Updated (6): Vanderbilt University Football Players Convicted of Gang Rape; School Officials Found No Rape Earlier; Players Guilty at Retrial

Posted August 10, 2013 5:33 PM ET; Last updated June 19, 2016 9:14 PM ET



Vandenburg (below) and former teammate Cory Batey (above) were tried and convicted by a jury last year, but the verdicts were thrown out after lawyers discovered the jury foreman had been a victim of statutory rape.




[Updated June 19, 2016 9:14 PM ET]
[From article]
The Vanderbilt football player who orchestrated the gang rape of an unconscious woman passed out a box of condoms to his teammates and giggled as they assaulted her for 30 minutes.
Brandon Vandenburg, 23, was found guilty by the jury in Nashville of raping the woman, who he was dating at the time, in his Vanderbilt dorm room three years ago.
It was the conclusion to a trial that has revealed horrifying details of the gang rape that involved Vandenburg and three other football players at the prestigious private Southern university.
Vandenburg, who now faces 15 to 25 years in jail, was taken into custody as soon as the verdicts were read out while his parents began to cry.
Vandenburg and former teammate Cory Batey were convicted last year, but the verdicts were thrown out after it was revealed a juror had not disclosed he was a victim of statutory rape.
The retrial comes amid a national uproar over the six-month sentence former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner was given for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster.
Much like Turner's defense, Vandenburg's attorneys attempted to paint a portrait of a young athlete who was new to campus and immediately succumbed to peer pressure to party and drink.
Vandenburg had met his victim, who was 21 at the time, during a recruiting visit to the campus. They began to date when he arrived at the school in June 2013, just two weeks before the attack.
The victim said on the stand that she was excited to see Vandenburg, then 20 years old, when he met up with her at the popular Tin Roof bar on June 22, 2013.
Her roommate, Lauren Miller, said she was comfortable leaving the victim behind with the football player, who looked excited to see her.
'I knew they’d been hanging out for a little bit so we trusted him,' Miller said on the stand, according to the Tennessean.
The last thing Vandenburg's victim remembers from that night was sipping a blue drink.
She woke up the next day alone in the bottom bunk in his dorm room, covered in bruises.
Vandenburg told her she had gotten drunk and vomited and that he had to take care of her. She said he made her feel guilty.
'He told me that I had gotten sick in his room and he had to clean it up and that it was horrible and that he had to spend the whole night taking care of me,' she said during Vandenburg's first trial last summer.
'I apologized, I was embarrassed.'
They met up the day after the attack and when Vandenburg initiated sex, his victim consented.
That was the last time the woman saw Vandenburg until they were face to face in court.
But Vandenburg continued to text the girl in the days after the attack, as rumors began to swirl around campus about what really happened in his dorm room.
As Vandenburg was wishing her 'sweet dreams' and asking when they were going to cook together, the police showed the victim the horrific footage he and his teammates had taken.
Vandenburg's texts became more frantic as details of the night became more clear.
'I would never let what they're saying happen to you,' he texted the victim three days after the incident.
'Ok great this is such a mess,' he said in another one. 'I'm never helping anyone get home ever.'
Vandenburg at first told police he had approached three of his teammates, Batey, Brandon Banks and Jaborian McKenzie, merely to help him put the girl in his bed.
Surveillance footage previously aired by ABC News showed Vandenburg carrying the young woman out of a car and into his dorm with three other football players.
The video shows Vandenburg and the men dragging the woman out of an elevator and onto the floor, pausing to take photos of her with their cell phones.
Vandenburg claimed they all then left his dorm room. 'I didn't want to sleep in there with a girl who was, like, a mess,' he told police.
But after police revealed they had seen troubling footage, Vandenburg's story changed. His interview was played to the jury for the first time ever last week.
It could not be used in the 2015 trial because it could have implicated Batey during their co-trial.
'She got sexually assaulted right in front of me,' he told police, trying to pin the attack on his three teammates. 'And I didn't do anything. I should've called someone. They deserve to go to jail.'
'I wish I just would have left her out in front of the dorm room on the floor,' he added. 'I should've been an an a******.
But testimony from McKenzie, Vandenburg's roommate, and two of his friends from California, who received video and images during the attack, tell a different tale.
Pictures and footage retrieved from the cell phones belonging to Vandenburg, Banks and Batey documented the horrific gang rape.
McKenzie said Vandenburg and his teammates put the victim facedown on the tile floor of his room.
He giggled as he told his teammates to 'squeeze that s***', referring to a water bottle that police said one of the men stuck into her anus.
McKenzie said Batey appeared to have sex with the woman, sticking his penis into her mouth.
He sat on her face and raised a middle finger, someone took a picture.
McKenzie said he told Vandenburg he thought the woman would wake up. Vandenburg slapped the woman to prove that she wouldn't. It left a bruise.
Vandeburg tried to wake up his roommate Mark Prioleau, telling him 'We have this b**** in here' and 'We're gonna f*** her', McKenzie said.
Prioleau, who was in the top bunk, saw the four football players surrounding the unconscious woman lying facedown on their dorm room floor. He turned to face the wall and tried to fall asleep.
He said he never checked on the woman and after the attack was done he went to sleep in a friend's room.
McKenzie said Vandenburg was watching porn on his laptop as his teammates assaulted the girl he had been dating, touching himself and trying to get an erection.
The attack lasted 30 minutes and ended with Batey urinating on the woman, testimony states.
Surveillance footage captured Vandenburg exiting the room to cover the camera with a towel.
McKenzie said he and Banks panicked in the bathroom after the attack and that it was Vandenburg who told them to calm down.
He said Vandenburg flushed condoms down the toilet and told them someone he knew had 'beat a rape case' by doing the same.
Four Vanderbilt athletes, football players Chris Boyd, Dillon Van Der Wal and DeAndre Woods, and tennis player Michael Retta, all testified they saw the female victim lying naked in the hallway outside Vandenburg's room that night.
Boyd and Woods helped carry the woman to his bed after the attack when Vandenburg asked for help.
Investigators said in the following days Vandenburg searched on his cell phone: 'Can police recover deleted picture messages'.
He then went to California to try and destroy photographs and video of the attack he sent to high school friends Miles Finley and Joseph Quinzio.
Finley said Vandenburg smashed his phone and threw it into a lake.
Quinzio, who also told the jury that Vandenburg called him during the attack, said his friend destroyed his phone and bought him a new one as well as attempted to erase his computer history.
It took jurors just over four hours of deliberation Saturday before finding Vandenburg guilty on multiple counts of aggravated rape and aggravated sexual battery.
Vandenburg was also convicted of one count of unlawful photography.
'He was the one that got (the woman) there for these strangers to do this to her,' Assistant District Attorney General Jan Norman told the court room during the prosecution's closing argument.
'He provided the victim. And he provided the room.'
Batey was retried in April and found guilty of aggravated rape and other charges. He is scheduled to be sentenced in July.
Banks and McKenzie have yet to be tried and are not currently scheduled to go to trial.
Vandenburg wiped a tear from his eye during his attorney's closing argument, footage published by WSMV revealed.
He shook his head in disbelief as the first guilty verdict was read out.
Norman praised the victim, who went on to graduate from Vanderbilt with honors and is now pursuing her doctorate in another state, for her strength after sitting through three years of trials.
'She is one of the strongest people that I know,' Norman said.
'She has incredible courage. She is just an amazing, intelligent young woman.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3648743/Jury-finds-Vanderbilt-football-player-Brandon-Vandenburg-GUILTY-raping-girl-dorm-room.html

Horrifying details of Vanderbilt gang rape revealed: Football player found guilty of orchestrating 30 minute assault passed out condoms to teammates, giggled as they inserted water bottle inside the girl he was dating and sent footage of attack to friends
Brandon Vandenburg, 23, was found guilty by the jury in Nashville on all counts of raping the woman he was dating three years ago
He now faces a potential jail sentence of up to 25 years
Vandenburg was taken into custody as soon as the verdicts were read out while his parents began to cry
One teammate said Vandenburg tried to wake up his roommate that night, telling him 'we have this b****' and 'we're gonna f*** her'
Teammate said Vandenburg flushed condoms down the toilet after and told them that was how another guy he knew 'beat a rape case'
Two friends from California said Vandenburg sent them video of the attack and later flew home to destroy their phones
By ANNETA KONSTANTINIDES FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 20:45 EST, 18 June 2016 | UPDATED: 13:42 EST, 19 June 2016



* * *

[Updated June 14, 2016 8:02 PM ET]

[From article]

A former Vanderbilt football player encouraged his teammates to have sex with an unconscious woman he had been dating, a prosecutor told jurors Monday.
During opening statements in the retrial of Brandon Vandenburg, the prosecutor said the former player even passed out the condoms to three teammates before she was raped.
He said the attack came after the football player plied the female student with alcohol.
Vandenburg, a 22-year-old former tight end from Indio, California, is not accused of having sex with the victim in the dorm on the Nashville campus in June 2013.
But prosecutors maintain that he should be held responsible for what other players did to the woman because he encouraged it and was part of the crime.
Lawyers told jurors they would see graphic evidence that included cellphone videos and photos that players took of the female student during the attack.
Vandenburg took the videos, Deputy District Attorney General Tom Thurman told jurors.
'He's giving instructions, encouraging, and then you'll hear him laughing,' Thurman said. 'He thinks it's hilarious.'
The retrial comes against the backdrop of a furor over the six-month sentence former Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner received after being convicted of sexual assault.
The cases at two of America's elite universities are part of broader national debate about sexual assaults on college and university campuses.
Vandenburg's defense, however, maintains that the other three players are to blame.
Defense attorney Randy Reagan said Vandenburg was a 19-year-old newly arrived recruit from a small desert town in California who had been introduced to a culture of drinking and partying at the school by mentors on the football team.
He said a female booster often spent hundreds of dollars on rounds of drinks for players at a popular Nashville nightclub and had bought drinks for the victim.
Vandenburg, the lawyer said, had been drinking from the morning into the early hours of the next day when he asked football players that he didn't know to help him carry the unconscious woman up to his dorm room.
The other players, Reagan said, were immediately all over the 21-year-old student as soon as they got her in the room.
Nobody disputes what happened to the woman was terrible, the lawyer said.
'Mr Vandenburg maybe could have stopped it,' Reagan told jurors. 'But the state is asking you to find Mr Vandenburg criminally responsible for the actions of people he didn't know minutes before all this happened.'
The defense attorney said the videos jurors would see are 'horrible' but asked them not to close their minds.
The former tight end had tried to use an expert witness for rebuttal who was prepared to testify that the combination of brain trauma from concussions Vandenburg suffered playing football and alcohol intoxication would have severely altered the former player's judgment.
However, Davidson County Criminal Court Judge Monte Watkins said jurors could not hear the testimony because the Knoxville psychiatrist had not examined Vandenburg, was not an expert on toxicology and had arrived at his conclusions based on an email from the defense.
Vandenburg is charged with five counts of aggravated rape, two counts of aggravated sexual battery and one count of unlawful photography.
He and former teammate Cory Batey were tried and convicted by a jury last year, but the verdicts were thrown out after lawyers discovered the jury foreman had been a victim of statutory rape.
Batey was retried in April and found guilty of aggravated rape and other charges. He is scheduled to be sentenced in July.
Two other players have yet to be tried and are not currently scheduled to go to trial.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3639803/Prosecutor-Former-Vanderbilt-player-encouraged-rape.html

Former Vanderbilt football player 'handed out condoms to three teammates so they could rape his unconscious date after he plied her with alcohol'
Brandon Vandenburg is being retried for an incident in Nashville in 2013
Prosecutors said he urged teammates to have sex with unconscious girl
He allegedly plied the victim with alcohol before the other players raped her
The 22-year-old is not accused with having sex with the victim in a dorm
But attorneys say he should be held responsible for what other players did
Lawyers say he was giving instructions and laughing during alleged attack
His defense lawyer says he was introduced to a culture of drinking and partying by mentors on the football team
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUBLISHED: 17:48 EST, 13 June 2016 | UPDATED: 22:59 EST, 13 June 2016

* * *



[Updated February 14, 2015 3:18 PM ET]
[From article]
A year before two Vanderbilt football players were convicted in a 2013 gang rape, campus officials concluded there was a lack of evidence that 'nonconsensual sexual intercourse' had occurred.
The report from the Tennessee school's Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action and Disability Services Department led to the expulsion of Brandon Vandenburg, Cory Baty and two other players.
However, Vanderbilt has refused to release its on-campus findings, leading some to wonder if the panel determined the players had, in fact, raped an unconscious female student.
According to the Tennessean, the school's report concluded only that Vandenburg was an 'accomplice' in violating the woman's privacy.
[. . .]
The school is now the focus of an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights for its handling of sexual violence allegations.
[. . .]
Charging all four players with rape even though not all of them engaged in the act itself sends a strong message about holding people accountable, said Jane Stapleton, a University of New Hampshire professor who runs bystander intervention programs at campuses. Only two players were accused of raping the student, but all four were charged with it because prosecutors held them criminally responsible based on their actions that night.
[. . .]
Rumors swirled around campus, but she didn't learn what had happened until well after police came to her. The players had tried to cover it up by erasing the images. Testimony showed at least five other Vanderbilt athletes saw her in distress and did not report it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2935302/Vanderbilt-campus-investigation-cleared-football-players-rape-charges-year-convicted-court.html

Vanderbilt campus investigation cleared football players of rape charges a year before they were convicted by court
Brandon Vandenburg, 21, and Cory Batey, 21, were found guilty of raping an unconscious student in a dorm room in June 2013 with two other men
However, an on-campus investigation into the issue determined only that the men were in violation of sexual misconduct rules
All four implicated men were expelled but Vanderbilt refuses to release internal records of their investigation
Critics of Vanderbilt's opaque investigation process--and those of school's nationwide--question if the school determined a rape had, in fact, occurred
By JOSH GARDNER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM and AP
PUBLISHED: 10:56 EST, 1 February 2015 | UPDATED: 21:50 EST, 1 February 2015

* * *

[From article]
Despite the photos and video, and witnesses seeing the woman unconscious and at least partially naked in the dorm, no one reported it.
The trial played out amid a national conversation about rape on college campuses. In Nashville, where the prestigious private university is located, hundreds of officials from colleges across the state are meeting this week for a two-day summit on how to reduce sexual assaults.
Attorneys for Vandenburg, who had been seeing the woman, said he did not assault her but was recorded on video laughing and encouraging his teammates. Batey’s attorneys said the images didn’t show him assaulting the woman.
Defense lawyers argued that Vandenburg and Batey were too drunk to know what they were doing and that a college culture of binge drinking and promiscuous sex should be partly to blame.

http://nypost.com/2015/01/27/2-ex-vanderbilt-football-players-convicted-of-raping-student/

2 ex-Vanderbilt football players convicted of raping student
By Associated Press
January 27, 2015 | 6:14pm

* * *

[From article]
The best friend of the alleged Vanderbilt gang-rape victim took the stand Wednesday to describe her then-roommate's distressing appearance the morning after the attack is said to have occurred.
Four former Vanderbilt football players are currently on trial for raping a woman repeatedly while she was unconscious on June 23, 2013, including the victim's then-boyfriend Brandon Vandenburg.
Lauren Miller went to a bar with the victim the night leading up to the attack, and told the court her reaction the next time she saw her friend the following morning.
She says her roommate came back to their condo with a gash on her leg, looking ill and 'out of it'.
'My immediate reaction was "Woah, what happened to you?"' Miller recalled.


Shocking: The former roommate of the alleged Vanderbilt rape victim took the stand on Wednesday to describe what she looked like the morning after the attack.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2921013/Woah-happened-Roommate-reveals-horror-seeing-beat-disheveled-Vanderbilt-rape-victim-morning-alleged-attack-boyfriend-football-teammates.html

'Woah, what happened to you?': Roommate reveals horror of seeing beat-up and disheveled Vanderbilt 'rape victim' the morning after alleged attack by boyfriend and his football teammates
Lauren Miller said Wednesday that the alleged victim had a gash, looked ill and 'out of it'
Four former Vanderbilt football players are currently on trial for allegedly raping the unconscious woman on June 23, 2013
By ASHLEY COLLMAN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 21:58 EST, 21 January 2015 | UPDATED: 11:35 EST, 22 January 2015



* * *



[From article]
A former Vanderbilt football player accused of raping an unconscious student has described how his teammates slapped and urinated on the woman while her boyfriend encouraged them to assault her.
Jaborian 'Tip' McKenzie, 20, took the stand in Nashville, Tennessee on Tuesday to testify in the rape trials of his former teammates Brandon Vandenburg, 21, and Cory Batey, 20.
McKenzie is also accused of raping the woman in the Vanderbilt dorm room in June 2013 but he insists he never touched her. He and another defendant, Brandon Banks, 20, are awaiting trial.
On Tuesday, he described in graphic detail how he went to the Gillette dorm with Batey and Banks after a night of heavy drinking at two different parties and came across Vandenburg and the woman.
[. . .]
McKenzie said the woman was taken into Vandenburg's dorm room and then he saw Batey starting to sexually assault her as Vandeburg 'coached' them on what to do, according to updates of the testimony shared by Tony Gonzalez of The Tennessean.
Vandenburg said he was too 'amped' on cocaine to be able to have sex with her but 'egged on' the others and switched on porn, McKenzie told the court.
'To my knowledge he knew what he was doing,' he said of Vandenburg.
[. . .]
Prosecutors showed the jury two videos taken of the alleged assault. McKenzie hung his head as they played.
He admitted that he had been laughing during the incident.
'At the time, it was' funny, he said. 'When I look back on it, it wasn't funny.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2918918/Vanderbilt-football-player-20-testifies-teammates-slapped-urinated-unconscious-student-amped-boyfriend-encouraged-sexually-assault-her.html

Vanderbilt football player, 20, testifies how 'teammates slapped and urinated on unconscious student as her "amped" boyfriend encouraged them to sexually assault her'
Jaborian McKenzie, who is accused of raping the student with three others in a dorm room in 2013, testified against two of his teammates on Tuesday
Brandon Vandenburg, 21, and Cory Batey, 20, are on trial for rape
McKenzie said Vandenburg, who had been on a date with the girl and taken cocaine, 'egged them on', switched on porn and slapped her behind
He said Batey also slapped her then urinated on her
McKenzie claims he did not touch the woman but met up with the men the following day to agree not to talk about 'the bad thing' that happened
Vandenburg's roommate, who was in bed at the time, also took the stand on Tuesday and said he heard the incident but did nothing to help
By LYDIA WARREN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 16:51 EST, 20 January 2015 | UPDATED: 09:14 EST, 21 January 2015

* * *

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/assaulting_former_vanderbilt_football_27EKPo26tg0YVWPcZbbeSL

Four former Vanderbilt football players indicted on aggravated rape charges after assaulting unconscious woman in dorm
From ASSOCIATED PRESS
New York Post
Last Updated: 9:12 AM, August 10, 2013
Posted: 9:04 AM, August 10, 2013

Black Racist Activists Deny Free Speech To Others At DePaul University

[From article]
Milo Yiannopoulos’ event at DePaul University had to be cut short Tuesday night after protesters stormed the stage, blew whistles, grabbed the microphone out of the interviewer’s hand, and threatened to punch Yiannopoulos in the face.
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/05/24/milo-yiannopoulos-protesters-storm-stage-depaul-university/

Milo Mayhem: Activists Storm Stage, Threaten Milo at DePaul Event
by BREITBART TECH

24 May 2016

https://youtu.be/MpD84k7i6k0




https://youtu.be/kIrG3YyUfxk

Privileged University of Missouri Student Protester Accused of Theft, Drugs, Misogyny

Jonathan Butler made news with a hunger strike at Mizzou last year, but some of his online rants are eyebrow-raising. (Heat Street)


[From article]

“Butler did it,” gushed Southern Christian Leadership Conference president Vernon Howard, introducing the graduate student as he made the keynote speech at the Martin Luther King Jr. celebration in January. Since November, Butler has made half-a-dozen speeches, including addresses at the law schools of Harvard and Duke.
Perhaps these institutions should have done their research before portraying Butler as a social-justice hero. Heat Street’s review of Butler’s online presence, as well as video reviewed exclusively by the publication, reveals he’s chronically stolen items, denigrated low-income workers, and made troubling comments about women and drugs.
ost of the coverage of the events of last fall focused on claims of pervasive racism at the university, as well as administrators’ struggle to address the demands of student organization #ConcernedStudent1950. But our investigation has uncovered not only past controversial statements by Butler but also other dimensions to the unrest, including pervasive fears about safety on campus, as well as massive backlash from donors, sports fans and alumni.
Last fall, other student activists and social-justice warriors on campus began looking into Butler’s background because he hadn’t been involved in activism at the University of Missouri previously, and they had concerns about his speaking for everyone. Now that things on the campus have settled down, they’ve provided the information they found to Heat Street.
In a blog post from August 2011, titled “My Summer Breakfast Experience,” Butler describes how, for 61 days, he swung by a hotel before work and “decided to indulge myself with ‘free’ breakfast items.”
Butler describes trying to get caught stealing food, making goofy faces in the camera and making sure staff got a good look at his face.
[. . .]



His disdain for low-income Americans is also apparent in another blog post, from July 2011, that was written about his visit to a Subway sandwich shop. Butler describes how he “stormed up to the counter inpatient [sic] and indecisive,” further detailing rude behavior to the worker. He describes watching the worker, “a grumpy older gentleman, about 70-75 years old,” making his sandwich.”
Butler, who grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, is the son of an railroad executive whose compensation in 2014 was $8.4 million, according to regulatory filings.
Some videos published by Butler, also in 2011, are equally controversial.
In one, nearly 15 minutes long that was published to YouTube in March 2011, Butler says he wants to “address the issue—a very important issue—of XX versus XY. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, male and female: which is better.”
Butler and a guest continue to discuss the problem of “ratchet women,” who flirt and generally are not well-behaved, by their reckoning.
“So you’re saying, she jumps from male to male,” Butler says, continuing: “So this would be like in the kingdom, the wild kingdom, where they’re trying to get their prey.”
At one point, Butler asks his guest: “So what he’s saying is that us as men, we don’t have issues, it’s all women, obviously, because what do we do? We just eat, sleep, work, we’re the backbone. Is that what you’re saying? … You’re saying all women are trash, is that what you’re saying?”
Another 9-minute video, posted to YouTube in July 2011, features Butler singing about cooking crack cocaine with his love interest.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/05/09/crack-misogyny-and-stealing-from-hotels-meet-mizzous-rich-kid-civil-rights-hero.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fmost-popular+%28Internal+-+Most+Popular+Content%29

Crack, misogyny and stealing from hotels: Meet Mizzou's rich-kid civil rights hero
By Jillian Kay Melchior

Heat Street

Published May 09, 2016

Campaign To Dumb Down All US Education Proceeding As Planned; Cambridge, MA A Leader

[From article]
There is no question that American public schools have been dumbed down. The government's own report in 1983, "A Nation At Risk," said the schools are so bad that they might well be a clever subversive trick by an unfriendly foreign power.
We can go back to the early 1950s, to a book written by a prominent professor of history, Arthur Bestor. His title says it all: "Educational Wastelands: The Retreat from Learning in our Public Schools." (This was one of many books with a similar message. Note that Why Johnny Can't Read came along in 1955.)



It's a fact that our secondary schools have been dumbed down for a long time. Let's give credit where it's due. Our Education Establishment has done a bang-up job of undermining traditional education and imposing so-called progressive education on our schools. (I say "so-called" because progressive usually devolves to regressive and/or repressive.)
In practice, dumbing down means that today's high school graduates possess less information and fewer skills than was the case 25 or 50 years ago. They have lower scores on their SATs. They can't write as well, think as well, or study as well. They can't perform academically as well as kids did decades ago.
One immediate result should be no surprise: a great percentage of incoming college students need remedial training, more than half of them at community colleges.
Note that we're paying to educate students in secondary school, then we pay to educate the same students in the same subjects a second time. Wouldn't it be more cost-effective (and certainly more logical) if the K-12 schools were run properly? Of course.
But the bad news is just starting. There are other damages that may be even more costly. Millions of unprepared students will exert downward pressure on every aspect of college life. This is already happening.
Colleges will have a dire choice. Maintain their traditional standards, in which case they would have to flunk out a great percentage of the students and lose all that government funding. Or steadily degrade their standards to accommodate the low quality of incoming freshmen.
One's first hope is that the colleges – "higher education," as they once proudly called it – would resolve to hold the high ground.
[. . .]



The problem is that the Education Establishment in control of K-12 will try, relentlessly and shamelessly, to subvert the colleges, for two separate reasons.
First, the typical student they're graduating is not very good. They can try to improve those graduates, or, the likely option, they can try to silence anyone who might complain. By lowering standards, you guarantee fewer complaints.
[. . .]
K-12 is now overrun by counterproductive sophistries: cooperative learning, project-based learning, constructivism, self-esteem, alternative assessment, and many more. By forcing these methods into the colleges, the methods become securely locked in at the K-12 level. The Education Establishment can then say to the parents and community: We want to do what's done at the college level; you know it's good!
[. . .]
Fundamentally, traditionalists view education as the development of an individual's intellectual skills. Progressives see education as a tool for social and cultural change. Let me reduce this to the bleak reality. If a lot of students have politically correct opinions about global warming and transsexuals, progressives consider this outcome successful, even if students learn little else.
[. . .]



One Ivy League university already boasts about its dedication to "inclusion." The problem is that everything that is "included" as official campus doctrine requires the exclusion of anything in the way of that step. "Inclusion" ends up meaning exclusion. But nobody will be able to think or speak critically about this trade-off because such discussion will not be allowed. Colleges will have more taboos, censorship, speech codes, and safe spaces. Finally, demanding higher standards and better education will be considered unreasonable, if not outright racist and elitist. You may not be legally permitted to ask for higher standards.
[. . .]
This country's Education Establishment soldiers have created 40 million functional illiterates. I think they're proud of it. I think they'd be happy to spread the blight.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/05/now_theyre_dumbing_down_the_colleges.html

May 11, 2016
Now They're Dumbing Down the Colleges
By Bruce Deitrick Price

* * *

Remarkable how feelings drive the education industrial complex, where the Therapeutic State shares power with teachers unions. If students, teachers and politicians worked toward hiring the best teachers, that might increase the number of educated students. But today in Cambridge it is all about identity politicians using feelings to gain more money and power. No wonder US schools are trending down, Trump is so popular, and will be the next President. Most of my teachers were women. I was able to learn from them in spite of feeling uncomfortable in the classes. Are all classes focused on feelings today?

[From article]
student Julia Lowfleury said she has never had a teacher of color or one who looks like her. Because of this, she said she often feels uncomfortable in class. According to the Educators of Color Group at CRLS, Lowfleury’s situation is not uncommon or new.
“I need to know there’s going to be someone there who has maybe been in the same situations I have, who has been raised in the same background or has the same religious views and can understand the same problems I face. I might not find that in teachers who are from a white, upper-middle-class family,” Lowfleury said at a School Committee meeting Tuesday night.
[. . .]
The issue was not an agenda item, so the committee did not discuss it further at the meeting. Although it is not permitted to address non-agenda items during public comment, the committee allowed an exception for the group.
[. . .]
Kim Parker, of the Educators of Color Group and an English teacher at CRLS, said there is a revolving door within CPSD and CRLS that does not retain faculty of color. She said this is due to a lack of administrative support in confronting systematic issues of race and racism, as well as evaluations and evaluators that are not culturally responsive.
[. . .]
The Cambridge School Committee set a goal of having 30 percent of faculty and administration be of color at Cambridge Public Schools. While CRLS meets the 30 percent standard, Parker said her group would like the percentage to be filled by core faculty, not including administration.
[. . .]
[School Committee Member Harding said] we need to keep our eye on the ball and that diversity matters.”
[. . .]
Michelle Li, a 10th-grade English teacher at CRLS who also spoke out in support of hiring more faculty of color, said parents have told her on several occasions how thrilled they are for their children to have an Asian English teacher.
“The unspoken message here is two-fold. First, that their child has gone through many years of CPS and is just now having their first experience with an Asian teacher, and second, that Miss Li teaches English, not math, science or Chinese, but English,” she said.
As a personal anecdote, Li spoke of a time she bonded with an Asian student who used chopsticks to eat fruit in class. Moments like those, Li said, validate the richness of the students’ varied backgrounds and interests.
“It builds bridges between cultures, and signals to our students that teachers appreciate who they are and strive to deliver lessons that are culturally relevant,” she said.
CRLS student Mary Gashaw said she would be more likely to feel comfortable in classrooms if she had teachers of color, and that the current situation in schools is not ideal.
As far as demands, the Educators of Color Group is asking the School Committee for a comprehensive external evaluation of procedures used by CRLS evaluators by the Lawyers’ Committee on Civil Rights and Economic Justice to evaluate trends and their impact on retention of teachers of color. The group is also asking for “leveled-up” classrooms, bringing the current faculty of color percentage up to 30 percent and maintaining that annually, and support for educational professionals to pursue certification while providing certification prep paid for by the district to aid with passing the Massachusetts Test for Education Licensure.
Members are also are asking for district-wide cultural competency training to make all educators and administrators proficient,
[. . .]
“I feel like a diverse faculty improves every child’s education,” Parker said.

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/article/20160518/NEWS/160515932

Cambridge teachers, students call for more educators of color at Rindge
By Natalie Handy
nhandy@wickedlocal.com
Posted May 18, 2016 at 10:16 AM
Updated at 6:58 PM
CAMBRIDGE Chronicle

NJ Engineering Student Shot Dead In Fraternity House

Joseph Micalizzi
[From article]

Cops arrested two people Friday in thekilling of a New Jersey Institute of Technology student during a burglary at his fraternity house.
Nafee Cotman, 18, and Taquan Harris, 22, were taken into custody and charged with the murder of Joseph Micalizzi, 23, who was fatally shot early Monday.
Cops said Friday that Irvington resident Cotman was accompanied by 22-year-old Taquan Harris, of Newark, when they broke into the back door of Micalizzi’s frat house and shot him twice.
In addition to murder, both men face robbery, burglary and weapons charges.
[. . .]
Micalizzi was a mechanical engineering major at the time of his death and his good grades landed him on the dean’s list last fall.
He had been living in the Tau Kappa Epsilon house, which is situated across the street from the Rutgers-Newark campus — near where a student was murdered in a double shooting last month.

http://nypost.com/2016/05/06/teen-charged-with-murdering-student-during-frat-house-burglary/

Two charged with murdering student during frat house burglary
By Chris Perez
New York Post
May 6, 2016 | 2:50pm | Updated

Black Couple Attack White Woman Chicago Nursing Student On City Transit. Other Passengers Watch

Jessica Hughes, Nursing Student, Beaten By Black Couple, on Chicago Transit

[From article]
It has taken a lot of concerted effort on the part of the grievance industry, but the bonds of civil society are finally fraying to the breaking point. In broad daylight at 10 AM Thursday, 19 year old nursing student Jessica Hughes was attacked and beaten by a pair of muggers whose race the media do not care to mention, as other passengers on the train did not lift a finger to help her.
[. . .]



I look at Ms. Hughes’s face and see a heartbroken young woman, probably an idealist judging by her chosen profession that aims at helping others. As her question indicates, she cannot comprehend that others did not care about her plight, for she automatically would come to the aid of another under trying circumstances.
Hughes said that perhaps more painful than the beating she took at the hands of two robbers while riding the "L", is that fellow passengers who saw the attack, did nothing to stop it.
"I was yelling for help. There were two other guys on the train and they did nothing. They just watched as he beat me," she said. (snip)
The freshman nursing major said that after most of the passengers in her rail car got off at the UIC-Halsted stop, one man moved to the seat in front of her. As the train left the station, Hughes said she got a bad feeling. That's when the 19-year-old said the man tried to take her iPhone.
"He started pushing me and then he pushed me to the floor and when he pushed me to the floor, he started hitting on me constantly. His body was on top of me holding me down so I couldn't fight back," she said.
But Hughes didn't let go of her phone, even when her attacker bit her hand. She says the woman her attacker was with then punched her in the face before both fled to another rail car without the iPhone or anything else. Hughes said she finally got some help at the Kedzie/Homan stop.
When the media decline to provide a description of assailants, it is a pretty good indication that they are a protected minority.
[. . .]



At a minimum, we know that a sense of community is no longer enough to assure us that we have some backup if a predator decides to attack us. In an era where practically everyone carries a smartphone, salable on the black market, we are all vulnerable. And there are those who make excuses for criminals based on some sense of “justice” that sees inequality, other than in pro sports, as justification for violence and expropriation by force or by government action.
Update. Chicago police have released surveillance camera photos of the alleged suspects, of no particular race (via DNAinfo):

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/05/nursing_student_robbed_and_beaten_in_broad_daylight_on_chicago_el_train_as_other_passengers_ignore_her_plight.html

May 1, 2016
Nursing student robbed and beaten in broad daylight on Chicago 'El' train as other passengers ignore her plight (updated)
By Thomas Lifson

Harvard Law Professor Challenges Dominant Paradigm, Protested by California Students

Will this rebuke teach law professors to conform? Or will they continue their heretical advocacy against prevailing paradigm. Time to get in line.

[From article]
Students and faculty at Occidental College are protesting the school’s choice of Harvard Law School professor Randall L. Kennedy as their commencement speaker for his controversial statements on race-related activism and the film “The Hunting Ground.”
Students aligned with race-related activism groups and sexual assault prevention groups at the Los Angeles college have publicly criticized the choice—announced April 14— and some have called on the school to revoke Kennedy’s invitation.
Their complaints center around a November op-ed signed by Kennedy and 18 other HLS professors that challenges “The Hunting Ground,” a film they say erroneously portrays a sexual assault case at the Law School. Opponents of the choice of Kennedy as speaker also took issue with the professor’s criticism of race-related activism at the Law School.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/4/29/occidental-students-criticize-kennedy/

Occidental Students Protest Harvard Law Professor as Commencement Speaker
By CLAIRE E. PARKER

Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
April 28, 2016

Harvard Law School Students Demand FBI Expose Student Political Opposition

Few police departments know what to do about computer crimes. Harvard University campus police are notoriously poorly trained. In Cambridge, MA (where Harvard Law School is located) laws are optional. Harvard University faculty and administrators are protected by the Obama-Holder Doctrine: Inconvenient laws may be ignored by a select few. Emails do not travel remaining in one jurisdiction. Campus police jurisdiction ends at the Harvard University property line. They can hardly investigate lawfully. A great book about the coming tsunami of computer and other technology crimes is Marc Goodman's Future Crimes. Hackers stole $80 million almost got a billion from the Bangladesh national bank last week.

[From article]
Emails published on a blog run by activists opposed to a racial justice group at Harvard Law School show that the organization, Royall Must Fall, asked the Harvard administration to investigate the anonymous site and discover who is behind it.
The blog, Royall Asses, grew out of an incident last year where pieces of black tape were placed on the portraits of black law professors. The site claimed that the incident was a false flag operation by members of Royall Must Fall.
One member of the racial justice group claimed to have received email threats. She went to the FBI and asked them to monitor the blog despite the fact there was no evidence anyone connected with the blog had sent the threatening emails.
The group also asked law school administrators to find out who was behind the blog.
[From] Daily Caller:
Royall Asses claims that it came into possession of the two emails because one of the people Williams contacted was appalled that the student activists and Harvard itself would use “Gestapo tactics to invade student privacy.” That student forwarded the emails to Royall Asses.
If Williams’ emails accurately represent Harvard’s actions, then it suggests Harvard attempted to investigate (and potentially expose) its own students simply for running a blog that criticized left-wing elements on campus.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/04/emails_point_to_investigation_by_harvard_administrators_of_anti_racial_justice_blog_.html

April 25, 2016
Emails point to investigation by Harvard administrators of anti 'racial justice' blog
By Rick Moran

DePaul University Bans Chalking; Emory University Students Traumatized By Trump Chalk

[From article]
The DePaul University administration announced that it is banning political chalking because of pro-Trump slogans written on the sidewalk.



The university also claims that because of its nonprofit status, the slogans are deemed partisan and therefore illegal.
[. . .]



So now the janitors are making unilateral decisions on what constitutes free speech? Wow.
It would be an understandable policy if they had been enforcing it all along. But the ban appears to have been motivated by the "offensive" Trump postings.
Although the grounds crew “regularly cleans up chalk messages,” meaning DePaul students regularly chalk their campus’ sidewalks, this appears to be the first time university officials have expressly addressed their chalking policies. Zdziarski noted, after the Trump chalkings appeared, that students are not even allowed to chalk on sidewalks at all.



We see this kind of lying at every educational level, from grade school to college. Justification for punitive or oppressive actions comes after the fact and usually involves making up rules as they go along. It's nauseating to watch.



http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/04/depaul_u_bans_political_chalking_because_of_offensive_trump_slogans.html

April 15, 2016
Depaul U bans 'political chalking' because of 'offensive' Trump slogans
By Rick Moran

Victims With Closed Minds Dominate Campuses

[From article]
Even President Barack Obama recently lamented the declining state of affairs on America’s college campuses. Essentially, a doctrinaire sense of victimology has descended upon campuses such that free speech, critical thinking, and debate are all but abolished in favor of “Safe spaces.” The complaints are extensive and well-founded. Allan Bloom’s concern in the 1980s about the “Closing of the American Mind” is profound, real, and upon us at today’s university campuses
[. . .]



The public poorly understands how dire the communication culture is on college campuses -- especially in election years like this one. We must seek dramatic reforms to prevent the painful reality check that must await the students of Coddle University. Here are the steps that should be taken:
State legislatures should convene hearings to examine the tax-exempt statuses of universities.
[. . .]



2. 15% of student fee moneys should be spent on student activities that encourage open dialogue and debate: debate teams, public debates, mock trial, and similar student advocacy activities. Most universities raise between $250,000 and $500,000 a year in student fees. In Ohio, I worked at a school where fees went to clubs such as: the masturbation club, the X-box club (they bought gaming consoles), and the California appreciation club.
[. . .]



At issue here are our paramount civil rights found in the First Amendment. Colleges and universities are creating intellectually stifling environments comparable to Jim Crow America. Freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition must flow from the citadels of critical thinking that should be American colleges and universities. The reactionary ideology against individual rights that corrodes the minds of our young people since the 1960s must be confronted and reversed.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/reforming_academia_in_2016.html

April 23, 2016
Reforming Academia in 2016
By Ben Voth

Report Four Youths On Bicycles, Attack MIT Grad Student, Two Others In Cambridge, MA

Young people on bicycles, Not In Cambridge, MA

[From article]

Police are looking for four juveniles who are accused of robbing an MIT student in Cambridge.
Police said it happened Sunday morning near the area of Brookline and Pacific streets. The victim said the suspects threatened him with a knife and demanded money.
He said he was then hit on the head and the robbers took his iPhone and wallet. They then fled on bicycles.
Cambridge Police are investigating other similar incidents from over the weekend.

http://www.whdh.com/story/31805519/cambridge-police-search-for-four-suspects-involved-in-robbery-of-mit-student

MIT student robbed at knifepoint in Cambridge
Posted: Apr 25, 2016 6:05 AM EDT
Updated: Apr 25, 2016 4:45 PM EDT
WHDH-TV Boston MA

Women Can't Keep Up With Men At Harvard Law School

There are simple solutions to this matter. Local thugs can be hired to harass male students when they try to sleep, and/or to disturb their sleep every one or two hours. It will diminish the male students' work product making women more likely to surpass them, making the women more competitive. Legal chemicals which impair cognition, and which cannot be detected, could be left for ingestion by male students. This would make it appear (isn't appearance all that matters?) that women students are performing better than men. Creative thinking can overcome any of the statistics. Or the administration can just make up, I mean, publish better statistics and solve it immediately.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/4/21/HLS-women-fall-behind/

At Law School, Women Students Still Fall Behind
By CLAIRE E. PARKER

Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
April 20, 2016

Anti Semitism On UK Campuses Among Muslim Students

[From article]
At last voices of sanity, whether genuinely sincere or uttered for political reasons, are being heard in Britain. They may not be voices of turtledoves, but they address in sharp tones the problem of anti-Semitism in the British Labour Party. The virus in that country, the cancer of anti-Semitism, not only exists in the Labour Party, but is metastasizing.
[. . .]
The latest problem for the Party concerns a young 20-year-old Muslim student at Warwick University named Aysegul Gurbuz who is the youngest Labour Party councilor in Luton, a town about 30 miles from London. She has been suspended from the Party for a number of anti-Semitic tweets posted on her profile for three years.  She had tweeted that “The Jews are so powerful on the U.S. it’s disgusting.” Another on October 27, 2011, was that Adolf Hitler was “the greatest man in history.” A third tweet hoped that Israel would be wiped out by an Iranian nuclear bomb.
[. . .]
The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, was blunt about the problem. Anti-Semitism persists in “dark corners” of Britain, including the Labour Party and major universities. It has now reached the highest level for thirty years. Anti-Semitic language and attitudes should not be tolerated.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/time_for_power_religious_and_political_to_speak_the_truth.html

April 13, 2016
Time for Power, Religious and Political, to Speak the Truth
By Michael Curtis

Law Student Charged With Tampering With Court Verdict Document

[From article]
A former law school student given a 90-day suspended sentence for stealing a laptop computer now faces up to 20 years behind bars after prosecutors say he changed the jury verdict slip in his case from "guilty" to "not guilty."
David Scher was convicted of larceny in 2014 for stealing the laptop from Suffolk University Law School while still a student. He got three months in jail, with the entire sentence suspended for two years.
Instead of accepting his fate, the 33-year-old Boston man returned to the clerk's office in Boston Municipal Court at some point after his conviction, requested access to the case file, which is a public record, took out the verdict slip and replaced it with a copy that said "not guilty," according to Assistant Suffolk District Attorney Greer Spatz.
The original has never been found.
The forged verdict slip later became an issue in three subsequent matters involving Scher, including in a complaint to the state Department of Criminal Justice Information Services in which he allegedly claimed he had been acquitted and had notified the court of the error.
It was also submitted to Suffolk Law in an effort to obtain the degree he had been denied because of his conviction, prosecutors said.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_coverage/2016/03/former_law_student_charged_with_changing_jury_verdict_slip

Former law student charged with changing jury verdict slip
Associated Press
Boston Herald
Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Former Cornell University Professor Advocates Maintaining Dumbed Down Students

[From article]
The American left, and the educational establishment it controls, has always wanted a readily controllable population produced by schools, but leftists usually write and speak in misleading euphemisms (“outcome based” or “critical thinking,” for example) to disguise their intent. But Andrew Hacker, former Cornell and Queens College professor, a man who has been a leading light of the left for many decades and is now well into his eighties, has lost some of his inhibitions in his old age and is openly advocating giving up on teaching American children algebra, apparently willing to cede to our Chinese, Japanese, European and – hell, just about everywhere else – masters the role of scientists and technologists in the era when these skills determine the fate of economies and civilizations.
[. . .]
Hacker’s reasoning is chilling:
The professor also claims that a measly 5 percent of all occupations — and perhaps less — require algebra or any other sort of advanced math.
Instead of learning how to solve rudimentary equations, Hacker argues, American high schoolers should be presented with a math curriculum concentrating on statistics and number sense. (Number sense is an en-vogue academic buzzword for the ability to estimate and compare numbers.)
[. . .]
Hacker is part of what Dan Luskin memorably called “the conspiracy to keep you poor and stupid.”

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/03/famous_lefty_professor_argues_that_algebra_is_too_hard_for_american_kids.html

March 29, 2016
Famous lefty professor argues that algebra is too hard for American kids
By Thomas Lifson

Lack of Free Speech On Campuses Is Alarming

[From article]
The disturbing campaign to suppress speech that is purportedly hurtful, unpleasant, or morally distasteful is a troubling and recurrent pattern of behavior by "progressive" leftists and "social justice" advocates from Muslim-led pro-Palestinian groups. Coalescing around the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, this unholy alliance has been formed in a libelous and vituperative campaign to demonize Israel, attack pro-Israel individuals, and promote a relentless campaign against Israel in the form of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. As the ideological assault against Israel and Jews intensifies on university campuses, and pro-Israel individuals begin answering their ideological opponents, the student groups leading the pro-Palestinian charge (including such groups as the radical Students for Justice in Palestine [SJP]) have decided that their tactic of unrelenting demonization of Israel is insufficient, and the best way to optimize the propaganda effect of their anti-Israel message is also to suppress or obscure opposing views.
[. . .]



For instance, a leaked memorandum from the Binghamton University Students for Justice in Palestine chapter revealed that members would be required never even to engage in dialogue with pro-Israel groups on their campus. They would be prohibited from "engaging in any form of official collaboration, cooperation, or event co-sponsorship with [pro-Israel] student organizations and groups." And SJP members "shall in no manner engage in any form of official collaboration with any student group which actively opposes the cause of Palestinian liberation nor with groups which have aided and abetted Zionist student organizations" – meaning, of course, that the so-called intellectual debate that universities purport to promote in exactly this type of discussion will never take place when SJP is involved.
Because they cannot win an honest, open ideological debate about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict – because they deal almost exclusively in misrepresentations and untruths (the allegation of Israeli apartheid being the central example) – SJP has characteristically has tried to insure that no pro-Israel voices are heard, by either disrupting and shutting down pro-Israel events and speakers or urging administrators to disinvite speakers they deem Islamophobic, too pro-Israel, or critical of their own tactics and activism.
The thuggish substitution of event disruption and the shutting down of other people's speech for what is supposed to be two-sided academic dialogue and debate occur with increased regularity. These methods mark another, more pernicious, aspect of the campus campaign against Israel, Zionism, and Jews.



At the University of California, Davis this month, for example, George Deek, a Jaffa-born Arab Christian, planned to give a speech entitled "The Art of Middle East Diplomacy" when some 30 pro-Palestinian activists stood up and blocked Deek with banners and took over the event by screaming, "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free" – meaning an Arab state in place of present-day Israel – and chanting such toxic ditties as "long live the Intifada," "Allahu Akbar," and "When Palestine is occupied, resistance is justified." These activists further employed ghoulish calls for the murder of Jews and "Israel is anti-Black" and "Palestine will be free, fight white supremacy" – an intellectually clumsy way of trying to frame Israel as a racist state.
In February, Bassam Eid, a Palestinian himself and the founder of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, witnessed how nothing positive said about Israel is allowed to be heard, even from such a credible, though unusual, source as a Palestinian. During his speech, in which he was critical of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority for their failure to seek peace, Eid was verbally attacked by a student attendee, who said in Arabic, "Dr. Bassam, do not dare talk about us [Palestinians] anymore. You have shamed our God … you've shamed us, disgraced us, you are a traitor, you are a traitor, in the name of God you are a traitor. … You are worse than the Jews and we will hunt you down and find you in every place. Be prepared." When it became obvious that his speech would not be able to continue uninterrupted, Eid cancelled the event and had to be escorted off site by the police.
[. . .]
A pro-Israel student group at Columbia University, Artists 4 Israel, was also denied the opportunity to express views during Israeli Apartheid Week, during which the SJP chapter had erected its version of a mock "apartheid wall," emblazoned with anti-Israel slogans and symbols. To counter the display with a pro-Israel one, Artists 4 Israel had set up a 15-foot inflatable figure, a "pro-Israel Pinocchio," replete with a long nose and a sign that read "'Apartheid' Week Compassion Abuse" as an effective, sardonic swipe at SJP's toxic campaign. The chair and vice chair of Columbia's student government, who not coincidentally are members of Columbia's SJP chapter and pro-BDS activists, ordered the removal of the Pinocchio figure, offering the disingenuous justification that Pinocchio's long nose might be construed as anti-Semitic and that the pump used to inflate the figure was too loud for use on the Columbia grounds.
The university officials and student groups who now try to suppress all thought of which they disapprove have sacrificed one of the core values for which the university exists. In their zeal to be inclusive, and to recognize the needs and aspirations of victim groups, they have pretended to foster inquiry, but they have actually stifled and retarded it. As this otherwise noble purpose for the university has devolved, the first victim in the corruption of academic free speech, unfortunately, has been the truth.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/03/the_lie_of_academic_free_speech.html

March 23, 2016
The Lie of Academic Free Speech
By Richard L. Cravatts

College Professor Perplexed At Lack of Skills of Students

[From article]
On the other hand, a grave disservice has been done to those students who are interested in learning and have genuine academic credentials. Because businesses can no longer be certain that college degrees indicate anything meaningful, they insist that their new employees take additional classes to obtain various certifications. Often these workers have to spend inordinate amounts of money and time to increase learning because the university degree has been so devalued in the first place. Dumbing down education results in many victims.
Low IQ levels, total indifference to learning, no curiosity, specious logic, no in-depth training in critical thinking and writing – these are the real-life factors that face college instructors. Low grades are frustrating for many students, because they truly don't know what they don't know.
Often I will be told that I am the rare instructor who insists on correct formatting for a research paper even though this is an integral item. One student gave me a paper for which she had received an "A," and on the very first page, there were syntax and grammar errors that the other instructor had apparently ignored. Is it any wonder that so many students think they are writing "A" papers when no one has actually pointed out their substandard writing? They were never taught basic English grammar in the first place, so how can I hold them responsible?
Too many instructors are reluctant to do their job because (a) the errors are so numerous that the work involved in correcting them is monumental, (b) they fear student retaliation, (c) often the chair of a department will not back up an instructor's decision, and (d) the status of teachers is so poor that we are viewed as mere facilitators rather than purveyors of knowledge.
And yet, as college instructor Daniel J. Smith wrote in May 2015, "the expectation of high grades without merit is on the rise." He explains why bumping up a grade leads only to "reducing the opportunity for people to experience the life satisfaction that comes through earned success," whether in the academic or business world. I concur. But again, I ask: How can I possibly grade these students? And how can we stop penalizing students who actually belong in college when the very degree they are seeking is so devalued?

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/03/how_can_i_possibly_grade_these_students.html

March 22, 2016
How Can I Possibly Grade These Students?
By Eileen F. Toplansky

Visiting Students At Harvard University Recommend Whites Kill Themselves

[From article]
Miguel Feliciano, along with fellow West Georgia student Damiyr Davis, reportedly participated in a recent debate with other students at Harvard University.
During an exchange with their opponents, Feliciano suggested that white people should kill themselves because of their “white privilege.”[. . .]
“White life is wrong,” Feliciano was quoted as saying by Infowars.com. “Our argument is that we should never affirm white life. White life is based off black subjugation.”
When a white debater asked Feliciano whether he should commit suicide, Feliciano said “I don’t see why not, it’s ethical.”
When the white debater suggested that it might be better to remain alive and fight the social forces that promote “white privilege,” Feliciano rejects the notion.
“Struggling against the structure means putting yourself on the line, putting your body on the line, do it. Affirmative suicide, that’s cool, it’s one little step in the right direction,” Feliciano said, according to Infowars.com.
Ironically, the debate topic was supposed to be about renewable energy.
“The black debaters simply ‘chose’ to point out their opponents’ skin color and begin advocating genocide,” reported InvestmentWatchdogBlog.com. “They expressly stated that these were their ‘sincere beliefs,’ not just an argument to win a debate.”
Feliciano and Davis are not some anonymous student crackpots posing as serious debaters.
They form a respected two-person debate team that took second place at the 2013 Cross-Examination Debate Association Nationals, according to Infowars.com.
Feliciano also acts as an instructor at the Eddie Conway Liberation Institute, an annual debate camp at Coppin State University that reportedly instructs high school students on debate strategy and radical thought, Infowars.com reported.

http://eagnews.org/video-harvard-students-debate-whether-whites-should-kill-themselves-due-to-privilege/

VIDEO: Harvard students debate whether whites should kill themselves due to ‘privilege’
MARCH 16, 2016
BY STEVE GUNN

https://youtu.be/RC-Cqkq6zWc



* * *

http://www.infowars.com/activist-white-people-should-kill-themselves-to-atone-for-white-privilege/

ACTIVIST: WHITE PEOPLE SHOULD KILL THEMSELVES TO ATONE FOR ‘WHITE PRIVILEGE’
Student debate highlights shocking anti-white racism at Harvard University
Paul Joseph Watson - MARCH 15, 2016

Will Separating Men From Women in College Prevent Rape?

Were there as many rapes of women by men students before women were allowed to attend college? Will preventing all rapes succeed if women are not allowed to attend college?

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/3/9/sexual-assault-prevention-report/

Grappling with Campus Sexual Assault, Harvard Looks to Expand Prevention Efforts
A new report calls on Harvard to implement mandatory yearly sexual assault prevention training, among other recommendations
By ANDREW M. DUEHREN and DAPHNE C. THOMPSON,
Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
March 8, 2016

Teach Students How Criminal Justice Laws Process Sex Offenses

Would it be helpful to students if a seminar by knowledgeable lawyers was presented explaining criminal procedure for sexual offenses? Then a spokesperson for HUPD could explain what their procedure is and how it differs from state criminal law procedure. Finally students may learn about the difference between a civil proceeding and criminal procedure, and that one does not eliminate the potential for the other. I.e., both criminal and civil liability arise when there are allegations of sex offenses.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/3/2/title-ix-UC-presentaion/

Karvonides Clarifies ‘Unwelcome Conduct’ Standards
By JALIN P. CUNNINGHAM and IGNACIO SABATE,

Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS
March 2, 2016