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venerdì, 23 novembre 2007

Sul caso dell'Università del Delaware - Parte 3

Dall'articolo "Victory at University of Delaware" (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, 2 novembre 2007):

After an intense campaign led by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), the University of Delaware has dropped an ideological reeducation program that was referred to in the university’s own materials as a “treatment” for students’ incorrect attitudes and beliefs. The program’s stated goal was for the approximately 7,000 students in Delaware’s residence halls to adopt highly specific university-approved views on politics, race, sexuality, sociology, moral philosophy, and environmentalism. Following FIRE’s campaign, which called the attention of the national media and the blogosphere to the Orwellian program, university President Patrick Harker terminated the program, effective immediately.

“FIRE applauds President Harker for recognizing the chilling nature of this program and ending it,” FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. “Under the First Amendment, state institutions have no right to impose mandatory ideological training on their students. We are thrilled that this unconscionable and invasive program is gone, but we will be keeping an eye on the University of Delaware to make sure future programs respect the individual right of conscience of its students.”

Under the program, students were required to attend training sessions, floor meetings, and “one-on-one” meetings with their Resident Assistants (RAs). The university also instructed RAs to ask intrusive personal questions during one-on-one sessions, including “When did you discover your sexual identity?” A student who responded, “That is none of your damn business,” was, according to the university’s own materials, written up—along with the student’s name and room number—as having one of the “wors[t] one-on-one” sessions.

The program’s materials stated that the goal of the residence life education program was for students in the university’s residence halls to achieve certain “competencies” that the university decreed its students must develop in order to achieve the overall educational goal of “citizenship.” These “competencies” included: “Students will recognize that systemic oppression exists in our society,” “Students will recognize the benefits of dismantling systems of oppression,” and “Students will be able to utilize their knowledge of sustainability to change their daily habits and consumer mentality.” And in the Office of Residence Life’s internal materials, the program was described using the harrowing language of ideological reeducation, including referring to the program as “treatment” and defining “learning” as “specific attitudinal or behavioral changes.”

Following FIRE’s initial press release, the university’s administration first chose to defend its invasive and unconstitutional residence life education program. However, in a statement released late yesterday, President Harker stated, “I have directed that the program be stopped immediately. No further activities under the current framework will be conducted.” Harker also called for a “full and broad-based review” of the program’s practices and purposes.

While FIRE commends Harker’s decision, concerns remain about some aspects of life in the residence halls. For example, FIRE would like to know if RAs are still required to immediately report “[a]ny instance that is perceived by those involved as being racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, or otherwise oppressive.”

The assistance of the Delaware Association of Scholars was critical in the effort to eliminate the program, as was the willingness of Delaware students and RAs to attest to their experiences under this “treatment” program. The case also drew vast attention from the blogosphere, dramatically increasing the pressure on the university to either justify or abandon its thought reform program.

“Universities often cannot defend in public what they try to do in private, and the situation at Delaware was no exception,” Lukianoff said. “While we are pleased that this program is over, it is stunning that it ever existed at a public university in the United States. FIRE will continue to monitor the situation at Delaware and to fight against other ideological reeducation programs at schools across the nation.”

FIRE is a nonprofit educational foundation that unites civil rights and civil liberties leaders, scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals across the political and ideological spectrum on behalf of individual rights, due process rights, freedom of expression, and rights of conscience on our campuses. FIRE’s efforts to preserve liberty at the University of Delaware and elsewhere can be seen by visiting www.thefire.org.

postato da: Lif1 alle ore 21:19 | link |
categorie: documenti, nord america

Sul caso dell'Università del Delaware - Parte 2

Dall'articolo "University of Delaware Requires Students to Undergo Ideological Reeducation" (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, 30 ottobre 2007):

The University of Delaware subjects students in its residence halls to a shocking program of ideological reeducation that is referred to in the university’s own materials as a “treatment” for students’ incorrect attitudes and beliefs. The Orwellian program requires the approximately 7,000 students in Delaware’s residence halls to adopt highly specific university-approved views on issues ranging from politics to race, sexuality, sociology, moral philosophy, and environmentalism. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is calling for the total dismantling of the program, which is a flagrant violation of students’ rights to freedom of conscience and freedom from compelled speech.

“The University of Delaware’s residence life education program is a grave intrusion into students’ private beliefs,” FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. “The university has decided that it is not enough to expose its students to the values it considers important; instead, it must coerce its students into accepting those values as their own. At a public university like Delaware, this is both unconscionable and unconstitutional.”

The university’s views are forced on students through a comprehensive manipulation of the residence hall environment, from mandatory training sessions to “sustainability” door decorations. Students living in the university’s eight housing complexes are required to attend training sessions, floor meetings, and one-on-one meetings with their Resident Assistants (RAs). The RAs who facilitate these meetings have received their own intensive training from the university, including a “diversity facilitation training” session at which RAs were taught, among other things, that “[a] racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality.”

The university suggests that at one-on-one sessions with students, RAs should ask intrusive personal questions such as “When did you discover your sexual identity?” Students who express discomfort with this type of questioning often meet with disapproval from their RAs, who write reports on these one-on-one sessions and deliver these reports to their superiors. One student identified in a write-up as an RA’s “worst” one-on-one session was a young woman who stated that she was tired of having “diversity shoved down her throat.”

According to the program’s materials, the goal of the residence life education program is for students in the university’s residence halls to achieve certain “competencies” that the university has decreed its students must develop in order to achieve the overall educational goal of “citizenship.” These competencies include: “Students will recognize that systemic oppression exists in our society,” “Students will recognize the benefits of dismantling systems of oppression,” and “Students will be able to utilize their knowledge of sustainability to change their daily habits and consumer mentality.”

At various points in the program, students are also pressured or even required to take actions that outwardly indicate their agreement with the university’s ideology, regardless of their personal beliefs. Such actions include displaying specific door decorations, committing to reduce their ecological footprint by at least 20%, taking action by advocating for an “oppressed” social group, and taking action by advocating for a “sustainable world.”

In the Office of Residence Life’s internal materials, these programs are described using the harrowing language of ideological reeducation. In documents relating to the assessment of student learning, for example, the residence hall lesson plans are referred to as “treatments.”

In a letter sent yesterday to University of Delaware President Patrick Harker, FIRE pointed out the stark contradiction between the residence life education program and the values of a free society. FIRE’s letter to President Harker also underscored the University of Delaware’s legal obligation to abide by the First Amendment. FIRE reminded Harker of the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943), a case decided during World War II that remains the law of the land. Justice Robert H. Jackson, writing for the Court, declared, “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

“The fact that the university views its students as patients in need of treatment for some sort of moral sickness betrays a total lack of respect not only for students’ basic rights, but for students themselves,” Lukianoff said. “The University of Delaware has both a legal and a moral obligation to immediately dismantle this program, and FIRE will not rest until it has.”

FIRE is a nonprofit educational foundation that unites civil rights and civil liberties leaders, scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals across the political and ideological spectrum on behalf of individual rights, due process rights, freedom of expression, and rights of conscience on our campuses. FIRE would like to thank the Delaware Association of Scholars (DAS) for its invaluable assistance in this case. FIRE’s efforts to preserve liberty at the University of Delaware and elsewhere can be seen by visiting www.thefire.org.

postato da: Lif1 alle ore 21:16 | link |
categorie: documenti, nord america

domenica, 16 settembre 2007

Censura maomettana

Lettera delle famiglie islamiche di Coton Park contro l'apertura della fabbrica alimentare Pet Food Factory:

collegamento per scaricarne una copia (in PDF)

STATEMENT FROM MUSLIM FAMILIES LIVING ON

COTON PARK, RUGBY WARWICKSHIRE.

We live on a new housing development called Coton Park. It lies on the outskirts

of Rugby & is very close to both the Town Centre & the Motorways of M1 M6 &

A14. The area is very nice & well kept.

This proposed site of this Pet food Factory is close to this large new residential

area. Numerous offices, shops and a hotel are also close by. We know that there

are many others close by who also share our devout Muslim Faith & there will be

many people who are both family & friends visiting us who are also of the same

faith.

The owners of the proposed factory (Butcher's Pet Care) do not dispute the claim

that meat extracts of pork will be pumped into the atmosphere via a 100ft

chimney. They have said that there will not be any chemical treatment proposed

to treat the meat extracts prior to leaving the factory.

It is very likely that under certain weather conditions this meat material will not

be properly dispelled and will instead settle and in effect "rain down" on the

surrounding area. A significant proportion of meats used in the pet foods process

are pig meat.

As you will be aware our Religion expressly forbids us to consume pig meat in

any form. The Qur’an states in no less than 4 different places that pork shall not

be consumed. However, because of the way in which this meat material will leave

the factory & given that the area can be "rained upon" we will be consuming pork

e.g. via inhalation of this "rain". Not only that but our clothes also be

contaminated by pork.

"Forbidden to you (for food) are: dead meat, blood, the flesh of swine, and that

on which hath been invoked the name of other than Allah."

[Al-Qur’an 5:3]

Islam means "submission to the will and command of God" and a person who

embraces this religion is called "Muslim" which means "one who accepts and

submits himself to the will of God". A Muslim is obliged to be clean spiritually,

mentally and physically. Abstention from eating flesh of swine is one of the

obligations a Muslim must observe to attain purity of the soul and of the human

nature. Believers in Islam sincerely believe in the Holy Qur'an as the Word of

God, revealed to Prophet Muhammad.

Therefore we believe that not only will we be contaminated but also our Faith by

the owners of this proposed pet food plant. In this country we are allowed the

right to follow our religion & religious beliefs & others have recognised this right

of expression. By allowing this plan to go ahead our Religious rights are being

swept to one side for what appears to be economic greed. We feel sure that there

are other areas where this factory could be built that would not impact on us or

others like us.

Dated 29

th July 2007.

postato da: Lif1 alle ore 18:10 | link |
categorie: documenti, regno unito

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Sul caso dell'Università del Delaware - Parte 3

Sul caso dell'Università del Delaware - Parte 2

Censura maomettana