Conservative Students Join in Nationwide Demonstration Against Islamic Fascism

In one of the most extensive demonstrations ever staged by American college conservatives, close to one hundred university and college campuses across the country yesterday held an "Islamo Fascism Awareness Day." Thousands of students were involved in the event, which was coordinated by the Terrorism Awareness Project, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center whose objective is to counter college students' lack of awareness about the War on Terror and the disinformation about it propagated by radical faculty and student groups.

A total of 96 colleges and universities, including Pace University, Columbia, Duke, Notre Dame, North Carolina, Purdue, Ohio State, Alabama, Colorado and other prominent schools, together with three high schools and two military bases, marked the event by showing Obsession, a documentary film using materials from Arab TV rarely seen in the West and interviews with authorities on Middle East politics, former jihadists, and experts on terrorism to take the viewer inside the worldview radical Islam and its plans for world domination.

Freedom Center President David Horowitz said that the event represented a clear challenge to faculty and administrators who, in the name of political correctness, have sought to shut down debate about Islamic extremism: "The simultaneous showing of a film exposing the Islamist threat at nearly 100 universities is a tremendous victory for the forces of freedom and for intellectual diversity, which are now under attack."

Reports from many of the participating schools gave a sense of the success of the event. Ryan McCool, Chairman of the College Republicans at Temple University commented after the showing that "the student who participated left with a better understanding of the evil that exists in the world." And Harrison Sontag, a student at Dartmouth who coordinated the event there, said, "Everyone was completely blown away by the film. Many had no idea exactly how large and credible a threat our enemy is."

But on some campuses, students attempting to present this program about the nature of radical Islam complained about being pressured, and in some cases openly harassed, to cancel the eventintimidation, they said, that proved exactly how necessary the Terrorism Awareness Project is. Josiah Lanning, a student at Ohio's Columbus State Community College, recounted how, when he was filling out the paperwork for the event, the school's activities center required him to "tone down" his proposed flyer for the showing of Obsession because it referred to Hezbollah and similar groups as terrorist organizations, Lanning was next told to suspend the film until further notice because of the tragedy at Virginia Tech. Only after he appealed to the dean of students at the college was Lanning finally permitted to proceed with the showing.

Carl Soderberg, chair of the University of New Haven's College Republicans chapter, encountered similar resistance: "There were some faculty members who pressured me to postpone the film until they could find someone who could properly frame the issue,'" he says. But he went forward, and the film was shown to some 50 students and faculty. For Soderberg the outcome was worth the difficulty: "The point of the film was to raise awareness about a problem that many have stopped thinking about in the last five and a half years, and the best place to do that is on a college campus."

Ruth Malhotra, a student at Georgia Tech and a member of the school's College Republicans chapter, had perhaps the most difficult time. Among the hurdles erected by the school, Malhotra faced interference by opposed faculty and school administrators, boycotts and counter-demonstrations from left-wing student groups -- and even death threats designed to prevent the screening. Given day long police protection as she presented Obsession on the Tech campus, Malhotra observed: "It's important for students to know that violent Islamic extremism does pose a threat to our way of life, and to challenge that threat we have to understand what it is we're up against."

Stephen Miller, a senior at Duke University and national coordinator of the Terrorism Awareness Project, summed up the meaning of the historic, day-long experience: "Islamo Fascism Awareness Day is necessary because of the denial and ignorance about terrorism on the part of many students," says "These factors, combined with the unholy alliance between anti American and pro jihad groups on many campuses has made for a lethal combination. We're in a fight for survival and many students are on the sidelines."

Press release




Systematic corruption of British High-school examinations

Examination bodies are making thousands of pounds selling tips to schools on how to beat the A-level and GCSE systems. Senior examiners offer advice on a freelance basis and at least two boards provide courses to help teachers to improve pupils' grades.

A government adviser condemned the practice as disgraceful, saying that it preyed on schools' fears about their position in the league tables. Head teachers gave warning that there would be a "major moral issue" if boards were giving unfair advantage to some pupils over others.

Many pupils spend the Easter holidays doing intensive tuition courses. Parents often hire former teachers to help them to prepare for exams.

Teachers, too, are under growing pressure to succeed. Senior examiners allegedly give seminars for up to 200 pounds a time, offering tips on what pupils should write in coursework. Now examining bodies are also cashing in. This year, the OCR board is offering teachers hundreds of courses at up to 120 each. It offers a full-day course in GCSE English literature titled "Get ahead - improving candidate performance". The board says that the course offers "guidance and practical support" for teachers preparing pupils for this summer's exams, to "exemplify standards for the externally assessed components" and "suggest teaching and learning approaches for each component" of the GCSE.

The Assessment and Qualifications Alliance also offers courses, most of them free. A spokeswoman said that they were about raising standards and intended to "support teachers in developing qualifications". Senior markers also earn thousands privately by advising staff on how to "control" what pupils write for coursework and script foreign language oral exams so that pupils know in advance what will turn up.

Warwick Mansell describes two seminars in his book Education by Numbers, published next month. In one, French teachers were told to be "realistically generous" when marking coursework and that teaching less able pupils grammar was not worth the effort because it was allocated few marks. History teachers were advised against aiming for top-quality work because pupils could gain an A* GCSE without it. Instead, they should concentrate on areas where little historical knowledge was required - such as using historical sources. Examining bodies already brief schools on syllabus changes, give feedback on exams and make the previous year's papers available.

Yesterday heads gave warning that expensive advice sessions risked giving some pupils an unfair advantage. Malcolm Trobe, president of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "There is a dividing line between giving appropriate information to teachers to prepare children adequately for exams and giving or selling tips which would directly influence their grades. If it gives some students an advantage, there would be a major moral issue there."

Since 1997 the Government has focused increasingly on league tables and targets in education. If results are not up to scratch schools can be closed, heads can lose their jobs and, from September, teachers face losing out on pay awards.

Alan Smithers, a government adviser and director of education and employment research at the University of Buckingham, said that this approach was key in creating the "disgraceful" new market. He said: "Finding ways of helping students to do their best has always been part of teaching, but the big difference here is that the people on the inside are giving hints on coursework and areas where students are more likely to get A* grades. "Education has become distorted by the over-emphasis on scores. But schools are playing the game to maximise the scores and, as businesses, the exam boards are jumping on the bandwagon. "What follows is that the scores are further removed from the children's ability and what they can achieve." Professor Smithers said that the boards should stop offering such sessions and that examiners should not be allowed to enter into a private enterprise.

A spokesman for the Joint Council for Qualifications, the umbrella body for the examination boards, said that it took "complaints or evidence" which raise questions about the probity of the assessment process seriously. He said that the code of practice set out the roles and responsibilities of examiners and that the regulators would pursue cases where conduct related to malpractice.

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Is the USA now enforcing Sharia law?

Ham is certainly "haram" under Sharia law but who knew it was "haram" under US law? They seem to think it is in the Maine school mentioned below

One student has been suspended and more disciplinary action could follow a possible hate crime at Lewiston Middle School, Superintendent Leon Levesque said Wednesday. On April 11, a white student placed a ham steak in a bag on a lunch table where Somali students were eating. Muslims consider pork unclean and offensive. The act reminded students of a man who threw a pig's head into a Lewiston mosque last summer.

The school incident is being treated seriously as "a hate incident," Levesque said. Lewiston police are investigating, and the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence is working with the school to create a response plan. "We've got some work to do to turn this around and bring the school community back together again," Levesque said.

Placing ham where Muslim students were eating was "an awful thing," said Stephen Wessler, executive director of the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence. "It's extraordinarily hurtful and degrading" to Muslims, whose religion prohibits them from being around ham. It's important to respond swiftly, Wessler said. "Incidents like this that involve degrading language or conduct are often said by the perpetrator as a joke. I know that conduct is never static," he said. "It's part of a process of escalation." If people think insulting Muslims with ham is OK, "More degrading acts will follow, until at some point we'll end up having violence," Wessler said.

The incident does not reflect the moral values of the school staff and students, Levesque said. "We need to take a look at this and review how a careless act is degrading and causes hurt to other people. All our students should feel welcome and safe in our schools." He said a letter would be sent home to parents explaining what happened and outlining the school's response. Wessler will meet with students to address the school's climate, and staff will talk about how to respond to and prevent future hate incidents

A 14-year-old Somali boy, whose mother asked that his name not be published, said he was eating lunch with four other Somali students on April 11. He noticed many others in the cafeteria "standing up, looking at us." One boy came near, began laughing and threw a bag on the table while other students laughed and said, 'Good job.'" "We didn't know what was in this bag," the boy said. "One of my friends reached inside it. It was a big ham steak. There were five of us at the table, all Somali. It was intended for us."

The boy said he looked up at students he thought were his friends. "I felt angered, offended." He suddenly felt like he was alone. "At the school the next day, I didn't feel safe. I felt like everybody was against me. Before I felt like I fit in, and everything was normal." He began to think white students didn't like him, and the act was their way of letting him know.

On Thursday, several students came up to him and said, "Those guys who did it were jerks. I apologize for them, and I hope you feel better." The boy said they did make him feel better. "But for the rest of my life when I remember middle school, this will pop up right away." He spoke out because he wants the community to know what happened, "that there is something like this going on in our schools."

Source

A comment from GM's Corner:

"I'm sorry, while what the kids did was indeed deliberately offensive, and the kids knew it, but it was not a hate crime and does not rise to the point where the police needed to be involved. What ever happened to the school taking care of the misbehavior with a little consequence such as staying late after school, cleaning blackboards, or even opening a can of WhoopAss on the kids? On the other hand, the only reason this prank worked at all is because of the heightened sensitivity of the Somali kids and the belief that their feelings are more important than the feelings of others."

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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"

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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