"Are we going to be open to a variety of different perspectives versus are we going to limit and censor and shut down the educational experience and environment to keep out people with certain views?"
Hmmm. That's a tough one. Better ask Omid Safi.
By Yonat Shimron for the Raleigh News & Observer, with thanks to Twostellas:
The former Enloe High School history teacher who invited a Christian evangelist to speak to his students is not taking his reprimand quietly.Social studies teacher Robert Escamilla said the Wake County school system squelched free speech and academic freedom -- and he is finding a growing group of supporters.
In the days since he was reassigned to Mary E. Phillips High School, 100 of his former students have signed a petition to have him reinstated at Enloe. The chairwoman of the social studies department at Enloe wrote a forceful letter to the school board calling him a "sacrificial lamb." A Web site (www.freeesco.com) is being built and bank account has been set up to help with his legal bills.
Escamilla maintains he did nothing wrong when he invited Kamil Solomon, an Egyptian-born Christian who lives in Raleigh, to speak to 300 or so Enloe students about his persecution at the hands of the Egyptian government. On the contrary, Escamilla said, he thought the visit by the evangelist was an educational exercise that exposed his students to different opinions and challenged them to form their own views.
The question is this, he said: "Are we going to be open to a variety of different perspectives versus are we going to limit and censor and shut down the educational experience and environment to keep out people with certain views?"
Escamilla, who readily avows his own Christian faith, acknowledges that Solomon was not neutral toward Muslims. But he insists that his guest did not denigrate Islam or attempt to convert students to Christianity during the visit.
The school system sees it differently. In a sharply worded release last month, Wake County Schools Superintendent Del Burns said Solomon's primary message was to convey his anti-Muslim and pro-Christian views. Burns has apologized to Muslims for Solomon's visit. And he issued new guidelines that require guest speakers to sign forms saying they will not denigrate any culture, race, gender, national origin or religion....
Yup.
Remember students...
It's OKAY to have lectures naming Israel and America as the source of all evil on Planet Earth, but giving a lecture on persecution at the hands of a Middle Eastern Government is a no-no!!
Wow.........
Imagine if...
WWII
It's OKAY to give a lecture about how mean America was to embargo Japan's oil supply from the Indies, but giving a lecture on the persecution of Jews by the SS is a no-no!!
_______
Personally, liberals were unable to have Nazism all over the world, then unable to have Communism, so now they will have Islamic Sharia all over the world instead.
Monkeywho sez:
Personally, liberals were unable to have Nazism all over the world, then unable to have Communism, so now they will have Islamic Sharia all over the world instead.
This is why 'liberalism', is identified as a 'mental illness', by some people.
In the case stated in the article,they are probably all liberal's. The whole affair sound's wacky to me.
I would like to hear Soloman's speech, the article list's nothing specific that he said, that was suspect.
That's why mama always said: "Don't be so open-minded your brains fall out."
Most, if not all, of the education system is liberal.
When I was a teacher in a former life ('92-'93), I remember another teacher 2 doors down with Clinton/Gore stickers & button not only decorating her classroom, but hanging from 'her portion' of the hallway!!!
I made it clear to other teachers that if I'd done the same with Bush/Quayle paraphernalia I'd been strung up and left to dry, and that I didn't appreciate the hypocrisy. That led to...nothing.
That's one of the many reasons I saw that led me to believe I would NEVER allow my children to step foot in any education system nowadays. Too much of that crap floatin' around. Good thing I don't have kids, or I'd have to educate or re-educate them constantly. Too old & tired for that!
...Is this the same school system that OKs "Muslim Day", where students must dress as Muslims, eat Muslim Food and be required to recite a passage from the Qur'an?.....
...probably...
"Burns has apologized to Muslims for Solomon's visit. And he issued new guidelines that require guest speakers to sign forms saying they will not denigrate any culture, race, gender, national origin or religion.."
-- from the article
Disgusting. Disgusting because we know that that form which one is now forced to sign would not stop any "Palestinian" or other Arab or Muslim from presenting a highly tendentious view of the Lesser Jihad against Israel that would tend -- has tended all over Western Europe -- to both exploit pre-existing, and promote, the pathological mental condition known as antisemitism.
Disgusting because the treatment by the Egyptian government of Christian Copts is a subject of great and enduring interest. If an Egyptian Copt now lives in the area, if he can testify as to the treatment of Copts by Muslims in Egypt today, and the role of the Egyptian government, should he be prevented from doing so? On what theory? What does Superintendent Del Burns think of Francis Bok and the other "Lost Boys" of the southern Sudan, the Christian and animist black Africans who were killed -- some 1.8 million killed -because of the deliberate policies of the Arabs who run the Sudan?
If Francis Bok were to be willing to come and speak before student groups in North Carolina (and here's an idea: invite him), would Superintendent Burns prevent him from speaking? Would Francis Bok not be allowed to testify as to what the Muslim Arabs of the north did to the black Africans of the south? Would that be impermissible because, in the view of Superintendent Del Burns, such statements would "denigrate any culture, race, gender, national origin or religion.."
It is this absurd ban, and the dangerously broad language of Superintendent Del Burns, that should be the subject of strict, and devastating, scrutiny. And it is he, rather, who should, pour encourager les autres like him all around the country, lose his job, his mandate. He's in the wrong job, in the wrong country. I'm sure he can get a job working for John Esposito at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, beavering away at the task of protecting Islam and Muslims from the slightest criticism, no matter how emninently justified.
Surely the treatment of the Copts can help to explain what is now happening, has been happening, to hundreds of thousands of Assyrians and Chaldeans, and to Mandaeans, and Yazidis -- that is, to all non-Muslims in Iraq -- at the hands of those who can now practice their Islam without being reigned in, for reasons having nothing to do with sympathy for Christians and everything to do with calculated realpolitik, by the late Saddam Hussein.
But this lesson will not be learned. The understanding that might come from greater understanding of how Christians or other non-Muslims are treated not just in Iraq, but in Egypt, or in Lebanon (where only the size of the Christian community has helped to keep it from outright persecution, but the steady pressure of Islam is whittling down the Maronites who are the original inhabitants of Lebanon, and who were there before the Arabs arrived with their "gift" of Islam), will not be permitted as long as Superintendent Del Burns is there to enforce the Don't-Say-Anything-Uncomplimentary-About-Islam Act that he himself proposed, and immediately past, without any discussion with himself, and with nary a dissenting vote.
Escamilla teaches a class in the "Bible in History" which is an elective approved by the State Legislature and the Board of Education. How can they expect to teach effects of the Bible in history without showing the very individuals it has effected so strongly, individuals like Kamil Solomon. Besides, how many Muslims are going to sign up for a class on the Bible?
Superintendent Del Burns could fit right into a "thought crime" social system on the model of the old Soviet empire or the current Chinese empire.
Logically, he would be put in charge of interrogating suspected counter-revolutionaries--making them sign confessions for derogating the Supreme Leader or for criticizing the Great Revolution.
He would banish "intellectual hooligans," first to re-education camps, and then, for the more obstinate ones, to the gulag for the heinous crime of insufficient enthusiasm in voicing The Party Line.
Del Burns should be summarily fired for educational malpractice.
If someone knows the names and e-mail addresses of Superintendent Del Burns, of the members of the Wake County Board of Education as well as North Carolina State Board of Education please post them. They need to be flooded with e-mails showing this has world-wide attention. If we have learned anything from the Muslims, it is that loud and persistent outrage is effective.
We need to express that outrage because this not only offends Christians but is an offense against everyone who believes in freedom of speech or who believes that high school students need to hear more than just one side of this issue.
Oops: the names and e-mail adresses of Superintendent Del Burns' staff, the members of the Wake County board...
"And he issued new guidelines that require guest speakers to sign forms saying they will not denigrate any culture, race, gender, national origin or religion...."
So, we are left to endorse or at best remain neutral in the face of cannibalism in Papua-New Guinea, female infanticide in China, and the subjugation of dhimmis in Darul Islam. After all, these are cultural (and/or religious) predilections.
Who would've believed 35 years ago, when education was opening up in the West and sacred cows of all kinds were being shattered, that we'd be stuck where we are today. Then, conservatives and liberals vied with one another for control of education and new paradigms of teaching and learning were assented to; today, the Left completely dominates and censorship is more stultifying then ever.
What the hell has become of the state of North Carolina? It seems there are a lot of these type stories coming out of the Tarheel state lately. Where the hell is Jesse Helms when you need him?
NC State Board of Education
6302 Mail Service Center,
Raleigh, NC 27699-6302.
phone: 919.807.3304
fax: 919.807.3198
State Superintendent: June Atkinson
Office of the State Superintendent
NC Education Building
6301 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-6301
phone: 919.807.3430
jatkinson@dpi.state.nc.us
Wake County Superintendent Adelphos (Del) Burns
Wake County Public School System Central Office
3600 Wake Forest Road
P.O. Box 28041
Raleigh, NC 27611-8041
Phone: 919.850.1600
Fax: 919.850.1618
Escamilla said: ""Over the years, I've made it a point to have a variety of different speakers come to classes," he said, adding he once invited a student speaker who called himself a Satanist.”"
--from the article.
School board is okay with Satanists talking about their religion in schools, but not okay with a Christian criticizing Islam's treatment of non-Muslims.
"And he issued new guidelines that require guest speakers to sign forms saying they will not denigrate any culture, race, gender, national origin or religion...."
So a speaker on the Aztecs would say, "and they used to sacrifice people here to the sun god", then hastily realise what he said, and say, "not that sacrificing anyone is wrong or anything, it all depends on your point of view."
Or, perhaps the speaker on ancient rome, would say, "and now the roman's carried out they're cultural perogative to rape, murder and torture in every place they invaded, not that that's wrong or anything, I didn't mean to imply that."
Get a Jewish survivor of the death camps in, and the minute he starts to denigrate National Socialism, and the Teutonic ideal, hussle him out of the room.
God these people, how do they get to be in charge.
Heaven forbid we should criticise anybody for anything.
Wouldn't want anyone to criticize anything.
Class...our next speaker is the Grand Kleagle of the Knights of the KKK talking about the serious historical misunderstanding of 'lynching', which was actually a form of compassionate assisted-suicide of depressed Negroes in the rural South.
Where's Billy Graham & Organization, The Baptists & Methodists of North Carolina when they are needed to support FREEDOM OF SPEECH, FREEDOM OF RELIGION, & FREEDOM OF PRESS when it's in their own backyard in North Carolina schools, colleges, and universities?
My deceased North Carolina father and his Moravian Protestant ancestors( Moravia Province of now Czech Republic) who fled the Catholic Austrian-Hungarian Empire for these same censorships and religious persecutions of Protestants in the 1700's to North Carolina must be rolling over in their graves!
The TRUTH will set you FREE!
ABOLISH W.T.O., G.A.T.T. & N.A.F.T.A. & C.A.F.T.A. & ALL TRADE AGREEMENTS and replace them with BALANCED TRADE!
The solution to bring back U.S.A. prosperity and real democratic representation not bought by SPECIAL INTERESTS, BIG OIL & MUSLIM OR COMMUNIST DICTATORSHIPS are 5 Constitutional Amendments:
#1. Balanced Trade: every country who sells in the U.S.A. should buy equal amount of products from the U.S.A. !
#2. Public Financing of All Political Elections: (Federal, State, County, City or Township) with no personal or outside contributions! see: wwwjust6.org
#3 National Referendum Votes: (for Federal, State, County, City, & Township)4 times a year where citizens can over ride the President, Congress, & the Supreme Court and any politician with a 2/3 majority! ( just like Switzerland)
#4 Environmental & Worker's Human Rights Amendment-Enforce all worker rights in a worldwide trading partner to unionize, have health and safety standards, human rights standards, and enforce all world standards for environmental manufacturing and disposal of hazardous materials with loss of trade for non-compliance! ( see http://www.amnesty.org/actnow/)
#5 Citizenship will not be automaticly granted to any child born in the U.S.A.'s 50 states until it is documented by the birth records of the parents that at least one parent is a legal citizen or legal resident alien of the U.S.A. ( just like most European countirs and Japan)
Until then we have Government Of The Rich, By The Rich & For The Rich ruining the U.S.A. through exploitation of tax loopholes, trade and import treaties and illegal alien labor!
P.S. I BOYCOTT WAL-MART & SAM'S CLUB (A.K.A. SLAVE-MART for the treatment of their employees and their Foreign Sweatshop Suppliers treatment of their employees)& YOU SHOULD TOO BECAUSE THEY ARE MONOPOLISTS, ANTI-ENVIRONMENT, ANTI-UNION, ANTI-SMALL BUSINESS, ANTI-WOMEN, ANTI-ENVOIRNMENT,ANTI-FREE SPEECH IN MEDIA, ANTI-FULL TIME WORKERS, ANTI-WORKER BENEFITS,ARE THE WORLD'S LARGEST IMPORTER FROM COMMUNIST CHINA & MUSLIM DICTATORSHIPS,& EMPLOY ILLEGAL ALIENS AS SUBCONTACTORS TO BUILD & CLEAN THEIR STORES: see info at http://walmartwatch.com
P.S.S. Wal-Mart's owners the Waltons want you to vote for Hillary Clinton (she was their lawyer at Rose Law Firm with Vince Foster( who mysteriously was found dead), and Wal-Mart Board Member with Sam Walton). The Waltons of Wal-Mart previously funded the Clinton's political campaigns along with Clinton /Gore & Bush/Cheney both administrations that exported jobs and capital and imported goods and services and tolerated millions of illegal aliens employed in the companies of their main campaign contributors!
Boycott all TYSON FOODS & CARGILL CORPORATION PRODUCTS for hiring illegal alien subcontractors! Boycott all the products of companies that hire illegal aliens or subcontacters employing illegal aliens instead of American Citizens or Legal Residents!
see: www.wehirealiens.com
profitsbeard
Lol