Yale Lecturer Behind Halloween Email Defending Free Speech Resigns
Posted: December 9, 2015 Filed under: Education, U.S. News | Tags: Academia, al Qaeda, American Society for Cell Biology, Anthony T. Kronman, Associated Press, Association of American Universities, Audrey Hepburn, Brown University, Butler University, Campus, College town, Connecticut, Harvard University, Ivy League, New Haven, Sexual assault, Undergraduate education, Yale University Leave a commentYale University have confirmed that the lecturer who sent an email stating that students should not seek to censor Halloween costumes has today resigned from her teaching position.
Richard Lewis reports: Erika Christakis, an expert in childhood education, sent the email as a result of student activist complaints about cultural appropriation and perceived racism on campus. The protests will best be remembered for producing this video where a female student screamed into the face of Nicholas Christakis, husband of Erika and a Bowdoin Prize winning academic, making the bold claim that the university campus isn’t an “intellectual space.” Mr. Christakis shall also be taking a one term sabbatical in the aftermath of the incident.
Why the email generated any controversy is anyone’s guess. Mrs. Christakis asked the question, “Is there no room anymore for a child or young person to be a little bit obnoxious, a little bit inappropriate or provocative or, yes, offensive?” Read the rest of this entry »
Uncle Strickland: ‘How to Talk to Your Pansy Marxist Nephew at Thanksgiving’
Posted: November 24, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Asian American, Citizenship, Harvard University, Holiday, Ivy League, Office for Civil Rights, Parody, Princeton University, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, satire, Thanksgiving, United States, Washington Free Beacon 1 Comment“Am I othering you right now? Did I carpet bomb your safe space?”
This is a hilarious sendup of an outbreak of embarrassing left-wing hand-holding “How to talk to your Republican uncle at Thanksgiving” articles like this, and this, and this, that are appearing in advance of the upcoming holiday. This one is more useful, and funnier. Read the whole thing here. Also, don’t miss this, “Thanksgivingmanship: Your Guide to Surviving The Progressive Imbeciles Who Have Spent a Week Cramming on How to Survive You” at AceOfSpadesHQAceOfSpadesHQ.
Uncle Strickland writes:
Happy Thanksgiving and thanks for publishing my column. I’m a big fan of this holiday because few things are more American than boozing up and chowing down ’til your ankles swell and your corduroys pop. In between, you get to watch some football and share your thoughts on the trainwreck presidency of Barack Hussein Obama (hint hint). I consider myself a knowledgable debater because I read up on the blogs and I’m typically one
of the most “liked” commenters on the articles. The reason I’m writing this is because my brother’s dumb kid likes to get chatty with me. I’ve never seen anyone bring so many printouts to the dinner table.
“I’ll tell you what, why don’t you invite one of your ISIS pals around the house and we’ll see how much he likes it when I slash his guts out with the turkey knife. You think that’s what he wants? They want us to crush them?”
His “talking points,” he says. Reminds me of my last divorce, all those friggin’ printouts. This kid, my nephew, will never admit to being a communist, it’s always this “moderate independent” crap. But his Facebook feed is full of Bernie Sandinista, if you know what I mean, and he recently tweeted some gibberish about riding the bus in Czechoslovakia and identifying as a “human being” instead of what he is, an American.
“Tell me something, how did you feel when your Little League team got mercy-ruled by those country boys in the district finals? Is that what you wanted? Were you just phoning it in for the “participant” trophy? Is that why you’re too afraid to shave that pathetic beard?”
He’s been a “student” at some Ivy League circlejerk for the better part of a decade. I think he’s 29, who the hell even cares? If he’s the future, this country’s digging its own grave and I’m glad I won’t be there when it finally kicks the bucket. Read the rest of this entry »
40% of Millennials Say Government Should Prevent Offensive Speech Toward Minorities
Posted: November 21, 2015 Filed under: Censorship, Education | Tags: Association of American Universities, Boston, Brown University, California Institute of Technology, Dartmouth College, Harvard Management Company, Harvard University, Ivy League, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York City, Princeton University, Yale University Leave a commentKerry Picket reports: A new Pew Research Center poll shows that 40 percent of American Millennials (ages 18-34) are likely to support government prevention of public statements offensive to minorities.
It should be noted that vastly different numbers resulted for older generations in the Pew poll on the issue of offensive speech and the government’s role.
US Millennials more likely to support censoring offensive statements about minorities https://t.co/58zV9e31k9 pic.twitter.com/wdHf7aB1oI
— Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) November 21, 2015
Around 27 percent of Generation X’ers (ages 35-50) support such an idea, while 24 percent of Baby Boomers (ages 51-69) agree that censoring offensive speech about minorities should be a government issue. Only 12 percent of the Silent Generation (ages 70-87) thinks that government should prevent offensive speech toward minorities.
The poll comes at a time when college activists, such as the group “Black Lives Matter,” are making demands in the name of racial and ethnic equality at over 20 universities across the nation.
[Read the full story here, at The Daily Caller]
Some of the demands include restrictions on offensive Halloween costumes at Yale University to the deletion of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s image and name at Princeton University to “anti-oppression training” for employees at Brown University.
“Woodrow Wilson obviously … had a very ill-informed and ignorant view of race,” 1968 Princeton graduate Eric Chase told Reuters. “But he is a big piece of Princeton history and he should stay a big piece,” noting that it’s a push to “erase history and whitewash it and put something else in its place.” Read the rest of this entry »
Lux et Veritas at Yale: Free Speech?
Posted: September 11, 2014 Filed under: Censorship, Education, History, Think Tank | Tags: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Brandeis University, Hirsi ALi, Ivy League, Muslim Students Association, William F. Buckley, Yale, Yale University Leave a commentFrom NR, The Editors: When, this spring, Brandeis University reneged on its commencement invitation to human-rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, it revealed the cravenness that characterizes many of America’s leading institutions of higher education. The decision of Yale’s William F. Buckley Jr. Program to invite Hirsi Ali to New Haven as part of its speaker series has exposed the same quality in many of that school’s students.
“Even the most enthusiastic Ivy League shill should know that spending $55K a year to have one’s presuppositions obsequiously endorsed is a waste.”
In an open letter sent to Buckley Program student leaders, members of 35 campus groups say they feel “highly disrespected” by the September 15 lecture “Clash of Civilizations: Islam and the West.” The letter, drafted by the Muslim Students Association, lays out their complaints.
“But in our age of studious political correctness, where the inmates write the asylum’s curriculum, these students are happy to insulate themselves against any opinions from beyond the Old Campus Quad.”
They are concerned that “Ms. Hirsi Ali is being invited to speak as an authority on Islam despite the fact that she does not hold the credentials to do so.” They accuse Hirsi Ali of “hate speech” and express outrage that she should “have such a platform in our home.” “We cannot overlook,” they write, “how marginalizing her presence will be to the Muslim community and how uncomfortable it will be for the community’s allies.”
Their remedy, of course, is censorship. Read the rest of this entry »
[PHOTO] MILES DAVIS: ‘Best-Dressed Man of the 20th Century’
Posted: July 16, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Birdland, Birth of the Cool, Brooks Brothers, Don Cheadle, Duke of Windsor, Ivy League, Jazz, Miles Davis 1 CommentMiles Davis was the best-dressed man of the 20th century. Starting out, he’d customise his pawnshop Brooks Brothers suits, cutting notches in the lapels in imitation of the Duke of Windsor. After 1949’s Birth of the Cool, he favoured the Ivy League look of European tailoring. In the 60s he went for slim-cut Italian suits and handmade doeskin loafers. He was always the coolest-looking man in the room. Hell, he even managed to look cool sporting a blood-splattered white khaki jacket following a scuffle with police outside Birdland. In the 70s his wardrobe went as far-gone funky as his music and he was the only man who could get away with wearing purple bell bottoms, kipper ties and hexagonal glasses.
THE CHILL: Are Universities Breeding a Generation of Aspiring Totalitarians? [VIDEO]
Posted: October 30, 2013 Filed under: Censorship, Education, U.S. News | Tags: Brown University, Christina Paxson, Ivy League, New York, New York City Police Department, New York City stop-and-frisk program, Proactive policing, Raymond Kelly 1 CommentControversial law enforcement policies such as New York’s ‘stop-and-frisk‘ are a topic of legitimate disagreement and frank, candid debate. The ideal location for a spirited discussion of public policy should be a State University forum, or better yet, an Ivy League college. Unfortunately, Freedom of speech is no longer enshrined, or defended, in Universities (replaced with ‘speech codes‘, restricting free speech’) In fact, I’m not sure the First Amendment, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, civics education, critical thinking, logic, U.S. law, pluralism, freedom of expression, inquiry, philosophy, or tolerance, are taught at American Universities.
Brown University students shout Commissioner Kelly off the stage as he attempted lecture on policing
More than 100 Ivy League students protested the NYPD‘s stop-and-frisk policy and accused the department of discrimination against blacks and Muslims. Kelly had planned a lecture titled ‘Proactive Policing in America’s Biggest City’ but was driven out of the hall as students shouted over him…
More via NY Daily News
The cheat goes on at Harvard
Posted: September 6, 2013 Filed under: Education | Tags: Cheating, Harvard, Harvard Crimson, Harvard University, Ivy League, Rutgers University Leave a commentNearly half of the school’s incoming freshmen admitted to cheating on homework, exams or other assignments in their young academic careers, according to a survey by the Ivy League institution’s student newspaper.
“Some of the newest members of that community are already guilty of academic dishonesty,” The Harvard Crimson declared in its summary of the findings. Read the rest of this entry »