Meanwhile at my alma mater....

Parent Cafe
141

<p>How about this?</p>

<p>Student Arrested After Talking About Gunman
Remarks Deemed Sympathetic to Virginia Tech Killer
AP
BOULDER, Colo. (April 20) - A University of Colorado student was arrested after making comments that classmates deemed sympathetic toward the gunman blamed for killing 32 students and himself at Virginia Tech , authorities said.
During a class discussion of Monday’s massacre at Virginia Tech, the student “made comments about understanding how someone could kill 32 people,” university police Cmdr. Brad Wiesley said. </p>

<p>Several witnesses told investigators the student said he was “angry about all kinds of things from the fluorescent light bulbs to the unpainted walls, and it made him angry enough to kill people,” according to a police report. Witnesses “said they were afraid of him and afraid to come to class with him,” Wiesley said. </p>

<p>The student, identified by police as Max Karson of Denver, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of interfering with staff, faculty or students of an education institution. He had a court appearance set for Wednesday afternoon. </p>

<p>His father, Michael Karson, told the Camera newspaper that the comments may have been misinterpreted and questioned whether his son’s free speech rights had been violated.</p>

142

<p>How would harrassment differ from discrimination?</p>

<p>I agree that she may not have been kicked out of Swarthmore, I just think it would be very hard for her to remain part of a community where her Neonazi views would be so antithetical to the spirit of the school. Ditto for MANY other schools, esp small ones where it is harder to hide. </p>

<p>I think that she would not have gone to Swarthmore in the first place, and I also don’t think that she would have been very comfortable there. It really is similar to how many Swat students just KNEW they belong there, and would not go to some of the other more traditionally conservative campuses.</p>

<p>By the way, I love Al Bloom, he is a great leader, and handles students, staff and parents well. (And an amazing fundraiser.)</p>

143

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<p>Well, you have to allow for the odd kook to slip through the cracks. I’m confident that Swarthmore has some nutjobs.</p>

<p>However, in a more general sense, I agree. That’s one reason that I think it is worthwhile for colleges to be very upfront about their brand identities and who they are. For example, by being as public as he is being about the priorities at Amherst, Tony Marx is, over time, shaping (reshaping?) the campus culture. </p>

<p>That’s why I recommend reading the mission statements of schools and trying to identify what issues the presidents are highlighting.</p>

144

<p>Have any of you fellow alums expressed your disappointment in the college’s handling of the situation directly to President Schapiro? I imagine he’s aware of some of the criticism, but I’m wondering if he has any idea of the degree of dissatisfaction in his handling of it.</p>

<p>Do any of you think it would be too late for the college to switch course to take more real steps towards the diaglogue and learning experience they mentioned? I would feel more hopeful for the college if they could admit some error in their initial response and make a sincere, meaningful effort to include the community in responding to the anti-semitism display.</p>

145

<p>I sent an e-mail to Dean Roseman urging her to “take action” (anything) – no response. I’m sure she considers me a pest (I am, after all, one of the “idiots” who read blogs).</p>

146

<p>nceph:</p>

<p>From the comments of Dean Roseman, the College Council, and the WCJA in the Record and elsewhere make it pretty clear that administration views the incident and discussion as closed.</p>

<p>I may write Schapiro and express disappointment that the teaching opportunity was not prodded more vigorously. However, I think both he and Roseman are aware of alumni sentiment.</p>

147

<p>I find very intriguing how she went down this very self-destructive path. Was it just a powerful influential BF leading a young more naive girl astray or was it something else. This is a very strange case to me and I’d be interested in learning more about her background and how she arrived at this point. I’m not really buying the bad joke gone wrong story.</p>

148

<p>

That’s disappointing. I gleaned the same thing from the ariticles, which was why I wondered if anyone thought there might be a change in their approach or a revisiting of the event. And if alumni sentiment is generally along the lines expressed here, I wonder why Schapiro and Roseman don’t care more.</p>

149

<p>I wrote Morty (with a check) and noted it might be my last check for a long time. (He was hardly waiting with baited breath for it in any case. I give more to Earlham. Would it goad him to action more quickly if I threatened to send my annual check to Amherst? ;)) I made no mention of what they should or should not do regarding Julia. It’s the lack of “teaching” that was/is my complaint.</p>

<p>I am not sure he is very aware of alumni sentiment (which is why I wrote). I should cc. to the Chair of the Board of Trustees.</p>

150

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<p>I can only speculate. What we know is that the girl and the boyfriend commented on each other’s “friendspace” pages as early as 2003, when the girl would have been about 15 years old and the boyfriend about 29 years old. We know that both posted comments that can only be interpreted as bigotry. She listed an interest as “white people”. He listed interests including “Indo-Christian” ideas, preferences in music that included a number of “Nazi-metal” german bands, books that included several of Hitler’s favorites, and a preference for “pale” girls and “no…juden”.</p>

<p>Like I say, if it quacks, waddles, and looks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. Of course, it could be a swan, but it’s probably a duck.</p>

<p>We know that the boyfriend is listed on Virginia corporate filings (along with three other friends from his “friendspace” page) as being the principles in a webhosting company providing bandwith for a host of organizations including nazi.org and its associated discussion forums. </p>

<p>Since the the then 15 year old girl lived in Texas and the then 29 year old friend lived in Virginia, I would pose the theory that they initially connected through one of these chat sites. Sections of her manifestos are lifted more or less directly from content on the Throne Networks sites.</p>

151

<p>I wonder how she even developed an interest in Williams. Is it near where BF lives? Is she a legacy? I also wonder even how many students come from Texas to Williams?</p>

<p>But to have those kinds of interests at age 15 years old she must have been exposed somewhere along the line to this type of thinking. Parents? Peer group?</p>

152

<p>What an interesting discussion… unfortunately for a disturbing event.</p>

<p>I think the most important issue raised from all this has only been touched upon briefly. I don’t think it’s the act itself (can happen anywhere), an issue of free speech, the response from the administration, ect… that is most troubling, but rather the fact that only 17 students out of 2000+ felt that their time would be well spent in going to the student forum to discuss this event and to show public support to a facet of the community (their colleagues) who felt targeted and threatened.</p>

<p>As often said, “well intentioned white people” didn’t help the civil rights movement. It doesn’t matter the support and discussions students have in private… and on blogs… and at their convenience… what was needed was an immediate show of solidarity to demonstrate (in a public way) to marginalized students that “their” concerns were worth “our” 1-2 hours away from studying or “our” daily routine. I think this is what needs to address.</p>

<p>For example, just last week, a party was thrown by a Bryn Mawr student council member using an invitation that (intentionally??) “caricatured” “Black culture”… the result was a heated campus wide meeting that drew more than 100 students.</p>

153

<p>I agree. But we know (or at least we think we do) from past experience that had the issue been about anti-Arab or anti-Muslim sentiment, and likely the same about anti-Black or anti-gay sentiment, large numbers of students would have turned out at Williams as well. (I’m reserving judgment about “anti-Asian” issues, as I just don’t know.) Would the same have occurred at Bryn Mawr had it been anti-Semitic sentiment? I hope so. I fear not. But in any case, it is the college that is in the education business, and one would expect them to take the lead.</p>

154

<p>HC Alum:</p>

<p>As I understand it, the majority of the campus was disgusted by the Hitler posters. However, there was a small, vocal minority who:</p>

<p>a) expressed disapproval of the original Holocaust Remembrance posters.</p>

<p>b) who jumped on the “free speech” bandwagon in support of the Hitler posters.</p>

<p>I think this dynamic created exactly the “confusion” that mini so eloquently outlined in an earlier post. Lacking strong guidance from the administration and faculty stating the obvious (that Hitlers birthday posters in response to the Holocaust Remembrance is anti-semitic hatred, plain and simple), the campus was left wondering if maybe the two postering campaigns really were equally valid.</p>

155

<p>“It’s illegal and the can’t which explains why the did not.”</p>

<p>No, Barrons, I repeat, you are wrong.</p>

<p>Much as I would like it if ACLU position papers were synonymous with the law of the land, that’s not the case. </p>

<p>You also keep citing to the BU case, which concerned a polite poster that was critical of the university’s policies, NOT a poster expressing racism toward other students that violated the university’s community standards. No one has ever won a suit against a school for disciplining a student under anything like these circumstances. Can you even point to any cases where a school was sued and the school won?</p>

<p>“Equating another right–the free exercise of religion to free speech is incorrect in my opinion.”</p>

<p>You’re right in one sense – the right to free exercise of religion is actually MORE protected under the law than the right to free speech, and has fewer exceptions. In your post #87, you said that the law that prevents Williams from punishing this student is a state law that “bans any institution from interfering, or attempting to interfere, with the exercise of rights secured by the First and Fourteenth Amendments” through “threats, intimidation, or coercion.”</p>

<p>Well, the freedom to practice religion as you see fit is very much a right protected under the First Amendment, and very much “violated” by Eastern Nazarene College when it requires students to attend Christian worship. And if you read the link, you’ll see that the same college’s rules also provide that students will be disciplined for using profanity, viewing pornography, or engaging in other kinds of FREE SPEECH otherwise protected by the First Amendment. Yet they haven’t been sued, and they won’t be sued. Why? Because private colleges are allowed to set community standards, even in Massachusetts.</p>

<p>If there’s some other law referring only to free speech, and not to the First Amendment in general, that you think retricts Williams’s actions under these circumstances, I’d like to know what it is.</p>

156

<p>“No one has ever won a suit against a school for disciplining a student under anything like these circumstances.”</p>

<p>(Not fair - all such suits - if they exist - would be settled out of court; a public precedent for any college would be too scary to contemplate.)</p>

157

<p>“all such suits - if they exist - would be settled out of court”</p>

<p>Assuming this is true, I invited Barrons to tell us about all the cases that were filed and then settled or dismissed. You wouldn’t get very far arguing that you were wrongly suspended by a private school for hanging up Hitler posters on Holocaust Remembrance Day. If you want to induce an experienced party to settle, it’s a good idea to have a non-laughable theory that has succeeded sometime, somewhere.</p>

158

<p>I think Mini’s point in post #153 is the most interesting (of a series of very interesting posts). Why is there only outrage over other forms of racism (which should cause outrage, BTW), and there is silence to anti-semitism.</p>

<p>I find the very same reaction at “progressive” sites, where people screach and holler about Jews running the world, and all the human rights abuses of Israel, and are positively mute about the horrific human rights abuses that are rampant in every Muslim country, from the Middle East to Africa.</p>

<p>There is quite a hypocritical double standard at Williams and elsewhere.</p>

159

<p>Besides your opinion Hanna, please show me one case or brief that supports your position. Everything I found points to broad protections for speech on college campuses. I posted them here for all to read and they seem crystal clear to me. It was not just the BU case. Several other related cases are cited around the US–even in states without the special law protecting private college students.
The bringing of colleges with a strict religious base into the debate is obfuscation as they are not under the same legal limitations as their faith and the rules that go with it are basic to their religion.</p>

<p>And I think you would get as far in a lawsuit as the Nazi’s who were allowed to march in the heavily Jewish town of Skokie, Il.</p>

<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>“and all the human rights abuses of Israel”</p>

<p>As you know, I’d be (and am) very noisy about those (and I probably have met more individuals and families from Rafah than everyone on this forum combined). But it doesn’t blind me to calling it as I see it. </p>

<p>I don’t, as a rule, think many colleges do particularly well when it comes to other forms of racism, either. But I do think that, generally speaking, students are more attuned to them, even if in a perfunctory sort of way. I don’t blame the students, they are supposed to be LEARNING from the adult role models around them. Say what?</p>