changes. About 300 of the 595 employees affected are teaching assistants, representing a 0.5% reduction of all employees.

“The district is committed to guaranteeing a job for any of the impacted teaching assistants, and historical data confirms that those who choose to remain in the district will have employment within the district,” Chicago Public Schools said in a statement.

The statement said the district worked closely with the CTU and the SEIU, the union that represents some district support staff, on this effort to ensure laid-off staffers are assigned vacant roles before the start of next school year.

“This assertive initiative is crucial for sustaining our educational gains and providing much-needed school stability,” the district said.

The board approved a resolution Thursday that would allow principals to dip into 2024-25 funds in July ahead of the full budget’s approval so they can line up staff and other resources for the fall.

The layoffs of around 20 restorative justice coordinators comes as the district is overhauling its approach to school safety in a way that centers restorative justice and reduces punitive discipline.

“You can’t say that we are going to move in a direction that honors and respects the humanity of our young people and cut 20 restorative justice coordinators,” said Stacy Davis Gates. “Those two things do not match.”

Addressing the school board, teachers union vice president Jackson Potter said the district has made some headway in addressing disruption from the summer reshuffling of employees — but needs to do more.

“This has now become an annual bloodletting ritual that we hope will end or at least become more humane and thoughtful,” he said.

Potter and educators who addressed the board to protest the layoffs took aim at the district’s Skyline curriculum — an in-house $135 million curriculum the district developed during the pandemic. He argued that the district should use some of the money it spends on rolling out the curriculum to ward off support staff layoffs.

“You should ask people, ‘Do you prefer a TA, or do you prefer this curriculum?’” Potter asked, adding that teachers have called Skyline “a dumpster fire.”

But district officials insisted later in the meeting that school teams led by principals voluntarily adopt Skyline, and they said it has been key to a push to roll out high-quality curriculums in all schools. They said 462 schools have chosen to use Skyline in at least one subject.

“While Skyline might not be a perfect system,” said chief education officer Bogdana Chkoumbova, “it’s definitely a system worth iterating and investing in.

https://heartlanddailynews.com/2024/07/chicago-public-schools-teachers-union-decries-staff-cuts/

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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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Schoolchildren Are Being Indoctrinated With Hard Left Ideology Under the Guise of Teaching Them to be ‘Inclusive’

Not so long ago I rewatched the original Jurassic Park and was struck by Ian Malcolm’s monologue in which he says to John Hammond, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” It struck me that this unintentionally captured the essence of a growing problem in today’s education system: EDI. School managers and teachers are so eager to rush into whatever is trending in EDI. So convinced are they, without any evidence, of EDI’s supposed moral, ethical, educational and societal benefits that they neglect to consider whether they should be promoting it.

The virtues of EDI are extolled throughout the education system and my own school is no different. Schools openly bow down to EDI and an entire industry has developed to ensure EDI is embedded across the education system, despite evidence that it has had detrimental effects in the workplace. It is commonplace now to see schools advertising themselves as “inclusive” and numerous websites have popped up to promote EDI, such as the Inclusive Schools Network. The EDI approach has ostensibly been embraced because Britain is now a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic society and it’s supposedly essential to help tackle discrimination, break down stereotypes, facilitate better communication and foster social cohesion. However, I think the push for “inclusivity” distorts education, disempowers the individual and poses a threat to a free society.

One assertion that’s frequently made these days is that “inclusive language” should be used in lessons. But what, exactly, is it? Who defines it? And how can such a thing exist in any case? The economist Ludwig von Mises observed in Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis how Marxism thrived on “dialectic artificialities” and a “word-fetishism” which made it “possible to unite incompatible ideas and demands” (e.g. Queers for Palestine). This linguistic sleight of hand can be used to brainwash the broader population, and this is exactly what “inclusive language” does. Those who advocate for “inclusive language” claim it’s a tool for promoting open conversations. But for “inclusive language” to exist and function, it must by its very nature be at odds with intellectual diversity, free speech and democratic values. It requires a central authority to dictate what is or is not inclusive, thereby strengthening that authority’s power, while discriminating against those who are deemed to have said something offensive.

The drive to use “inclusive language” and to be “inclusive” is in reality exclusionary and intolerant. A cursory glance through some typical ‘guidance’, such as that produced by the University of Leeds, reveals that it usually focuses on what not to say rather than on what to say. The implications of this are worrying as it’s a method of importing identity politics and ideological authoritarianism into schools. As John Stuart Mill noted in On Liberty, “all silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility”. By pursuing “inclusive language”, school managers are going along with this linguistic totalitarianism and, in my experience, are never open to any discussion about whether they are embarking on the best approach for pupils and staff.

On one level, the emphasis on “inclusive language” encourages others to find offence where none is intended and in doing so undermines resilience. It feeds a culture of victimhood and is hardly beneficial to learning, where failure is often a necessary precursor to success. On another level, it establishes a right not to be offended. This type of approach is fundamentally unworkable, as we have seen through inane legislation like Scotland’s Hate Crime Act. By seeking to protect certain identity groups from being offended, it introduces a form of bullying into a school since it provides bad actors, both pupils and staff, with the perfect cudgel to attack their opponents.

Offence is, after all, in the eye of the beholder. It requires no evidence other than someone’s claim they were emotionally harmed by something that was supposedly said, regardless of the speaker’s intention. It is extremely easy to make an unfounded allegation because it’s so difficult to challenge without seeming to disbelieve a ‘victim’ about how upset he or she really is, and, therefore, extremely hard to defend against. Besides teaching children to simply accuse, rather than debate, an obvious consequence of this is the sewing of suspicion and distrust. According to the Mental Health Foundation, 20% of adolescents currently suffer from some form of mental illness. Mental Health UK notes that 92% of teachers distrust their line manager and 88% of teachers say there is a negative ‘team culture’, with 86% saying they don’t feel supported at school. One cannot help but wonder whether EDI initiatives, which promote linguistic totalitarianism and thereby create an environment in which one must constantly tread on eggshells, are contributing to this state of affairs.

Besides being contradictory in a theoretical and philosophical sense, the censoring of language is extended into censoring or distorting curriculum content. This is why we see misguided initiatives, embraced by the Historical Association, among others, to ‘decolonise’ the curriculum, as well as a growing tendency to exaggerate the negative aspects of British and Western history and culture. Thus, as many readers will no doubt already be familiar, pupils are spoon fed narratives in which Britain is cast as an evil slave trading nation with few redeeming qualities, if any. Little mention is made of all the other countries that trafficked in slaves, or of Britain’s key role in suppressing the transatlantic slave trade.

This highly selective approach is fundamentally driven by ideological activism and some schools encourage this by engaging in their own types of cancel culture, such as changing the names used within their own house systems for fear that the original names might cause offence. As Doug Stokes points out in Against Decolonisation, this constant denigration of Britain’s history and culture may even have serious implications for national security by virtue of the fact they instil no love and respect for, or understanding of, our country.

The drive towards ‘inclusivity’ and all the associated EDI dogma contributes nothing to education and everything towards indoctrination and the destruction of critical thinking. In my ‘lived experience’, an ‘inclusive’ curriculum often means talking more about LGBTQ+ or BAME people, although the ‘climate curriculum’ is not far behind. Charities with specific ideological or political agendas, such as Stonewall or Schools of Sanctuary, are consulted and sometimes paid to help make lesson content more ‘inclusive’ without any regard to the provisions about not indoctrinating children in the Education Act 1996. This extends into the creation of bizarre extra-curricular activities, such as LGBTQ+ lunchtime and after-school clubs. Schools also embrace various forms of positive discrimination in order to tackle imaginary biases and prejudices, such as girls-only IT competitions. It’s not clear how this sits with the emphasis on ‘inclusion’, given its prohibition on boys’ participation and the lack of provision for a boys-only competition. This is hardly a strategy for improving the performance of the demographic group most overlooked: white working-class boys. But ‘inclusion’ is nearly always about extending perks to officially recognised victim groups and rarely about helping the genuinely disadvantaged.

Furthermore, as each subject on the curriculum is forced to genuflect to the latest ideological fad, less intellectual diversity is tolerated and more groupthink emerges. The push for promoting minority narratives and victimology across every subject means the school curriculum ceases to be about academic exploration and more about ensuring a single message or narrative is instilled in pupils’ minds. Friedrich Hayek observed in The Road to Serfdom that it was “not difficult to deprive the great majority of independent thought”. Through the policing of language and narrowing of curriculum content, inclusion agendas are facilitating the destruction of individual autonomy by limiting the opportunities for pupils to critically evaluate prepackaged narratives. While this is what we might expect in a Chinese-style re-education camp, it should not be the model adopted by British schools.

A generous observer might conclude that those who signal their virtue on inclusivity simply haven’t thought this through – they mean well, even if their initiatives have terrible unintended consequences. A more critical observer might conclude that those who push EDI initiatives do so with an ulterior motive. I’m in the latter camp, and as I’ve said previously this leads to a perpetual cycle in which victory can never be secured until complete equality of outcome between different identity groups has been achieved. It’s also fuelled by self-interest. Those who work in the multi-billion-pound EDI sector need to keep finding new dragons to slay to justify their funding, often as the expense of the taxpayer. Besides, the very essence of EDI-based initiatives, such as anti-racism and unconscious bias training, is to teach individuals to take offence and actively seek out things to be offended by. This is why we see schools embarking on crusades to eliminate the use of “Sir” and “Miss”. By planting the seed that one may be committing a microaggression and establishing a culture in which speech and expression are policed, the logical response of some may be to avoid interaction altogether. Why take the risk of inadvertently treading on a landmine? Or giving a bully an excuse to persecute you? This type of backlash within the workplace has already been documented by the Government.

Why, then, are schools endorsing EDI? If we were to explore the legal roots of this phenomenon, we might look to the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Race Relations Act 1976, the Special Educational Needs Code of Practice in 2001 and the Framework for the Inspection of Schools in 2003. By the late 1990s, a perception had emerged that the colour-blind approach in education had failed. Among numerous other points, the inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, published in 1999, recommended that schools develop strategies to prevent racism and for the National Curriculum to be revised so it extolled the virtues of multi-culturalism. But academies and free schools, which as of January 2024 account for nearly 82% of all secondary schools and nearly 43% of primary schools, don’t have to follow the National Curriculum. Independent schools, which constitute nearly 10% of schools, don’t either. Thus, it is the Equality Act 2010 and schools guidance from 2014 which form much of the bedrock of current practice. The relevant parts of this legislation basically set out a duty of care and make it illegal for schools to discriminate against pupils based on their protected characteristics, such as race, religion, sexual orientation or gender.

Where there is a possible misstep legally speaking is in schools’ conflation of, and confusion between, content and delivery. Section 2.8 of the 2014 guidance, which advises schools what they need to do to comply with the Equality Act, says curriculum content is excluded from discrimination law but the manner in which it’s delivered is included. According to section 2.9, schools are “free to include a full range of issues, ideas and materials in their syllabus, and to expose pupils to thoughts and ideas of all kinds, however challenging or controversial”. This is important because the advocates of EDI in schools typically appeal to the Equality Act, claiming they’re obliged to roll out these initiatives to comply with that Act, when, in fact, that’s just an excuse for pushing their ideological agenda.

There is, in other words, no legal obligation or reason why a school should indulge in changing (or removing) curriculum to comply with the Equality Act. Schools may of course do this for a variety of reasons, such as capitalising on teachers’ specific knowledge or appealing to pupils’ interests to promote more engagement. But we ought to be mindful of the predilection many teachers have for engaging in social justice activism. It is in fact something which is implicitly encouraged by those who’ve written the material that finds its way onto teacher training courses. For example, Robert Jeffcoat, who describes himself “with pleasure a radical Marxist” due to his “particular view” on injustice, is cited approvingly in a PGCE textbook that’s still in use today.

However, by pitting of one social group against another, as required by various fashionable teaching resources, and teaching children about concepts like white privilege, some schools may in fact be in breach of the Equality Act, which requires publicly-funded bodies to promote good relations between groups with different protected characteristics, which includes white boys. And by developing a curriculum centred on EDI, schools could well be limiting pupils’ academic opportunities and, as such, failing to provide the broad and balanced curriculum that they’re supposed to, as set out in Section 78 of the Education Act 2002.

At a fundamental level, the whole EDI agenda within schools overlooks one simple, crucial and fundamental issue: the provision of education, not indoctrination, will do far more to help disadvantaged children make socio-economic progress in the long term. A report commissioned by Pro Bono Economics, The National Literacy Trust and KPMG earlier this year found that 30% of five-year-olds were behind their expected reading levels. The National Literacy Trust also found in 2023 that only 43.4% of children aged from 8 to 18 enjoyed reading. Obviously, multiple factors contribute to these findings but one cannot help wondering whether one solution might be for teachers to spend less time promoting ideological fads and more time focusing on actually educating children. And perhaps literature promoting woke narratives just isn’t that inspiring. Why should children enjoy reading books that are constantly scolding them for not being ‘better allies’? Those schools which have embraced woke identitarian dogma are abusing their duties and responsibilities, and failing pupils and society in the process.

The reality is that schools cannot truly be ‘inclusive’ precisely because it is a contradictory, unworkable and illogical idea; exclusionary practices and outcomes are an inherent and inevitable part of education and life in general. Not every pupil will achieve an A* at A-level or a 9 at GCSE. Not everyone who applies to work at a school will be accepted and not everyone within a school will be friends with everyone else, despite the claims made on schools’ marketing materials. And, due to practical considerations, not every school will have the capacity to accept every child. An inclusive curriculum is also itself a unicorn precisely because it must, by definition, exclude certain content that is arbitrarily deemed to be discriminatory or insensitive.

The claim that adopting an ‘inclusive’ approach will prepare pupils for life, as my school and many others do, is a fallacy. Such an approach is based on flawed assumptions, fosters unrealistic expectations and leads to troubling outcomes. It fails to instil resilience, encourages children to abdicate personal responsibility and attacks the individual’s ability to think critically. The only people who gain from such an approach are those looking to carve out easy and lucrative careers for themselves. All EDI does is provide a platform for narcissistic managers to crush dissent and signal their virtue so they can gain the requisite peer approval for career progression. The people who lose are pupils, parents and those teachers who have maintained their integrity.

https://dailysceptic.org/2024/07/02/schoolchildren-are-being-indoctrinated-with-hard-left-ideology-under-the-guise-of-teaching-them-to-be-inclusive/

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School reading assignments sexually harassed my child — despite parent protests

Bill Santiago

Here I am trying everything I can to raise my young daughters right, vigilantly monitoring the assault of content they consume.

What are they watching? What are they listening to? What are they scrolling through? Is it appropriate?

Then along comes Kipps Beyond Middle School, the Harlem charter school that I was originally thrilled our preteen would attend.

And all my protective efforts were brazenly violated.

No, my 12-year-old girl wasn’t peer-pressured into exploring sexually explicit content.

She was assigned to do so by her 7th-grade English teacher — without my consent or knowledge.

“Aristotle and Dante Explore the Secrets of the Universe” is a wonderful title for a book.

The Van Gogh-inspired cover appeared in a slideshow on curriculum night, implying our children were embarking on a philosophical, cosmological journey that would open their minds to a new level of literary and intellectual inquiry.

Sneaky, sneaky: Only after students were done reading this book did parents get wind of what was actually between the covers.

“The boys in the book masturbate to each other a lot,” my daughter’s friend blurted out as several families dined together at a restaurant.

We thought our children were being exposed to philosophy, but at last discovered that the book merely featured characters named after philosophers — who obsess about exposing themselves.

Not to mention the causal heroin use, a 15-year-old hiring a trans prostitute and a prison murder, among other similarly wholesome elements, all featured in the book assigned to my underaged daughter.

Remember how the city cleaned up Times Square to make it family-friendly? It seems everything they swept away has been regurgitated onto the pages of books my child is being assigned to read in class.

If this same sexually graphic content were shared at most jobs, a human-resources SWAT team would be scrambled and heads would roll.

Lawyers would be licking their chops over million-dollar harassment lawsuits.

Why should we look the other way when teachers assign explicit books to children?

“But the book won awards!” the school’s teachers pointed out, when we parents protested.

It doesn’t matter that parents don’t approve, as long as somebody who doesn’t know or care about our kids has slapped their golden seal of approval on the book.

Meanwhile, the English Language Arts director at Kipps Beyond has openly questioned whether Shakespeare is still relevant or should even be taught.

Poor guy never won a diversity award! So naturally classrooms should deprioritize the Bard in favor of lesser authors who check the right social-justice boxes.

A word about the word “diversity”: It is not synonymous with sexually graphic material, nor does it grant immunity to teachers who sexually harass minor children by assigning such content.

After six months of protests, meetings, emails, texts, phone calls and Zoom calls with the principal, teachers, staff and regional directors, what was the response?

The founding principal, spitting in the face of parental values and objections, announced 7th graders would next be assigned “The Poet X,” a book that’s even more explicit and sexually charged.

My daughter’s teachers were repeatedly assigning outright erotica to 12-year-olds.

After one of my endless emails to officials throughout the NYC Department of Education finally got somebody’s attention, the school finally relented and agreed to assign “Lord of the Flies” instead — at least this year.

But the chief schools officer at Kipps NYC subsequently emailed me to affirm that her charter school system is still fully committed to teaching the books we objected to — as well as other sexually explicit books — in the future, because they align with its “core values.”

It amazes me that in the wake of #Metoo, so many educators still don’t understand that no means no.

Nor do parents deserve the educators’ repeated insinuations that our objections must be based on bigotry.

My own family abounds in diversity of every kind, from pronouns to pizza toppings. So spare me the tactical gaslighting.

Am I just one of those parents — a book banner? Hardly.

As a journalist, author and entertainer, none of my professional pursuits are possible without the full employment and defense of the First Amendment.

But I identify first as a father.

That’s why when it comes to accepting that any adult or institution, teacher or school system can violate the boundaries of my young girls and my values as a parent, sorry, this papi don’t play dat.

School systems engaging in these predatory practices will never cop to it.

But if a teacher is providing explicit sexual erotica to a child, somebody should call the cops.

https://nypost.com/2024/07/01/opinion/school-reading-assignments-are-sexually-harassing-my-child/

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Young Australians Even More Unenthusiastic About Going to School: Research

As anxiety and psychological distress levels are increasing among young people, which was accelerated by COVID-19 lockdown measures, a phenomenon of school refusal has also become more prevalent.

Data collected by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority shows the national attendance rate for students in Years 1 to 10 had dropped from 91.4 percent in 2019 to 86.5 percent in 2022.

The figures for attendance level—percentage of students whose attendance rate was 90 percent or higher—saw an even more dramatic drop from 71.2 percent in 2021 to 50 percent in 2022.

However, rather than going to class less often, Australia is seeing an increasing number of children and teenagers distressed at the mere thought of attending school—called school refusal.

Shannon Clark, senior researcher at the Department of Parliamentary Services, explained that school refusal was difference to truancy and exclusion.

“It differs from other forms of school attendance problems in terms of the distress experienced, and in that parents and carers typically know about their child’s absence from school and have tried to get them to attend,” she wrote in a 2023 parliamentary paper on the issue.

“Young people with school refusal are often diagnosed with anxiety disorders.”

Students who experience school refusal are at higher risk of dropping out of school early, and it can also negatively impact their social and emotional development into adulthood.

A spokesperson from the Department of Education told The Epoch Times in an email that every day of school missed, is a day of learning lost.

“Regular school attendance is critical to successful student outcomes and engagement,” the spokesperson said.

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic

Professor Marie Yap from Monash University’s Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health said student mental health and coping skills, parent-child relationship, supportive teaching staff, and bullying all have an effect on school attendance.
“The COVID pandemic impacted many of these factors for children across the world, with some being disproportionately affected,” she told The Epoch Times in an email.

In particular, neurodivergent children are more sensitive to routine disruption, so switching between online and face-to-face schooling may have tarnished their school experience.

Ms. Yap said the switch may have overwhelmed the coping capacity of neurodivergent children, increasing their distress about attending school.

Additionally, parents whose jobs and financial security were impacted by the pandemic may have struggled to also support their child’s mental health and learning.

The ongoing teacher shortage and high turnover rates are also causing disruptions to the supportive teaching environment students thrive in.

Advice for Parents

Ms. Yap said parents should look for early signs of their child not wanting to attend school and respond as promptly and supportively as possible. She recommends that parents validate their child’s distress about attending school, even if they don’t understand it.

Ms. Yap said parents should try creative ways to help their children express themselves such as drawing or writing.

“Parents need a good understanding of the reasons behind their child’s distress about school—this is important for identifying what types of support and responses would be most helpful for their child.”

Parents should also assure their child that they will help them overcome issues about school.

Meanwhile, Matthew Bach, teacher and former Victorian shadow education minister, believes school refusers need more “tough love” from parents.

“It may ruffle some feathers to say so, but it is the responsibility of parents, not governments, to fix [school refusal],” Mr. Bach wrote in an opinion piece in 2023.
He noted that he saw an increasing number of parents who wanted to be their child’s friend, rather than their guide and corrector.

“School refusal stems from anxiety, which—as we know—is a serious mental health condition. And because of this, parents naturally empathise deeply with their children,” he said.

“Yet what the growing number of children who refuse to attend school need most is tough love. Going to school must simply be non-negotiable.”

Getting Support

Meanwhile, Ms. Yap said parents should record concerns and absences, and communicate these with the school to understand non-attendance patterns, for example, a common day or time of absence.

She said that once they better understand the underlying causes of their child’s distress, parents can work with their child, the school, and other involved professionals to develop a supportive plan.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/young-australians-are-increasingly-refusing-to-attend-school-5670452

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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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Harvard Dean Threatens Faculty Who Protest School’s Mistreatment of Jews

“Snitches get stitches” is a threat typically made by adolescents to avoid punishment by intimidating those who might expose their misdeeds. Yet it seems Harvard is a glorified junior high these days, with Lawrence Bobo, its dean of social sciences, threatening faculty who publicly criticize the university for its mistreatment of Jewish students.

Writing in the Crimson, Bobo argued that it is “outside the bounds of acceptable professional conduct for a faculty member to excoriate University leadership, faculty, staff, or students with the intent to arouse external intervention into University business.”

Faculty who appeal to external actors to reverse gross injustices at Harvard may not get literal stitches, but Bobo could deny them tenure or lower their pay. His piece has not been made official Harvard policy, but more senior administrators have not repudiated his interpretation of “acceptable professional conduct,” and his discretion to punish snitches remains intact.

Bobo’s hostility to “external intervention” is reminiscent of something more menacing than junior high taunts about snitches. It echoes George Wallace’s complaints about “outside agitators.” The segregationist governor of Alabama claimed in a 1964 letter that efforts by him and other Southern leaders to improve the condition of the “Negro citizen” were being undermined by “the national news media and the propaganda distributed by various organizations.” If only outside agitators would avoid stirring up trouble, both “white and colored” could continue to live in “peace and equanimity.”

Bobo similarly expresses a preference for managing Harvard’s problems through “internal discussion on key policy matters,” threatening to sanction “behaviors that plainly incite external actors—be it the media, alumni, donors, federal agencies, or the government—to intervene in Harvard’s affairs.” It’s as if Bobo were saying that Harvard’s Jews could be living in “peace and equanimity” without outside agitators in the media and government stirring up trouble.

Bobo and other Harvard leaders are right to fear outside intervention. Despite its more than $50 billion endowment, Harvard is a financial house of cards built on government subsidy and donor largesse. Harvard’s operating budget last year was $5.9 billion, of which about $650 million came from federal research grants, $55 million came from government student aid and loans, and another $500 million came from the “current use” gifts of donors.

If Harvard’s misdeeds were to motivate the federal government to remove its eligibility for research grants and student assistance, and donations were to dry up, Harvard would be facing the loss of about a fifth of the revenue it needs to cover its operating costs. Harvard has been so flush with cash for so long that it has no idea how to cut 1% of its budget, let alone 20%.

A future Republican, or for that matter Democratic, administration cutting off its access to federal funds alongside a donor strike would be financially catastrophic for Harvard at the same time that it would be enormously politically popular. Stopping the gush of federal money into Harvard would spell the end for Bobo and his colleagues, just as sending the National Guard to Little Rock Central spelled the end for Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus’s political ambitions.

In his Crimson piece, Bobo emphasizes that students “must also learn from the example of heroic figures like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.” Bobo himself might benefit from rereading King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” In that letter, King rejects the notion that “outside agitators” are somehow illegitimate, noting, “Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial ‘outside agitator’ idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.”

Similarly, no external policymaker, reporter, or donor is an “outsider” regarding Harvard’s mistreatment of its Jewish students, not to mention professors of all faiths, who suffer under administrators such as Bobo who have made Harvard America’s worst university for free speech.

Harvard is facing a reckoning. Bobo is trying to stave off that reckoning by intimidating faculty critics into silence. It’s too late. Even Harvard does not have a large enough endowment to avoid the consequences of getting on the wrong side of a critical mass of policymakers and donors.

https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/harvard-dean-threatens-faculty-who-protest-schools-mistreatment-jews

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New Brisbane school to focus on classics

The Power family, whose father, James snr, established Campion College, Australia’s first liberal arts tertiary institution, is behind the launch of new school in Brisbane next week.

St John Henry Newman College, initially catering from Prep to Year 3, will be built at Tarragindi, on Brisbane’s southside next year, to open in 2026. One class will be added each year, with a separate campus, later, for secondary school in 2030.

Inaugural chairman and managing director of the Power group of companies, James Power, said expressions of interest from parents were strong.

The school would be geared to the classical, Western tradition, an emphasis in the early years on direct instruction, numeracy and literacy (including phonics), encouraging reading and no devices in the classroom. When history and geography were introduced the subjects would be taught factually, not laced with ideology.

Kenneth Crowther, a teacher at Toowoomba Christian College, who has been appointed principal and is completing his PhD in Shakespeare said classical schools emphasised on introducing students to the “great books’’ – from Dante to Dostoevsky.

“For the juniors, that’ll be Aesop’s fables, Beatrix Potter, Winnie the Pooh and Wind in the Willows, C.S. Lewis’s Narnia and Tolkien,’’ Mr Crowther said.

In recent years, many parents have been disappointed to find traditional favourites missing in school reading and English lessons.

As a Catholic school, religion will be part of the curriculum, with the priests of the Brisbane Oratory to serve as chaplains.

The establishment of classical schools by communities concerned about education standards has become a major trend in the US.

Australia’s first classical Orthodox school, the St John of Kronstadt Academy, opened on Brisbane’s southside this year for Prep to Year 3 and will also add a grade a year. Its stated aims are “to provide our children with a classical Orthodox curriculum that will nurture the child’s soul, mind and body, develop Orthodox wisdom and virtue and will be steeped in Orthodox faith and liturgical tradition”.

In Melbourne, the principal of St Philip’s Catholic Primary School, Blackburn North, Michelle Worcester and Parish Priest Fr Nicholas Dillon will oversee the transformation of the local Catholic school to a classical model next year and in 2026. The change has the support of Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools authorities and will be first of its kind under the system.

Based on parental interest and inquiries, which have come from as far away as country Victoria, Fr Dillon expects to the school numbers, which have fallen to 29, to double in the first year.

Similar transformations of schools in the US over the past 40 years had seen small enrolments expand to 300. “Parents are looking for a quality back-to-basics approach and want their children introduced to classical literature and Western civilisation,’’ Fr Dillon said.

St John Henry Newman College will be launched at the Brisbane Oratory on Thursday, July 11. Its patrons include businessman and Brisbane Broncos chairman Karl Morris and retired computer scientist, businessman and former Dean of Bond University business school and author Ashley Goldsworthy.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/new-brisbane-school-to-focus-on-classics/news-story/cb8dc0a68e714a2d028743009ce9b635

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The Australian Education Union is miffed about phonics

Kevin Andrews

One of my earliest memories is sitting on the front verandah of my parents’ farmhouse. My two younger brothers and I were sunning ourselves along with my mother. In the years well before the ‘slip, slop, slap’ campaign, she had rubbed olive oil into our skin so that we would tan. She believed – like many others in the late 50s and early 60s – that a tan would prevent sunburn. It was before I attended the local primary school, so I must have been about four years of age.

In addition to the small trikes we rode around the verandah, my parents had purchased a blackboard on which we could draw. It had the letters of the alphabet along the top and bottom of the board, and the numbers from 1 – 20 down the sides. My mother would help us to write words, sounding out the appropriate letters from the alphabet on the board. By the time I attended school, I could read and write basic sentences. I took to reading books with alacrity, reading to my parents each night. Not having a television until I was about 15 also spurred an interest in reading. It is perhaps little wonder that I chose occupations that have required copious reading.

These early experiences were reinforced at school. In addition to reading, we learnt the times tables by rote. I recall chanting the times tables as a class each morning. ‘One two is two, two twos are four, three twos are six’ and so on. It was fun and effective. Legible writing was encouraged. The cursive script of earlier generations had been dispatched, but neat, readable letters and sentences were practised daily. Parents placed great emphasis on their children being able to read, write, and count as the most important skills to master at primary school. I believe that is what most parents still desire.

This is not to deny that many children have difficulties in learning to read and write. Several of my own children were dyslexic. This was a significant challenge which required extra tuition and support, mostly by their mother, with the backup of remedial programs in schools and learning specialists. Phonics played a significant role.

These reflections came to mind as I read that Victoria has finally accepted that phonics should be taught in schools. The state’s Deputy Premier, Ben Carroll, who is also Education Minister, announced that the explicit learning method would be reintroduced into the state’s schools next year. The Catholic system in Victoria has already adopted the changes.

The Australian Education Union has opposed the changes, urging teachers to reject the new approach. ‘The AEU Joint Primary and Secondary Sector Council views with significant dismay the policy announcement by Victorian Education Minister, Ben Carroll, on the misnamed Making Best Practice Common Practice in The Education State, without proper consultation with the profession and the AEU.’ Instead, the Union demanded additional funding to the sector. Moreover, the minister should support teachers to ‘make professional decisions about the content and pedagogies appropriate for the learning programs in their classrooms and schools.’ In other words, teachers should decide what is taught, not the duly elected government.

The Union was clearly miffed that Mr Carroll would make a decision not proposed or endorsed by its members. How dare a minister do his job and a government govern! No wonder it has taken years for Victoria to follow other states and jurisdictions to introduce the changes, despite studies demonstrating the advantages of phonics. Indeed, the statement failed to even use the word phonics!

This is a union steeped in Marxist-inspired ideology. It opposes the funding of non-government schools, opposes any ranking of academic performance and has subscribed to every cause in the modern zeitgeist, ranging from global warming to multi-gender recognition. The AEU and other teacher organisations rail at any suggestion that literacy standards have fallen. Perhaps the fact that Mr Carroll is from Labor’s right faction partially explains the antipathy of the AEU towards his education policies.

Why would the Union oppose the use of phonics when English is a phonetic language? Apart from the ideological nonsense pedalled by the Union, there is a suspicion that some teachers are the victims of the approach to learning that has been favoured for the past few decades. Will the reinstatement of phonics expose the inadequacy of the educational methods, possibly the deficiency of some teachers themselves?

The falling standards of English language are evident everywhere. How many times do you hear someone pronounce ‘nothing’ as ‘nothink’, even some otherwise well-educated people? My wife constantly points out grammar errors in newspapers, such as using an incorrect verb with a collective noun, for example ‘the government are…’

Union chagrin wasn’t confined to the AEU this past week. John Setka, the firebrand secretary of the CFMEU, attracted widespread criticism for his proposal to slow down work on construction sites associated with the Australian Football League while they employed the former Building and Construction Commissioner, Stephen McBurney. Mr McBurney, a distinguished AFL umpire officiating at four grand finals, is now head of umpiring for the League.

His previous employment, as a public official, under legislation passed by the Parliament, should not be subject to intimidation. Thankfully the AFL has rejected the comments, despite its endorsement of Woke culture generally. But the ambivalent response by many Labor MPs and ministers was less robust. Instead of stating clearly that such comments are unacceptable, many dodged the issue, saying that Setka was an effective Union representative. Perhaps the millions that his Union has donated to the Labor Party, and the support for various Labor candidates, influenced their muted response. They could learn something from Mr Carroll, who was prepared to ignore the AEU’s bleating and act in the best interests of the state’s schoolchildren.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/06/the-australian-education-union-is-miffed-about-phonics/

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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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Federal Government to Pause Student Loan Payments, Interest for 3 Million Borrowers

In response to court rulings blocking key elements of the federal government’s new student loan repayment program, the Biden administration will be giving approximately 3 million borrowers a reprieve from their monthly payments.

The 3 million borrowers eligible for the pause are enrolled in the income-driven repayment program dubbed SAVE, and have a monthly payment that is more than $0 a month, the U.S. Department of Education said. About 4.5 million SAVE enrollees who qualify for $0 payments because of low incomes will not be included in the pause.

The payment pause is similar to the COVID-19 student loan relief that lasted three and a half years from March 2020 through September 2023, during which borrowers didn’t have to pay monthly bills and interest didn’t accrue.

Borrowers who are eligible for the new pause will be informed directly in the coming days, a spokesperson for the Education Department told The Epoch Times.

The announcement was made days after a federal judge in Kansas, siding with attorneys general of three Republican-led states, blocked the implementation of the final segment of the SAVE plan but declined to unwind the portions of it that are already in place.

The blocked segment is a calculation formula update scheduled to take effect on July 1. It would have allowed borrowers with undergraduate loans to have their monthly payments capped at 5 percent of their discretionary income, down from the current 10 percent limit.

Borrowers with undergraduate and graduate school loans would have also seen a reduction in repayments, with the amount depending on the proportion of their graduate and undergraduate loan debt.

A separate ruling out of a federal court in Missouri put SAVE’s debt discharge provisions on hold while litigation challenging the program moves forward. The SAVE plan offered debt cancellations for those who originally took out $12,000 or less in loans and have made at least 10 years of monthly payments.

Both of the judges presiding over the twin cases agreed that the SAVE plan, which uses the Higher Education Act (HEA) to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in loan debt, goes beyond what the statute authorizes.

In his opinion, Judge John Ross of the Eastern District of Missouri said Congress did not intend to make debt forgiveness under HEA as economically far-reaching as President Biden’s program.

“The court is not free to replace the language of the statute with unenacted legislative intent. Congress has made it clear under what circumstances loan forgiveness is permitted, and the [income-contingent repayment] plan is not one of those circumstances,” Judge Ross wrote.

A Congressional Budget Office estimate said SAVE could cost $230 billion over the next decade, while researchers at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania placed the price tag at $475 billion over the same 10-year period.

The pair of rulings prompted some Democrat lawmakers to urge the Education Department to place affected borrowers on forbearance, citing the confusion that could result from the injunctions.

“This damning and harmful lawsuit will only throw struggling borrowers further into chaos, deny them the student debt cancellation they demand and deserve, and prevent them from purchasing homes, growing their families, and so much more,” Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) said in a statement. “The Biden Administration must continue to take immediate action to ensure borrowers receive the student debt cancellation they were promised.”

The federal government has promised a continued push for student loan forgiveness.

“President Biden, Vice President [Kamala] Harris, and Secretary [Miguel] Cardona remain committed to fixing a broken student loan system and making college more affordable for more Americans,” a spokesperson for the Education Department said in a statement to The Epoch Times.

“They will not stop vigorously defending the SAVE Plan, the most affordable repayment plan in history, and will continue to fight for this long-overdue relief.”

Some 414,000 borrowers have had their federal student loan debts erased under SAVE, according to the Education Department. The injunctions will not affect any forgiveness that has already been granted.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/federal-government-to-pause-student-loan-payments-interest-for-3-million-borrowers-5677496

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Jewish groups turn on Sydney University

A rare coalition of Australia’s peak Jewish groups says it has “lost confidence” in the University of Sydney to provide for the safety of Jewish people, and that the organisations “stand ready to provide support to Jewish students and staff … who now wish to leave the university”.

The move follows the university’s controversial agreement with the Muslim students society, which defied university orders to pack up its pro-Palestine encampment protest and has been implicated with extremist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir.

In a significant escalation of pressure on Australia’s oldest university, six Jewish organisations, including some of the most powerful in the country – the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the Australasian Union of Jewish Students, the Zionist Federation of Australia, the Australian Academic Alliance Against Anti-Semitism, and the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council – said they were “appalled and deeply concerned” by the university’s agreement.

“Many of the protesters were from outside the university, yet they were allowed to menace the university community and disturb campus life without challenge,” their joint statement reads.

“They have now been ­rewarded for doing so.”

The groups said they had rejected the University of Sydney’s offer to participate in a working group to review defence and security related investments and called on others not to partake in the “sham” and “fundamentally flawed process”.

The university has pledged to grant a seat on that working group to the Sydney University Muslim Students Association under last week’s agreement. It has also promised a suite of other measures in return for an end to the encampment protest after almost two months.

Those measures include a pledge to disclose defence and security related investments and research ties and to double its expenditure to support academics under its scholars-at-risk program with a particular focus on Palestinians.

The agreement came a week after the university ordered the campers off the lawns, threatening that failure to comply with directions to leave would constitute an offence. Everyone but the Sydney University Muslim Students Association left following that order. That group defied orders and camped out another week until the agreement was struck.

They said in a statement last week that this defiance “worked in our favour across many fronts, most particularly being the catalyst for negotiations with the uni”.

The Jewish groups said the agreement would “only act as an incentive for further and more extreme disruption at the university in the future”.

“Based on our interactions to date, we have lost confidence in the capacity of the university to provide for the physical, cultural and psychosocial safety of Jewish students and staff members.

“This is not just our view. We have been made aware that several academic staff, some of them leaders in their fields and employees of long standing, have already notified the university of their decision to leave the institution. We have also been informed that a number of Jewish students are now considering shifting to other universities.

“We have also rejected the university’s offer, extended to us after an agreement had been reached behind our backs, to participate in the proposed process to review the university’s investment and research activities. “The process is in our view a sham and we will have nothing to do with it. We encourage individuals and groups of standing likewise not to engage with or lend credibility to such a fundamentally flawed process.

“We continue to explore all options to ensure the safety and wellbeing of students and staff at the University of Sydney and stand ready to provide support and assistance to Jewish students and staff at the university, as well as those who now wish to leave the university.”

The University of Sydney has repeatedly said the working group will not review the university’s research activity.

When contacted for a response to the letter, a university spokeswoman said: “These are deeply challenging times and we recognise the significant distress relating to this conflict and also the way the university has managed the encampment.

“We deliberately took time to listen and understand our community’s concerns with the intention of coming to a peaceful resolution.

“We are pleased the encampment was resolved without violence. The ending of the encampment is the first step, and we know we need to work hard to rebuild our relationships with some members of our university community.”

One Jewish student at the University of Sydney, Zac, told The Australian that he was considering transferring following the last few months of tensions on campus. He did not want his face photographed or his surname published for fear of reprisal.

“I’ve been harassed,” he said. “They had a protest. I was filming the protest just in case anything happened. I got told I wasn’t welcome here and that I had to leave – I said, I’m a student at the university and they didn’t care. And I got pictured and posted on Instagram and they called me a ‘Zio’.”

Zac said the university’s deal with protesters announced last Friday confirmed to him that the university “didn’t care about me personally”.

“I guess the squeaky wheel gets the grease. If they complain loudly enough, it doesn’t necessarily mean their opinion’s right or anything they do is right. They’re just the loudest.

“I’ve looked into it a lot, into transferring to UNSW, or UTS, or Macquarie. When you don’t feel comfortable walking around campus, and your classes are on campus, and there are people who you thought were friends who now you don’t talk to or they don’t talk to you, it sort of makes it hard to want to keep coming to uni.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/jewish-groups-turn-on-sydney-university/news-story/822c4873d9a9c9521dbed7be10025335

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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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