Holocaust Survivors Speak in Cambridge and At Tufts University

[From article]
Rabbi Joseph Polak, an infant survivor of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, will be presenting a reading from his book: "After The Holocaust, The Bells Still Ring," at 10:30 a.m. May 1 at Congregation Eitz Chayim, 136 Magazine St., Cambridge.
The book, with a foreword by Elie Wiesel, won the 2015 National Jewish Book Award in the category of Biography/Autobiography. This is an opportunity to hear Polak, Boston University Hillel Rabbi Emeritus, and his wife, Reizel, and son, Yankel, engage in a dramatic reading of "Tanya," the only chapter in the book which is fictional and written as a play. Polak's memoir is a story of a mother and child who survive two concentration camps and then battle demons after the war as they struggle to reenter the world of the living.

http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/news/20160429/congregation-eitz-chayim-to-host-reading-by-holocaust-survivor

Congregation Eitz Chayim to host reading by Holocaust survivor
Posted Apr. 29, 2016 at 3:17 PM
CAMBRIDGE Chronicle

* * *

On April 20, in Cohen Auditorium, Inge Auerbach talks about her life during the Holocaust and the three years she spent in a concentration camp.

Photo: Maria Ferraz  The Tufts Daily

[From article]

“I’m 81 years young,” she said, before delving into her childhood experience of being deported to the Terezin concentration camp in Czechoslovakia at the age of seven, where she remained until the camp was liberated by the Red Army on May 8, 1945.
Auerbacher explained that she was born on Dec. 31, 1934 in Kippenheim, Germany. There were no hospitals in Kippenheim at the time, so she was delivered in her parents’ bedroom by a doctor who belonged to the Nazi party. Auerbacher said the doctor treated her family very well and that she could say nothing ill of him because he was the person who gave her the gift of life.
On Nov. 9, 1938, everything changed for Auerbacher’s family, she said. On Kristallnacht, or “The Night of Broken Glass,” Jews across Germany were attacked in coordinated riots. All of the windows in Auerbacher’s house were shattered, and shards of glass covered the floor.
The next day, Auerbacher’s grandfather went to their synagogue to say his morning prayers, and in the midst of this spiritual act, he was violently arrested. Auerbacher’s father was also arrested, and they were both sent to the Dachau concentration camp. She explained that they were treated horribly at Dachau, forced to stand at attention outside in the frigid air. Fortunately, they were released after a few weeks, she said.



In 1939, Auerbacher’s family moved to Jebenhausen, Germany to live with her grandparents. She said that her grandfather soon passed away from a heart attack caused by residual emotional and physical stress from Dachau. Two years later, deportations escalated, and Auerbacher’s grandmother was deported to Riga, Latvia, where she was shot and buried in a mass grave.
In August 1942, Auerbacher and her parents were deported to Terezin. Auerbacher was the youngest of the 1,200 people who were transported.
At this point in her story, Auerbacher showed the audience photographs of Jewish people being deported during the Holocaust. She pointed out the groups of people who stood in the streets and watched their neighbors being taken away. Auerbacher condemned these bystanders, saying that they did nothing to stop the horrors that were taking place right before their eyes.
There were very few happy moments in Auerbacher’s life during the three years that she spent at Terezin, she said. Prisoners atTerezin lived among mice, rats, fleas and bed bugs. She recalled that they were only allowed one or two showers per year with the permission of the camp guards, and many people perished from typhus contracted from contaminated well water. Auerbacher said she remembers seeing her first dead body at age seven.
She also remembers the ever-present hunger that she felt at Terezin. The prisoners were fed small, meager meals, she said. Turnips were the only vegetable that Auerbacher saw within the walls of the camp.
Auerbacher said that another little girl who suffered from tuberculosis was allowed to have an extra piece of bread with her meals, and she recalled praying that she would catch the same disease as this girl just to acquire extra food.
Those who did not perish from malnutrition or disease at Terezin were sent to their deaths in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Ruth,Auerbacher’s best friend at Terezin, died at Auschwitz just before her 10th birthday. Auerbacher said that she is still greatly affected by this tragedy. In her speech, she shared a poem that she wrote about the final moments of Ruth’s life, titled “Hold Me Tight.”
Ruth was one of many children who perished in the Holocaust. In fact, of the 15,000 children who were imprisoned at Terezin, Auerbacher is a part of the mere 1 percent that survived.
After being freed, Auerbacher’s family moved to the United States, she said. She soon fell ill with tuberculosis and spent two years in bed-rest. Auerbacher was near death when the drug Streptomycin was developed, which saved her life. At age 15, she said, she was finally able to begin pursuing her education. Despite all of her setbacks, Auerbacher said that she forged a path as a medical researcher and clinician.
http://tuftsdaily.com/news/2016/04/21/dr-inge-auerbacher-recounts-personal-holocaust-experience/

DR. INGE AUERBACHER RECOUNTS EXPERIENCE SURVIVING HOLOCAUST
On April 20, in Cohen Auditorium, Inge Auerbach talks about her life during the Holocaust and the three years she spent in a concentration camp. 

BY PAIGE SPANGENTHAL
APRIL 21, 2016

Tufts Jazz Orchestra Pleases Fans Each Year

Joel LaRue, Director

Etta James sings At Last. The jazz orchestra performed their own rendition at Tufts on April 23, 2016.

Published on Mar 24, 2013
The Original Version of "AT LAST", ETTA JAMES song + Lyrics.
At Last, used in Wall-e soundtrack, has been covered by Beyonce, Christina Aguilera and Celine Dion.

https://youtu.be/bwzDxp2TC7I



* * *


Marja Ritchie

Published on Apr 24, 2015
The Tufts University Jazz Orchestra (TJO) performs "I'm Gonna Live Till I Die", Spring Semester 2015.
Director: Joel LaRue Smith
Vocalist: Marja Ritchie
https://youtu.be/kL_XYnLrLE8

Noam Chomsky Speaks At Tufts University

Dr. Noam Chomsky speaks about world conflicts at the Cohen Auditorium on Jan. 28. 

Sofie Hecht / The Tufts Daily
[From article]
“Like it or not, we happen to be living at the most important moment in human history, it’s a moment when the human species is going to make a critical decision, whether to live or die,” Chomsky said. “Not literally disappear, of course, but the remnants that will remain will have few prospects of decent life.”
[. . .]
“[An article] in the current issue of the MIT technical journal estimates that here at our latitude, average climate change amounts to moving South 10 meters every day and increasing,” he said. “Its already a very likely factor in major disasters that are taking place.”
Chomsky also cited the Bulletin’s assertion that recent Russian and American nuclear weapons modernization programs are among major reasons for concern about nuclear war.
“American nuclear weapons modernization programs–for the United States, Obama’s program is about a trillion dollars,” Chomsky said. “Those who like arcane facts may recall that we have a legal obligation under the Non-Proliferation Treaty in taking good faith efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons, but we’re going in the other direction under the guidance of the Nobel Peace Laureate.”
[. . .]
Our nuclear posture remains committed to first use, even against non-nuclear states,” he said. “Strategic command, which is [being] in control of nuclear weapons [use], it says that we must, in the post Cold War period…’retain the right of first use of nuclear weapons, even against non nuclear states; we must furthermore project a persona of irrationality and vindictiveness in order to intimidate people.'”
[. . .]
Chomsky said that Europe’s migrant crisis has a lot to do with Western foreign policy, and that current debates about migrants expose hypocrisy.
“Where are these refugees coming from, they’re coming, to a substantial extent, as a result of actions that the West has carried out,” he said. “The U.S. invasion of Iraq, the worst crime of this century, surely, created maybe 2 million refugees, as well as destroying the country and inciting a sectarian conflict which is tearing the region apart.”
[. . .]
Chomsky read a 1914 quotation from Winston Churchill in order to emphasize that we cannot remain isolated from the consequences of our past actions.
“‘We have got all we want in territory, and our plan to be left in unmolested enjoyment of vast and splendid possessions mainly acquired by violence largely maintained by force often sees [sic] less reasonable to others than to us,'” he said.
[. . .]
“What’s important about the Sanders campaign is if it, starting now, not in the future, if it is organizing a continuing popular movement of young people and will go on after the election… what’s needed is continuing mass popular mobilization, [to] keep pressuring, keep working, go on from one thing to another, and I think the Sanders campaign offers the possibility of that.”

http://tuftsdaily.com/news/2016/02/01/noam-chomsky-speaks-tufts-benefit-massachusetts-peace-action/

Noam Chomsky speaks at Tufts to benefit Massachusetts Peace Action
BY JAKE TABER

FEBRUARY 1, 2016

Tuifts University LIve Streaming Music Concerts

http://as.tufts.edu/music/musiccenter/liveStream.htm

Live streaming Music from Tufts University



8:00 PM Thursday December 10, 2015

Pains of Passion - Night of Opera Scenes




8:00 PM Friday December 2011 

Kiniwe, drum and dance concert of Ghana

Boston Extremist Liberals Explain In Lockstep What South Carolina Should Do With the Confederate Flag

Monday June 22, 2015, Jim Braude, newest anchor of PBS, Greater Boston, Talking Heads Show, did one segment about the Confederate flag in South Carolina. He joins the lawless President making the tragic deaths of nine church goers in Charleston, SC a political issue. Not limited to one issue but a few. His guests that day were Scott Lehigh, a liberal Boston Globe columnist, and returning Tufts University history Professor and black supremacist activist Peniel Joseph. The Tufts supremacist was a guest on WGBH-TV Greater Boston on June 16, 2015, six days earlier discussing, drum roll please, the shooting in Charleston, SC.

Here's a link to that appearance

http://enoughroom.blogspot.com/2015/06/taxpayer-funded-boston-public.html

Professor Joseph must be the Boston resident expert on that event. No one else's opinions must have sufficient gravitas for an appearance on WGBH to speak about the burning issue of the day, white racism. If there ever was an issue which can divert attention from the destruction of the United States it is racism played loudly and clearly by Communists and their useful idiot journalists, and in obedience to the chief PR flacks of the US, the president and his attorneys general.

The elder columnist repeated the misguided comments by Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker. Lehigh objected to his comments to allow states to decide what flags to fly and where. Lehigh and his liberal mobsters believe that Massachusetts journalists should decide what flags should fly in South Carolina. Makes sense since Massachusetts journalists are morally and  intellectually superior to all other humans who ever lived. I found Baker's apology for his comment exposed his spinelessness caving to the liberal censor majority in Massachusetts. Nothing is to be expected from Massachusetts politicians who fear every thought may not be acceptable to the extremists at Harvard University.

Peniel Joseph, who speaks for all black people, all Hispanic people, and all white supporters of black people, promotes the extremist black racist views on all subjects political or not. He cites democracy and the Constitution, when it suits his purpose. WGBH is a taxpayer funded broadcast corporation. He said "We will be talking about this on Basic Black later." That is a weekly talking head show on which only black liberal  intellectuals, journalists and academics are allowed to appear. They focus their discussions to how racist all white people are and what black people can do to get more power and money. They justify this unequal application of laws, (Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution) on taxpayer funded television because of the history of racism and Jim Crow laws. Ahem!

Professor Joseph agreed with the notion that Republican candidates for President who did not support removal of the Confederate flag in South Carolina are unqualified to be leader of the free world. But the current White House can be a great leader of the free world because he attacks all white Americans as racists. Hello?

Jim Braude decided the Confederate flag removal must be a national political issue along with gun control, or was it gum control? He talks funny. In any case Braude and his guests amped up the racial divide, assisting the White House by emphasizing political issues when the families of the nine dead are still mourning their losses. This is what passes for civilized taxpayer funded television in Massachusetts among the elite academics, journalists and intellectuals. Ah yes.  

Confederate Flag Debate
WGBH-TV
PBS Boston
Taxpayer Funded
Graeter Boston
Jim Braude, Host

Tufts University professor, Peniel Joseph (@PenielJoseph), and Boston Globe columnist Scot Lehigh (@GlobeScotLehigh), discuss the renewed focus on the confederate flag flying in the state capitol.

This segment begins at about 10:03 and goes to about 17:04.

Two Stabbed At Tufts University Fraternity House

[From article]
“It does not appear to be a random act, and parties involved are believed to be known to each other,” Trant said.
He did not say if the person was affiliated with Tufts. Tufts spokeswoman Kim Thurler said the victims weren’t affiliated with the university. She referred other questions about the investigation to Somerville police. Police did not immediately return a message seeking further detail.
Trant said police responding to the Delta Tau Delta house just before 4 a.m. found the men outside. He said the stabbings appear to have happened inside. The house is on Professors Row, a street that runs through Somerville and Medford on the campus just north of Boston.
Both victims were taken to Massachusetts General Hospital. A 20-year-old has a serious injury, and a 19-year-old’s injury is non-life-threatening, Trant said.

http://nypost.com/2015/05/31/2-stabbed-at-tufts-university-frat-house/

2 stabbed at Tufts University frat house
By Associated Press
New York Post
May 31, 2015 | 4:16pm

Updated (2): Tufts University Pays Tribute To Armenian Genocide; Turkey Remains In Denial, White House Breaks Another Campaign Promise

Posted April 18, 2015 7:41 PM ET; Last updated May 6, 2015 2:53 AM ET



[From article]
One and a half million Armenians were eradicated. If early 20th-century Turkey had the apparatuses and technology to execute en masse – such as 1940s Germany’s gas chambers – the entire Armenian population could well have been annihilated.
The atrocities suffered by Armenian and other Christian minorities are too long to list. As occurs under the current caliphate – the Islamic State – the Muslims of the Ottoman caliphate abducted, raped, and slaughtered or sold countless Christian women and children on the Muslim slave markets.
Armenian Christians were also sadistically tortured – as Christians are today under the Islamic State.
[. . .]
In her memoir, Ravished Armenia, Aurora Mardiganian described being raped and thrown into a harem – akin to the experiences of today’s non-Muslims under Islamic State authority. Unlike thousands of other Armenian girls who were killed after being defiled, she managed to escape. She recalls seeing 16 Christian girls crucified in Malatia: “Each girl had been nailed alive upon her cross, spikes through her feet and hands, only their hair blown by the wind, covered their bodies.”
Because there is no dearth of evidence concerning the historical reality of the Armenian Genocide, 44 U.S. states have recognized it. South Dakota, which recently joined the list, passed a resolution in February 2015 calling on “Congress and the president of the United States to formally and consistently recognize and reaffirm the historical truth that the atrocities committed against the Armenian, Greek, and other Christians living in their historical homelands in Anatolia constituted genocide and to work towards equitable, stable, and durable Armenian-Turkish relations.”
Turkey, of course, continues to deny that its forbears ever committed any genocide.
[. . .]
Nor is the Islamic government of Turkey alone in denying the genocide. President Obama still refuses to acknowledge it – even though, when he was running for office in 2008, he professed his “firmly held conviction that the Armenian Genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence.”
The facts are undeniable. ... [A]s President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide. ... America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian Genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides. I intend to be that president.
[. . .]
The Armenian National Committee of America responded by saying, “The president’s surrender represents a national disgrace. It is a betrayal of the truth, and it is a betrayal of trust.” The Armenian Assembly of America said, “His failure to use the term genocide represents a major blow for human rights advocates.”
But the president’s actions are consistent in other ways. Put differently, it is no marvel that Obama denies the genocide of Armenian and other Christian minorities at the hands of Muslims from a century ago, when one considers that he denies the rampant Muslim persecution of Christians taking place today under – and often because of – his leadership.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/04/obama_breaks_promise_on_100supthsup_anniversary_of_armenian_genocide.html

April 24, 2015
Obama Breaks Promise on 100th Anniversary of Armenian Genocide
By Raymond Ibrahim
* * *

Published on Apr 23, 2015
100 years ago, the first genocide of the 20th century began. On that date, the Islamic Turks commenced their campaign of deportation, murder and starvation against Christian Armenians. As we observe this solemn anniversary, we should remember the repeated failure of the world community to act against genocide, and contemplate what we can do to stop genocide from occurring on our watch.


* * *

[From article]
President Barack Obama will once again stop short of calling the 1915 massacre of Armenians a genocide, prompting anger and disappointment from those who have been pushing him to fulfill a campaign promise and use the politically fraught term on the 100th anniversary of the killings this week. Officials decided against it after opposition from some at the State Department and the Pentagon.
[. . .]
As a senator and presidential candidate, Obama did describe the killings of Armenians as “genocide” and said the US government had a responsibility to recognize them as such. As a candidate in January 2008, Obama pledged to recognize the genocide and at least one of his campaign surrogates — the current US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power — recorded a nearly five-minute video at the time imploring Armenian-Americans to vote for Obama precisely because he would keep his word on the issue.

http://nypost.com/2015/04/22/obama-again-wont-call-1915-armenian-massacre-a-genocide/

Obama again won’t call 1915 Armenian massacre a ‘genocide’
By Associated Press
New York Post
April 22, 2015 | 9:50am

* * *

[From article]

Turkey recalled its ambassador to the Vatican and accused the Pope of spreading ‘hatred and animosity’ with ‘unfounded allegations’.
The Turks take objection to the word ‘genocide’ — first coined in the 1940s to describe what the Nazis did to the Jews, but also ever since applied to the 1915 massacre of the Armenians.
Not true, has always been the official response from Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey’s capital.
Hundreds of thousands died in that era, they admit, (though they dispute the numbers are anywhere near as high as claimed).
But this, they maintain, happened as a result of chaotic wartime conditions, civil strife, starvation and in response to Armenian violence, not because of a deliberate, officially organised and systematic plan to eliminate an entire people.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3044292/Genocide-Christians-blood-soaked-depravity-exceeded-today-s-atrocities-Islamic-State-100-years-Turkey-faces-global-disgust-refusal-admit-butchering-MILLION-Christians.html

Genocide of the Christians: The blood-soaked depravity exceeded even today's atrocities by Islamic State - now, 100 years on Turkey faces global disgust at its refusal to admit butchering over a MILLION Armenians
In 1915 the rulers of the Ottoman empire turned their hatred on Armenians
The Young Turks persecution of the minority turned to unbridled savagery
Modern Turkey faces disgust over refusal to admit the historic genocide
WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES
By TONY RENNELL FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 17:56 EST, 17 April 2015 | UPDATED: 19:53 EST, 17 April 2015


* * *


Over one million of the two million Armenians living within the borders of the Ottoman Empire were murdered.

[From article]

The event is sponsored by Professor of History and Darakjian and Jafarian Chair in Armenian History Ina Baghdiantz McCabe, the Department of History, Tufts Armenian Club and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR).
[. . .]
McCabe explained that the theme of most of the past commemorations has been genocide in a general sense. This year, however, it will focus specifically on the Armenian Genocide and the voices of the people affected by it, she said.

http://tuftsdaily.com/news/2015/04/15/tufts-commemorate-centennial-armenian-genocide/

Tufts to commemorate centennial of Armenian Genocide
BY MEAGAN ADLER

APRIL 15, 2015

Tufts University Disputes US Figures on Campus Violence

[From article]
The rapidly rising total poses challenges for the Obama administration as it seeks to lead a national campaign against sexual assault on college campuses. The students whose complaints sparked many of the cases are anxious for federal action, while colleges want to escape a list that puts an unflattering question mark next to their brand name.
[. . .]
Much of OCR’s power stems from its authority to halt federal funding to colleges found to be in violation of the law. But the agency has never taken that step.
Instead, OCR uses the financial threat as leverage to negotiate measures schools will take to improve their sexual violence policies whenever the agency finds shortcomings.
[. . .]
In April, Tufts University rebelled. The prestigious university in Massachusetts had reached an agreement for measures to resolve a long-running OCR investigation. Then, it abruptly revoked its approval, objecting to certain findings that the university failed to comply with the law in its handling of sexual assault and harassment complaints.
Federal officials warned the standoff could lead to an unprecedented cutoff of funding for Tufts. A few weeks later, the university relented and gave renewed approval to the resolution. The episode offered a rare public glimpse of the brinkmanship behind these investigations.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/tally-of-federal-probes-of-colleges-on-sexual-violence-grows-50-percent-since-may/2014/10/19/b253f02e-54aa-11e4-809b-8cc0a295c773_story.html

Tally of federal probes of colleges on sexual violence grows 50 percent since May
By Nick Anderson
October 19 at 9:21 PM

Tufts University Celebrates Constitution Day

>

In this celebration of Constitution Day, the Executive Director of the ACLU (Massachusetts) cited the "2014 Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case, which allowed owners of a closely held for-profit corporation to deny coverage for their employees’ contraception if they are morally opposed to it, as an example of the interplay between religion and constitutionality in this country." But the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion. It does not guarantee access to birth control. If Rose suggested this comparison she deceived the audience. She added, “It’s a question of the role of religion and our rules about sex and who gets to decide who gets to have sex,” Oh? The current mandated U.S. Department of Education rules for having sex on campus is restricting who can have sex on campus, not the Constitution. In California the Democratic legislature and Governor are dictating how students and faculty can have sex on campus, not the Constitution.

Rose said, "Black people smoke a lot less pot than white people, but they get arrested for it at an extraordinarily higher rate,” Gasp! There used to be more white people than black people in the U.S. What kind of mathematics and statistics is the ACLU using? Or is she just making it up? Chairs compared to oranges? Did Rose learn math in a dumbed down school? She then uses her specious math to conclude there are racial disparities. Huh?

She asserts, "It doesn’t matter what the people who wrote the Constitution meant; what matters is the power of the words,” Legislative intent is the historical basis for court decisions. But not for the ACLU. Rose reveals her belief that words are more important than their meanings. That is the paradigm of the PR industry, lawyers and politicians who use words to deceive voters and taxpayers and to keep them uninformed, dumbed down. At no time during this discussion celebrating the Constitution,if the report is complete, does the ACLU chief mention the role of the Constitution guaranteeing individual rights. She speaks in collective terms, suggesting individual rights do not matter. For a detailed explanation of how the ACLU ran off the rails read Wendy Kaimer's book, Worst Instincts. Kaminer was a board member of the national ACLU.

http://tuftsdaily.com/news/2014/09/22/mass-aclu-director-discusses-constitution-todays-society/

Mass. ACLU director discusses Constitution in today’s society
BY SHANA FRIEDMAN

SEPTEMBER 22, 2014

Tufts Daily 

Too Much Racism, No Disability Bias


Tufts investigated TV perpetuating racial bias. Does that mean that TV treats persons with disabilities as equal to those without? That persons accused of mental illness are treated better than black persons? Just asking here. Wondering why so much time studying racism and so little studying discrimination against persons with disabilities. One man of color told me that it is because "they are whole persons" implying that persons with disabilities are only part human?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091219/hl_time/08599194866200;_ylt=AlpboIYF3nqHlX52itEHyuJ0fNdF

Study: TV May Perpetuate Race Bias
Time.com
By ALICE PARK Alice Park
Sat Dec 19, 12:40 am ET

Universities Omit Disability from Diversity


"the number of female faculty members at Harvard has grown by 16 percent, while the number of minority faculty members has risen 23 percent, according to a recent report." Are persons with disabilities a minority? Or are they simply a bunch of uneducated slugs? Did Tufts University raise the number of Professors and administrators with disabilities? Does Harvard consider persons with disabilities anything other than an opportunity to treat them with psychiatric drugs? Has any university besides Galludet thought of persons with disabilities other than as clients for goods and services?

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2009/12/16/diversity-president-university-tufts/

University Hires Diversity Officer
University hires Lisa M. Coleman of Tufts to oversee staff diversity
By Tara W. Merrigan,
HARVARD CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Published: Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Obama's Czar Promotes Boys Sex With Older Men;
Led Sex Seminar for Teens at Tufts University


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/08/obamas-buggery-czar/

EDITORIAL: Obama's buggery czar
Jennings' group made sex between children and adults look normal
Washington Times
December 8, 2009

* * *

http://biggovernment.com/2009/12/08/fistgate-ii-high-school-students-given-fisting-kits-at-kevin-jennings-2001-glsen-conference/

Fistgate II: High School Students Given ‘Fisting Kits’ At Kevin Jennings’ 2001 GLSEN Conference
by Jim Hoft
BigGovernment.com
December 8, 2009

Censorship at Tufts University

Censorship at Tufts University

Dear President Bacow,
Dear Professor Grossman,

The decision to reprimand the editors of the Primary Source was misguided.
I've followed the details and wrote to the Primary Source on previous occasions
supporting their expression.
I know the First Amendment does not apply to Tufts, but that is no reason
to promote less free expression on a university campus. This is a national
problem of citizens supporting censorship. What ever happened to rational
speech? Silencing expression increases the number of misinformed people.
The principle used to justify censorship at Tufts, is not applied equally
to all groups. Negative speech is only an issue if the targeted group is wealthy
and/or powerful. I see this regularly as I try to raise awareness of the issue
of demonizing persons with disabilities. Criticizing certain ethnic, religious,
racial and gender groups is prohibited. But it is still acceptable for public
humiliation of persons with disabilities.
The action at Tufts is no different from elected officials catering to
wealthy and powerful interest groups. That abomination has spread to the campus
which is unfortunate at best.

Roy Bercaw, Editor ENOUGH ROOM
Cambridge MA USA