One Morning in April...
Unspeakable tragedy strikes an American university
The morning of April 16 began like almost any other on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, also known as Virginia Tech. Students got up, went to breakfast, went to class, or went out for the day, blissfully unaware of the fact that, within mere hours, the worst tragedy ever to strike an American institute of higher education would take place on those very grounds, with the slaughter of 33 individuals by a single murderous student.Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old resident alien from South Korea who had lived in the United States for nearly fifteen years, apparently awoke on Monday morning with one singular purpose in mind: to murder as many of his fellow students as he could, before taking his own life. His killing spree began in a dormitory, where, at 7:15 am, he gunned down an 18-year-old girl and a 22-year-old young man. Two hours later, Mr. Cho crossed the campus, entered an engineering building, chained the doors shut from the inside, and proceeded to empty clip after clip of 9mm and .22-caliber ammunition into the crowded classrooms, firing through doors, lining students up against the wall and executing them one by one, and aiming for anybody he could find in the hallways or in the rooms. Students were reduced to barricading doors with desks, playing dead, and even jumping out of third-and-fourth-story windows to escape the scene of massive carnage, which saw over sixty people injured and, when all was said and done, over thirty dead, including the killer himself.
Mistakes made by the university’s administration and the police have been made known. These include the temporary lockdown of the dormitory where the first murders occurred which was lifted despite the lack of any progress toward catching the killer (police believed, without any evidence whatsoever, that he had “left campus”), and the lack of any effort to notify students of the first events of the morning, other than a cursory, uninformative email sent well after the fact, just to name two. More errors will come to light as further investigation is conducted; however, blame cannot lie solely with police any more than it can lie solely with the administration. While both are tasked with protecting the welfare and ensuring the safety of Virginia Tech’s student body, none could have imagined a murderous rampage of this magnitude in their wildest dreams – let alone adequately prepared for, and reacted properly to, such an event.
The very idea of such senseless killing is impossible to comprehend for the vast majority of people. What could have driven a young man to such lengths that he turned to the vicious slaughter of his fellow humans as an outlet? We will likely never know; however, the content of the note Mr. Cho left behind, and information from classmates and teachers, combine to paint the picture of a troubled young man who was alone, unhappy, and likely unstable – in short, a young man who displayed virtually all of the warning signs one would look for if trying to identify a potential perpetrator of such a vicious act. The fact that little or no action was taken to intervene in the life of Mr. Cho before this incident will cause endless second-guessing, both of the university’s faculty and of the student support system in place at Virginia Tech; however, the answer is not to look around for a target of blame, but to seek to prevent such a tragedy taking place in the future.
The grief being felt by the families of these students, professors, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, and friends is impossible to measure, or to put into words. As Nikki Giovanni, a University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech, said, “We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on. We are embracing our mourning.” Those involved must be experiencing so many different thoughts, feelings, and reactions, and will deal with many more in the future. How can people respond to such an unthinkable atrocity, to the act of such reckless hate? Many of us “on the outside” are currently experiencing our own forms of sorrow, rage, and disgust in response to this tragic event. Debates over gun control have been re-ignited, with special attention being paid to a bill recently voted down in the Virginia state House of Representatives which would have allowed students and employees to carry registered handguns on campus. A Virginia Tech spokesman praised the negative outcome at the time, saying that the bill’s defeat would “help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.” On the contrary – I do not wish to enter into a debate on gun control and the second amendment here, but had this passed, and even one student in that building been carrying a weapon on their person, how many lives could have been saved?
Pundits, politicians, and commentators have offered their own observations on the situation, as well. On ESPN Radio’s Dan Patrick Show, baseball commentator and hall of fame player Joe Morgan lamented that, since this did not take place during football or basketball season, the students will regrettably be “forced to heal on alone” - and then had the audacity to compare this massacre of over thirty innocent men and women to the Don Imus scandal of the week before. This latter sentiment was echoed by Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama, who directly compared Monday’s “physical violence” at Virginia Tech to the “verbal violence” of the since-fired radio “shock jock.” Nikki Giovanni's address at Tuesday's vigil included this statement:
We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did not deserve it but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, but neither do the invisible children walking the night to avoid being captured by a rogue army. Neither does the baby elephant watching his community be devastated for ivory; neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy.These statements are amazingly insulting to the victims of this act, and no greater purpose is served by comparing them to baby elephants, and equating the senseless loss of life to the offending of sensibilities.
Not all of the disparate developments and responses provoked by this tragedy are negative, though. The Virginia Tech family has been brought together, thirty-three people short, in a way that only tragedy can accomplish. Ordinary people, going about their ordinary lives, with ordinary quibbles, complaints, and trials, have had their lives once again forcibly put into perspective, and the entire nation has been made aware, once again, how precious life is, and how quickly – and pointlessly – it can be stuffed out. From the ashes of such a horrific series of events have also arisen tales of unimaginable heroism, such as that displayed by Professor Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor and émigré from Romania who used his body to block the door, while being shot, to give his students an opportunity to save their own lives. As Powerline.com’s Paul Mirengoff so aptly put it, “More than sixty years after [the Holocaust survivor’s] liberation, the rescued became the rescuer.” He continued:
In a 1974 speech in which he introduced returning POW John McCain to the CPAC convention, Ronald Reagan asked where we find such men. He answered, “We [find] them in our streets, in the offices, the shops and the working places of our country and on the farms.” Professor Librescu's heroism reminds us that we also find them among those who come to this country from other lands.It is difficult to put into words a personal response, or a personal reaction, to such heroism – or to the unspeakable act of barbarism which forced such people as Dr. Librescu to become the heroes that they became. As for the rest of the students and faculty in the vicinity, who acted to save their own lives rather than sacrificing themselves to save others, no ill can be spoken. An individual cannot be faulted for fleeing from danger, or for being less than prepared to act heroically in the face of mortal peril. Not everybody is created in the mold of a Todd Beamer and his companions on United Airlines flight 93; nor are they made of the same stuff as a Prof. Librescu, who had faced death so many times in the past, before rushing to finally meet it so as to stave off its arrival for the young people under his charge. This is not to imply that any of these men and women are lesser people for their acts of self-preservation; however, one can only wonder how many lives could have been saved had there been an active resistance on the part of students who were being lined up against the wall and executed, or who were jumping out of the windows to avoid the fate of their peers.
One fact remains above all others: a person never knows how they will react to a given situation until they have been placed in it, and those who have not been in such a horrifying, gruesome situation as those students at Virginia Tech faced Monday morning should be very slow indeed to judge the actions of those who were there. We all hope that we would react like Professor Librescu did; however, as a commenter at RedState.com put it, “Great people do great things. I like to say that in a moment of terror like that I would do the same thing, but in my heart, I don't know if I would have the courage.” Human nature being what it is, I have a hard time believing that many of those people who made it through the ordeal, while their classmates were perishing around them, will not spend at least part of every day for the rest of their lives reliving, rethinking, and second-guessing the events of that morning, and their corresponding actions, and wondering if there was anything they could have done differently – or could have done at all – which, though it would have placed them at even greater risk, might have saved the life of even one of their fellows.
I know that I would. Every day.
So let us keep in our thoughts, prayers, and memories those who were lost, and those whom they left behind, and contemplate how best to react and to respond to this tragedy. Rather than stepping onto a soapbox and beating a political drum, a far more productive response to this event would be to follow the lead of a Virginia Tech student, present at the scene of the killings, who wrote an email to his family in which he recounted the story told him, amidst the events of the morning, of her own ordeal, when she looked out into the hallway of the building where the murders were taking place, and came face to face with Mr. Cho.
"The girl told me that when she saw the shooter, she saw his face. She saw that he was sad, and she told me that she actually felt sorry for him. This didn't hit me right away, because at that time, everything was very chaotic. But after returning home later in the day and realizing the magnitude of this incident, I began to think about the girl's story and how personal this really was. I realized that this girl literally stared down the barrel of a 9mm handgun, but she looked beyond it and saw the man holding it. She had mercy on this man as he was threatening her life with his very presence. For the rest of the day, the death toll climbed, and I kept thinking about the victims, their families, and how this would affect the world's view of the school that I call my home. But still more, I thought about the gunman."Then this student, in an act which we can only look upon in wonder, requested of his family that they “say a prayer for [the killer] by name.” He continued:
“Say a prayer for his family by name. Do not curse him, though you may curse this event. As Christians – as people – we are called to be merciful. I want to be as merciful as the girl I sat with…today. I know I will be filled with this inevitable feeling of anger, and maybe hatred toward this man when they announce his name, but I will put that aside, and I will ask God to bless the family that survives him. God loves this man as much as He loves the people he killed. So let us not pray for the 32 victims and the single gunman, instead let us pray for the 33 human souls that met God today.”That this student, who saw the carnage himself, who lost friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, and who had his life changed forever by events out of his control, can approach the aftermath of this event with such maturity, serenity, perspective, and forgiveness should send a strong, clear signal to us all. Let us never forget the events of this tragic morning in April, 2007 – and let us come together as a stronger community, and strive to be better, stronger individuals as a result.
Jeff Emanuel, a special operations military veteran, is a leadership fellow with the Center for International Trade and Security at the University of Georgia, where he also studies Classics. He is a Director of conservative weblog RedState.com, is a columnist for conservative newsmagazine Human Events, and has a weekly column in the Athens, GA Banner-Herald newspaper.
Labels: Academia
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Teaching the Bible in Georgia's public schools
The Bible in public schools: A blending of "church and state," or another useful primary source?Last week, Georgia’s Board of Education, by unanimous vote, preliminarily approved two new literature and culture classes for use in public schools beginning next year. Pending a 30-day comment period, the board is expected to give these courses final, official approval.
The difference between these new courses and others – and the reason why there will be controversy surrounding them – is that they involve the Bible.
Entitled “Literature and History of the Old Testament Era” and “Literature and History of the New Testament Era,” the classes involve the reading of the Bible as literature, not as a religious text, and are intended to provide cultural, historical, and literary education and context (not religious indoctrination) through the use of a text which contains ample amounts of all.
As Senate Majority Leader Tommie Williams, the program’s legislative sponsor, said, the Bible “plays a major role in history,” and “is important in understanding many classic literary works.”
“It’s not just ‘The Good Book,’” he has been quoted as saying. “It’s a good book.”
While this development will cause the usual suspects to claim government establishment of religion, and violation of the mythic “separation of church and state,” the fact is that using the Bible as a literary and cultural reference is, in actuality, neither.
The Bible can serve as a history and a literature text every bit as effectively as it can a religious one and, despite statements to the contrary, there should no more problem with offering non-religious classes on the Old and New Testament eras (which involve the study of the Bible as a primary source) than there is with offering classes on ancient Greece, Rome, or any other civilization or culture. The Iliad and Odyssey, for example, are studied in public schools for literary and cultural edification, yet there is no outcry from those who oppose government-sponsored religion that such instruction is a governmental endorsement of Zeus or of Apollo. Likewise, the Aeneid is read and studied without interference from those who see it as an attempt to impose the Roman pantheon on poor public school students.
Sure, those are old examples; who, you might ask, would possibly consider worshipping Jupiter, Juno, or Minerva these days, anyway? These works, though, were as serious an example of religious and moral texts in their day as the books of the Old and New Testaments have been in theirs. A simple once-over of the Iliad will expose the reader to far more instances of divine intervention in human affairs than occur in the New Testament.
Similarly, diverse texts of ancient and religious law – such as the Roman Twelve Tables, or the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi – are acceptable for study. Will the simple fact of greater modern relevance prevent the Bible, which presents the laws of the Hebrews (in the form of the Ten Commandments, among others), and the later laws of Christianity, from being read as the historical documents and mores that they are?
On the other end of the spectrum, there will be those who oppose these additions to school curricula for the explicit reason that they do remove religious teaching from the study of the Bible. Lost in the protest against any non-religious study of this text, though, is the consideration of the invaluable historical, cultural, and literary knowledge and context which can be gained from such education. Such knowledge and context can be used, by those who so choose, to achieve a better understanding of Judaism and Christianity than a simple Sunday once-over of religious topics addressed by the Bible can hope to accomplish.
The events of the Old and New Testament eras are an integral part of the history of Western and Near Eastern civilization – and, by extension, of our own culture. Outlawing the study of certain parts of history, and of their particular beliefs, movements, and cultures, out of fear of accidentally promoting religion, would be akin to sacrificing education and erudition on the altar of political correctness – and political correctness is a poor reason for the breeding of ignorance in our children.
Several groups and individuals claim to oppose this new curriculum because of the lack of clearly-defined boundaries with regard to what the teachers of these classes may (and, more specifically, may not) say. Ironically, many of these also protest the Intellectual Diversity in Higher Education Act – for the precise reason that they see it as a threat by governmet to establish boundaries with regard to what teachers may and may not say. There is apparently only room for such restrictions when the teaching of a Bible literature class is the subject of the regulation.
Regardless of the obvious sensibility of this addition to Georgia’s public school curriculum, there will be protests from both sides of the aisle. In response to this, there are two options: we could kowtow to political correctness on one hand, and to fundamentalists on the other, and prevent the Bible from ever being used in a public educational setting – or we could be sensible, recognize that the Bible has as much place in the contextual study of cultural and literary history as does any other primary source which is currently being used, and allow it to be used as such.
• Jeff Emanuel, a Special Operations military veteran who served in Iraq, is a Security Leadership fellow at the University of Georgia Center for International Trade and Security.
Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 031507Labels: Academia, Liberals, Religion
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Can government legislate "intellectual diversity" (without becoming the "thought police")?
A breath of fresh air – or the first step down a slippery slope?
“Academic freedom” has been a growing buzzword in recent years for conservatives paying attention to the goings-on at America’s college campuses. The leftist tendencies inherent in academia are, of course, not a new development, though they have been better-documented of late by conservative writers, such as UNC-Wilmington professor Mike Adams, and activists, like David Horowitz.Case after case of liberal activism and indoctrination has been publicized by conservative individuals, and by organizations like the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). As a result, acts which in the past might have gone unnoticed and unquestioned – such as a Northern Kentucky professor’s demolishing of an anti-abortion display, or the University of Georgia’s disqualification of a Christian fraternity from student-organization privileges due to its requirement that its members be Christian – have been both exposed and corrected through quick, vigilant action on the part of those who were willing to stand up for actual equal treatment of college students, regardless of political affiliation or religious beliefs.
However, despite the watchfulness of those on the outside, America’s universities maintain their seemingly irreversible liberal bent. Part of this is because of a natural imbalance in the ideology of those employed there; another part is that one rarely seems able to find a professor they can peg as "conservative," due to the fact that those who lean right - bless their souls - do their job correctly, and rarely reveal their personal political inclinations in the classroom.
Campus conservatives have long worked responsibly and within legal boundaries to express their views and to fight for a more open academic environment. Some conservative activists, though, have made a pastime of purposely bending and breaking rules for the “greater good” of exposing perceived liberal bias in the enforcement of those rules. Unfortunately, the actions of the latter have had the doubly regrettable result not only of reflecting poorly on the majority who fit the former profile, but also of quite possibly setting back the movement for conservative equality on campus by a significant margin due to their brash, distasteful tactics which serve both to align the administration against them and to dissuade their fellow campus conservatives from speaking out when they in turn are wronged unjustly, lest they be painted with the same brush.
The current intellectual state of our college campuses is clear. So, what is it that needs to be done? Can conservative students still survive in academia? Or has the liberal bias on campus – in the form of speech codes, student conduct guidelines, and professorial indoctrination – gotten so out of hand that government needs to intervene?
There have been recent moves to involve the State in issues of academia, but they have largely taken place in the courts. The threat of a lawsuit was the impetus in overcoming the University of Georgia’s aforementioned opposition to the registration of a Christian fraternity; likewise, two students at Georgia Tech scored a dubious success last year when the suit they filed against their Institute resulted in the scrapping of campus speech codes – a victory, due the imbalance in plaintiff expectation and reality, which was as ironic as it was dubious, as their success directly resulted in the abuse the plaintiffs received during their legal crusade being made wholly and permanently permissible.
Now, in Georgia, the legislative branch appears poised to get in on the act, as well. The sponsors of controversial House Bill (HB) 154 (or the “Intellectual Diversity in Higher Education Act”), is currently working its way through the state’s General Assembly, ostensibly hope to help shield students from unwelcome political indoctrination in the classroom, to help remove the yoke of political correctness from inter-student discourse and expression, and to help prevent teachers from being denied tenure (or worse, fired) because of their political leanings – in other words, they hope to help break the liberal grip on academia.
On the surface, these seem like admirable enough goals. What measures, though, would actually be put into place should HB 154 pass – and would the passage of this legislation serve as an end in itself, or would it only encourage government to further legislate the thoughts and actions of those on this nation’s college campuses? For, regardless of whether or not this bill would actually provide a temporary respite for conservatives students and faculty who have long had to struggle to get by in an environment which is predisposed toward modern liberalism, there is the worrisome prospect that HB 154 is simply the first step in a process to legislate the actions and, more importantly, the thoughts of those who inhabit America’s “marketplaces of ideas.”
In all fairness, the Intellectual Diversity in Higher Education Act does not regulate either thought or action on the part of students or faculty in Georgia’s colleges. What it does do is two things. First, it proposes a definition of the term “intellectual diversity” (the “foundation of a learning environment that exposes students to a variety of political, ideological, and other perspectives”), and suggests ways of demonstrating a commitment to that diversity. These suggestions range from “conducting a study to assess the current state of intellectual diversity on…campus,” to “including intellectual diversity issues in student course evaluations,” to “creating an institutional ombudsman on intellectual diversity.” The bill contains twelve such suggestions in all. Second, HB 154 directs the state’s Board of Regents to “require each institution under its control to report annually to the [Georgia] General Assembly, detailing the steps that the institution is taking to ensure intellectual diversity and the free exchange of ideas.”
This is the only legal directive in this bill – the requirement for annual submission of a report to the state legislature on the steps being taken to ensure intellectual diversity on campus and in the classroom. However, it is not this bill, per se, that should worry conservatives, as the ideals sought by this legislation are positive. Rather, it is the potential for further legislation which is a cause for concern - legislation which could result in further legal regulation of ideology and expression.
Speech codes, political correctness, glorification of superficial racial diversity, and uneven enforcement of regulations have all contributed to the destruction of the image (as utopian as it may have been) of the American university as a place where young people can be exposed to truly diverse ideas and viewpoints. However, within the attempt to correct this situation through legislation lies the potential for the scales not only to be balanced, but to be tipped in the opposite direction – or in any direction future lawmakers (and judges) may decide. The legislation of thought, whether it be the regulation of speech or the enforcement of the availability of diverse of viewpoints, leads down the same slippery slope, regardless of intent – and, for the rational conservative, the final destination is not a desirable one, regardless of the “greater good” which may have been served in getting there.
Jeff Emanuel, a Special Operations military veteran, is a Leadership fellow with the Center for International Trade and Security at the University of Georgia, where he also studies Classics. In addition, he is a contributing editor for conservative web log Red State, and is a columnist for the Athens, GA Banner-Herald newspaper.
Labels: Academia, Republicans
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It may be a Christian group, but you can't make members be Christian!
American higher education once again attempts to twist logic into a multicultural, politically-correct knot.By Jeff Emanuel
Monday, December 11, 2006
Political correctness has long been running amok on the campuses of America's institutes of higher education. From the severe limiting of free speech to mandatory "nondiscrimination" policies which greatly limit freedom of association, basic rights and privileges have been increasingly denied to some students as a direct result of their (legal) refusal to compromise their principles and to embrace the multiculturalism and political correctness being forced down their throats. A specific example of this - and of its fortunate conclusion, due to the decision of the students in question to stand up for themselves, even though it meant legal action - recently took place at the University of Georgia.This November, a Christian fraternity at the University, Beta Upsilon Chi (BYX, which stands for "Brothers Under Christ"), was prevented from completing its required annual re-registration for student organization status - a necessary action to remain officially associated with UGA, and thus to remain eligible to use University facilities, to apply for funds, and to receive other such privileges - and was summarily removed from the roster of official student groups, as a result of its requirement that members and officers "affirm [their] personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ."
The reason for this action was that their requirement of Christian faith for membership violated a new nondiscrimination policy enacted by the Board of Regents statewide, and by the University locally, which requires that student organizations include in their constitution, and adhere to, the statement that "Membership shall not be denied to any person because of age, race, sex, religion, handicap, sexual orientation, or national origin."
The fraternity's president attempted to correct this situation by explaining to Georgia's Assistant Director of Student Activities that, as a registered 501(c)(7) organization, BYX was exempt from the requirement not to discriminate on the basis of religion and gender.
The University employee responded that the nondiscrimination policy requirement was still valid because student organizations fell under the jurisdiction of the educational code, rather than the tax code. However, in reality - as the BYX president attempted to point out - under the applicable portions of both the education and tax codes, the fraternity's religious requirements are not "invidious discrimination," but rather "federally recognized associational classifications."
Faced with an insurmountable obstruction to their re-registration as a student organization due to the administration's refusal to apply the appropriate requirements to the fraternity, there was little avenue left to them but to file suit against the University, and to seek a legal solution to their battle for equal rights on campus vis-à-vis student group association and exclusivity.
On Tuesday, December 5, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of both the UGA chapter and the national organization of BYX by the Alliance Defense Fund and the Center for Law and Religious Freedom, seeking an injunction against the University to allow the fraternity to re-register as an organization with its association requirements intact, and to be afforded the same rights and privileges as any other student group on campus.
Besides the tax and educational code exemptions which applied to the Christian fraternity, a main point in the case was that the University's nondiscrimination policy was inconsistently enforced, as evidenced by the cited example of UGA's Baha'i Student Association, which requires that a person be of the Baha'i faith to be an officer.
Within two days of the suit being filed, the University acquiesced to the students' demands, in part blaming the ordeal on a misunderstanding by an employee, but also acknowledging that organizations like BYX can exist as chartered, and without the forced inclusion of a "nondiscrimination" policy which mandates the acceptance of people who stand in opposition to the purpose of the organization itself.
As the BYX statement of purpose is "To establish brotherhood and unity among college men based on the common bond of Jesus Christ," it only makes sense that there would be a requirement that all of its members be Christian.
The success achieved here goes beyond the granting of permission to BYX to immediately reform and begin once again to receive the benefits afforded to all official student organizations. The larger victory comes from the fact that the University has now agreed to reevaluate, and to revise, its nondiscrimination policy.
The University of Georgia's Department of Legal Affairs sent a letter the Center for Law and Religious Freedom on Thursday the 8th, informing them that BYX:
...will have all the rights and responsibilities of a registered student organization except that they will be exempt from the provisions of the University's Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment Policy relating to membership in the organization based upon religion.The letter also acknowledged that the University would soon begin "reviewing its student organization policies," and advised that the concerns raised in this case would "be thoroughly considered."
Unfortunately, though he agreed to the terms of the suit, University of Georgia President Michael Adams couldn't keep himself from lashing out at the fly-in-the-PC-ointment Christian fraternity. At a news conference Thursday morning, he said:
I'm going to put my Christian hat on for a moment - I think there are ways that Christian people are supposed to be able to solve problems without litigation...Let's see if we can find enough common ground to both ensure no one's religious rights are abridged and secondly that the university ensures that people are not being discriminated against.Adams's statement was, of course, a completely unnecessary slap in the face of a group of students who wanted nothing more than to continue with their activities - all of which fell squarely within the bounds of University policy and federal law - in the same way that they had since their chapter's inception nearly two years ago, and who, when faced with obstacle after insurmountable obstacle to their legally doing so, took the only recourse left to them.
As David French, Director of the ADF's Center for Academic Freedom, observed:
While this all sounds so reasonable, it plays into a common guilt trip repeatedly inflicted on religious students. Aren't religious students supposed to be nice? Aren't they supposed to get along with everyone? How does litigation advance the Christian witness? By asking questions like this, universities deflect attention from their own failings and ignore the bureaucratic black hole that sucks in the vast majority of all student complaints.Having a nondiscrimination policy makes sense in some cases, but in the instance of an organization based around some ideal, ideology, or religion - such as a Christian group, an all-male fraternity, an all-female sorority, or a conservative or liberal organization, for example - it is completely illogical to forbid that adherence to the ideal, ideology, or religion around which that group is based be required for membership or officership.
[...]
The fact that students appeal to the courts - as is their right and as the Apostle Paul did when faced with illegal persecution - is evidence of their courage and conviction, not of any spiritual or moral defect.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution either managed to miss, or attempted to obfuscate, the entire point of this case with its Friday article on the suit's outcome. Said the paper:
UGA officials said they have not finalized plans for a policy change. At the heart, a main issue is how to amend the policy without opening it too far. The chess club, or a social fraternity for example, would not be allowed to exclude Muslim students or Christians based on their faith.The issue at hand has never been whether religious, racial, or even sexual discrimination was a factor in the ability of students to associate, or to take part in activities. Whether a person is Christian or Muslim, black or white, male or female has nothing to do with his or her interest in many activities or organizations. However, when a group is organized around a common interest or trait - such as a religious organization, or a fraternity or sorority - then discrimination based on that interest or trait is - and must be - permitted, for, if it is not, then common interest groups cannot exist.
Though it took legal coercing, in this the University of Georgia corrected a wrong and made the right decision. Next, though, the school must follow through on its promise to "review and change" its nondiscrimination policy. As Timothy Tracey of the Christian Legal Society said Thursday, "We need a long-term solution and just saying, 'You, Beta Upsilon Chi, will be recognized,' isn't good enough. We need a policy change."
A policy change is indeed necessary. A blanket, one-size-fits-all program to provide a politically correct end to all discrimination cannot be enacted without inadvertently discriminating against some of those whom it was designed to protect. Enacting a policy which forbids an organization based around a common defining characteristic to acknowledge that characteristic when determining its membership is a proposition which is as foolhardy as it is unworkable.
Labels: Academia
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Bilingual education heading down the wrong path
September 27, 2006 
Bilingual education has arrived in Georgia at Clayton County's Unidos Dual Language School, which had a five-year charter approved by the state school board in April. According to its Web site, Unidos is "the first Dual Language Immersion Charter School in the state of Georgia" and "the first school to embrace the values of bilingualism, biliteracy, and multiculturalism."There are 132 students at Unidos, two-thirds of whom speak English. They receive nearly 70 percent of classroom instruction in Spanish, with the rest in English. As Unidos founder Dell Perry told the Associated Press, the student body comprises immigrants' children who might forget their native language without study, and American students whose parents want them to learn Spanish because "it's sort of where things are going."
Beyond language indoctrination, the school purports to bring together children from different backgrounds who would somehow never come together on their own. English teacher Lynda Quinones said of the school, "Kids who've never seen Hispanics before - they want to eat beside each other, they fight to sit beside each other. If it wasn't this environment, they'd probably be attacking each other."
It's telling that people may believe, as Quinones appears to, that Americans are such Neanderthals that accepting bilingual education, and teaching our children Spanish from an early age, is one of the only safeguards against an outbreak of race-based violence. Perhaps she and others of similar mind would benefit from looking a bit more closely at American history, and at other nations which are, by definition, characterized by unifying phenomena such as language. They should seek out the lesson repeatedly, and ruthlessly, taught since time immemorial: Any stability achieved by selling out the distinctive language, customs, and culture of a nation has always been short-term at best, and this easy, brief peace has been all too often followed by a tidal wave of incoming cultural influences which, ultimately, serve to wash away what little may have been left of the nation that once was.
The pros and cons of bilingual education have been debated for some time. Since the opening of the first dual-language school, in Florida in 1962, more than 300 bilingual education centers have opened across the United States.
Multilingualism has undeniable value. Knowledge of multiple languages can make a person more attractive in the job market, and can be beneficial in personal life, as well.
But it becomes less rosy when considered as part of the ongoing attempt to strip Americans of their national pride and common language, in the name of entrenching and enforcing postmodern one world multiculturalism, which teaches all other cultures are as good as or better than one's own, in the face of facts to the contrary.
It's also problematic when used as a preventive against immigrant assimilation.
Despite what the anti-immigrant fringe may want to believe, this has always been a nation of immigrants; our history as a melting pot is a large part of what has made us the great nation we are today. However, that melting pot is only successful because a large part of the "melting" is assimilation: learning and respecting the language, customs, traditions and culture of an adopted homeland.
If a bilingual education can assist in assimilation by helping students increase English proficiency while allowing them to use their native tongue to prevent falling behind academically, or if it can provide native students with expert second-language instruction, while not forcing anti-patriotic multiculturalism on them, it's reasonable to believe the practice may have positive results.
The Pew Hispanic Center accurately reflects the truth of this matter in its finding that a "vast majority of Hispanics at all educational levels believe that immigrants' children need to be taught English."
But with the one world climate being brought on by the academic left and others, there appears to be less and less hope that guidelines for effective, acceptable multilingual education even will be paid lip service.
The AP story on the Unidos school spoke volumes about the direction multilingual education is intentionally taking, when it spoke of a mother enrolling her 5-year-old son with the hope he's young enough to learn Spanish effortlessly. She said it will help him thrive in an increasingly diverse country. "We'd be really arrogant to expect everybody to speak English," she said.
Arrogant? To expect immigrants to this nation to learn our national unifying language?
Only in America.
• Jeff Emanuel, a Special Operations military veteran who served in Iraq, is a senior at the University of Georgia.
Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 092806
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Georgia's HOPE chest
By Jeff Emanuel
Mar 14, 2006
With just two weeks left in the Spring 2006 legislative session, time is running out on a proposed constitutional amendment which would ensure that Georgia’s unique merit-based college scholarship program will remain funded beyond the foreseeable future.The brainchild of then-Governor Zell Miller, Georgia’s “Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally,” or HOPE, scholarship program rewards students who graduate from a Georgia high school with at least a 3.0 grade point average by providing them a tuition-free education at a Georgia state college, university, or technical college. Students must maintain a B average in college to keep the HOPE benefit, with grades being re-evaluated every 30 attempted academic hours to ensure eligibility. Since the program’s inception in 1993, more than 900,000 students have received benefits, which also include student fee coverage and a textbook allowance.
Miller proposed that this merit-based scholarship be funded by a new state lottery, whose profits were to be used solely for that purpose. Georgia’s location in America’s “Bible belt” ensured that such a morally appealing carrot was necessary to make the inception of a state lottery palatable to the general public. After much public debate, the voters accepted both programs, but a major reason for the lottery’s approval was the promise of its revenue being used only for higher education and pre-kindergarten programs. The dedication of lottery funds to the HOPE scholarship lasted all the way until the program ran a surplus, at which time Democrats in the state assembly expanded lottery proceed-eligible projects to include technological upgrades in public schools and related training for teachers, as well as other, less-defined “hometown projects.”
This expansion may seem beneficial on the surface, but, as is true everywhere, Georgia lawmakers have fought to take ever-increasing amounts of these benefits home to their individual districts as vote-buying pork projects. $1.8 billion in lottery proceeds have now been spent on projects other than HOPE scholarships and pre-kindergarten classes, and lawmakers have been forced to begin talking about cutting the program’s budget. College enrollment has risen almost 10 percent in Georgia since HOPE’s inception; however, the combination of that increase in attendance, the fact that many already in college qualify for the program, and the increase in pork spending have created an incredible financial strain. In 2004, a panel studying the program’s future recommended that Governor Perdue cut book and fee payments to scholarship students, and more cuts are inevitable if the program’s funding situation remains unchanged.
In an effort to safeguard the HOPE scholarship for the future, and to guarantee that it remains funded to the fullest extent possible, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue recently proposed what he called the “HOPE Chest” amendment. This measure would go a long way in securing this unique merit-based scholarship program by amending Georgia’s state constitution to “protect lottery funds so that they may be reserved only for the HOPE Scholarship Program and other tuition grants, scholarships, or loans to enable citizens of this state to attend colleges and universities within this state; for voluntary pre-kindergarten; and for educational shortfall reserves.”
SR 655, currently in the Georgia state Senate, would put the HOPE Chest amendment on the statewide ballot in November, allowing Georgia’s voters to decide for themselves whether or not they want to guarantee further their children’s affordable academic futures. However, this attempt to give citizens a say in the governing process has been met with fierce partisan resistance. The measure has twice been voted down in 35-20, party-line votes, falling just three votes short of the two-thirds majority needed in the 56-member body to amend the state constitution. One final vote on the measure may be held, but Democrats, who claimed they were "shut out of the process" and had a "better plan" which was "being rejected for political purposes," are not expected to change their minds.
The promise of HOPE has encouraged students to excel at both the secondary and the university level. However, the decision of Democrats to play the role of the opposition, even when it comes to safeguarding a vital educational benefit, and to attempt to kill this proposed amendment in favor of securing lottery funds for pet projects, will only plunge the program into greater crisis. Without some Democrats finding the courage necessary to cross the aisle and do what is right for the educational future of the Georgia’s children, the state’s model program for merit-based scholarship, which has served as the inspiration for many similar elsewhere, will almost certainly wither on the vine.
Jeff Emanuel, a Special Operations military veteran, studies Classics at the University of Georgia. He is also a contributing editor for conservative web log RedState.com, and is a columnist for the Athens, GA Banner-Herald newspaper.
Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com
Labels: Academia, Georgia, Policy
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