TERRORIST PROFESSOR AT NORTHWESTERN

By a student

"On its official Web site, Northwestern offers an impressive biography of Law Prof. Bernardine Dohrn, detailing her work in children's law, her educational background, her academic appointments and other notable accomplishments. The university's profile curiously omits one of her most significant leadership positions: She was a principal organizer of the Weathermen, a radical cabal, during the late 60s and early 70s.

Among its many criminal exploits, the group claimed responsibility for no fewer than 12 bombings between 1970 and 1974, and Dohrn spent a decade hiding from federal authorities to avoid prosecution for assaulting a police officer.

A basic Internet search turns up additional details regarding Dohrn's checkered past, including a New York Times article which, ironically, hit newsstands on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. The story featured Dohrn and her husband, Bill Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, about their days as domestic terrorists. In one of several outrageous statements, Ayers said he "did not regret setting bombs," concluding the Weathermen "did not do enough" in the way of violence. A search also turns up Dohrn's mug shot from when she was on the FBI's list of 10 most wanted fugitives in 1970.

Offended by Dohrn's statements and actions, and concerned that my tuition may help to pay the salary of an unrepentant former terrorist, I tried to contact her to set up an interview. I hoped Dohrn would be willing to condemn some of her crimes and strike a note of reconciliation. Dohrn would not even speak to me, however, and her assistant informed me that she only discusses her radical days with "certain magazines." ......

Dohrn's presence at NU can hardly be classified as breaking news. However, the fact that NU employs someone with Dohrn's past is astounding, and her stonewalling has not assuaged my concerns."

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THE DESTRUCTIVE NEA

Our educational institutions at all levels are under the wing of the National Education Association, which controls teacher certification, resists higher standards and has great influence on curriculum at all levels Our Boards of Education, across the country, are as putty when acting as balance wheels to the onslaught of the teachers union. As Mark Twain Wrote, " In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards." They have become as irrelevant to being productive administrative forces in school systems as a Volkswagon is to moving forward while an 18 wheeler sits on top of it.

Boards are comprised of nice people in a community who want to do good, are generous with their time, are civic minded and love children but are usually untrained for the task assigned. They generally are no match for the hard core union pros and the end result has been over 50 years of allowing outsiders with secular and socialist intentions to develop the minds and the thinking of the nation's children. In terms of meeting the needs of students for having the tools to compete in the outside world we have as impotent a force in trying to educate as we have in a United Nations pretending to meet human needs around the globe.

There was a time when the schools were considered standard bearing agencies of American culture, ethics, mores and values along with such institutions as churches and charities but not anymore. When parents allowed political correctness, multiculturism, secularism and collectivism to permeate the hallowed halls of learning it thus allowed education to become a godless pop culture with a faddish regimen rather than a viable and intellectual spiritual force to aid in productive learning.

The whole object of education allegedly is to develop the mind but in too many schools across the country they are leaving the buildings which we call schools quite unprepared for the variances of life.

We cannot escape the past nor can we foresee the future. In molding the minds of children you determine the fate of a nation. Political correctness is and has been a disease with both stultifying and repressive pressures. The proof is in the present results of an educative discipline which is organized chaos but has definitive political goals.

We have found that teachers, whether they be hard core socialists, groupies who are robotic followers, the meek who can't be bothered or the solid ones who only wish to teach and be left alone are and have been supporting a Union which has spent millions upon millions of dollars to support and abet a Bill Clinton in the nineties and a John Kerry in the recent past. Now these are not just run of the mill aspirants in politics. These are people who openly and effectively worked solidly against their country in whatever way they could in order to gain personal and political power.

At a time when his country was at war Clinton fled to England and then to Russia where he groveled at the feet of the communists. He was said to be in England as a Rhodes Scholar but he didn't stay long enough for his second cup of tea. It is not known whether he ever attended a class since the posse was on its way. During the Iraq war he actually toured Europe and spoke against his own country. Kerry is of the same breed. He encouraged the Vietnamese during that war and helped to subvert the military while joining hands with Jane Fonda against his own country. After losing the presidential election in November of 2003 and while we are still at war in Iraq this man has had the gall to visit and speak to our troops against our country. Both of these men emboldened the enemy in time of war thus causing overtly and surreptitiously more deaths of our own soldiers.

Both of these men have been energetically supported by the teachers Union. What does that tell you? What kind of faith can you possibly keep relative to those who are teaching your children. Where is the focus on the learning process. . Is it no wonder that students today are graduating with deficiencies in reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, history and all the basics for which they are being sent to school?

You might find, especially in the blue states, pockets of schools where they have fine management, dedicated teachers and competent Boards of Education but their location, at times, are like seeking the page numbers in the Reader's Digest. As William Lowe Bryan once reported, "Education is one of the few things a person is willing to pay for and not get." The whole object of education allegedly is to develop the mind but in too many schools across the country youth is fleeing the buildings, which we call schools, quite unprepared for the variances of life.

Across the country there has been no set pattern but there has been an underlying ideology aimed at creating values foreign to our culture and to our way of life. The examples are too numerous for these pages but there may be room for a few. There are schools which have eliminated the Valedictorians and the Salutatorians at graduation since their ability to excel would most assuredly destroy the self-esteem of their peers. Classrooms have indicated that a child has given the correct answer if responding that 2 + 2 equals 5. Thus self- esteem is protected. Prayer in school had to be abolished whether in a group or individually since others should not be subjected to such a mundane act. A number of schools across the country quit using red ink on papers because red is too shocking and traumatic for children. The school district in Fairfax, Virginia (of all places) strictly prohibits reciting the Lord's Prayer but during the Islamic holy month the students were exposed and indoctrinated in that religion's customs, practices and prayers. In other schools students could be sent home for wearing a necklace with a cross. There are schools which no longer display the American flag nor pledge allegiance. There are schools which have taken down the picture of George Washington. There are schools which teach a secular and socialist revision of American History and where the space for Marilyn Monroe is in excess of the limited pages for Washington or Lincoln. In Ypsilanti, Michigan a wrestling coach had to stop leading his team in prayers or the ACLU would sue. In other schools the Declaration of Independence cannot be exposed since the word God is in it. It has been an ongoing credo in a huge number of public schools that students be promoted whether they passed the grade or not. A high school graduate with a second grade education thus is sent out to fight the battle for his livelihood quite unprepared.

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What's wrong with politics in the United States? "It is commonly argued that education is too important to leave to market forces. However, I take the position that education is so important that it must be left to market forces. Education cannot markedly improve without diversity. Without consumer demand to set the price structure it cannot be known which teaching methodologies are the most effective. Without diversity and consumer choice in education any reform is a shot in the dark. Throw in teacher union lobbying and other politicizing that we see today and the result can only be increasing costs for decreasing quality. The children lose most of all."

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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.

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