UPDATE: It appears that Francisco Nava is behind the threats and inflicted his own injuries. In keeping with my previous policy of condemning false hate crimes, I wholeheartedly condemn his actions.

In light of this development, I believe that Nava needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, as well as having appropriate disciplinary action taken against him by Princeton – which, in my opinion, should be expulsion. That said, the anemic reaction of Princeton University to earlier reports of threats – and to the current ones – is distressing, even if they originated with Nava. Princeton would have no doubt gone into crisis mode, as it did with the gay students noted in the McGinley columns referenced below, had the earlier threats (frauds that they were) been received by an outspoken minority student. If they had done so at that time, Nava's misdeeds would have been uncovered then and the later incidents would not have occurred. My fear is that this point will be missed in all the discussion of this serious series of incidents being fabricated. It should not be.

And before anyone asks, I specifically do not offer an apology to columnist Jason Sheltzer. I believe my assessment of his column, which was shared by numerous letter-writers published by the Daily Princetonian, is accurate. His column was motivated by the very sort of bias and bigotry that he condemned in the Anscombe Society -- and fell well-short of any standard of intellectual rigor.

An interesting situation has come into being at Princeton this week, one which is antithetical to the purpose of a university -- and which shows just how far down the path of fascism one side of the political/social/moral divide has descended.

Some quick background. A group of students organized a group called the Anscombe Society at Princeton University and obtained recognition two years ago. They have held a national conference, helped organize chapters on other campuses, and have recently seen one of their members named a Rhodes Scholar. They are an organization that promotes traditional moral values with regard to sexuality and gender -- positions that were definitely mainstream within my lifetime, and which are still overwhelmingly held by a majority of Americans. they seek to promote their views through debate, discussion and intellectual persuasion. And that is something that is threatening to the Left, and which cannot be allowed to remain unchallenged.

And so Princeton students awoke on Wednesday, December 12, to find the group attacked in in the Daily Princetonian a column by columnist Jason Sheltzer.

The Anscombe Society deserves a closer look, and what one uncovers isn't pretty.



I spent a few hours browsing through the Anscombe Society's website and reading the "Articles of the Week" distributed to their listserv. I found much more than benevolent admonitions to wait until marriage. Instead, the Anscombe Society has taken a strong stance against equal rights for gays and lesbians and is in favor of a return to "traditional gender roles."

In other words, Sheltzer declared the Anscombe Society to be a hate group. Interestingly enough, Sheltzer does not actually take the time to refute any of the positions the group takes or any of the arguments made in articles he quotes (I suspect he lacks the intellectual capacity to do so). Instead, he simply implies that the members of the Anscombe society are not "morally conscious" and that they promote "religious propaganda", and that they preach "wrongheaded notions."

Now perhaps it is purely coincidental, but within hours of the publication of Sheltzer's screed, someone acted upon it, seeking to ensure that such
wrongheaded notions" ceased being preached by those who are not "morally conscious".

Four officers of the Anscombe Society and a prominent conservative politics professor received threatening emails Wednesday evening from off-campus email addresses.

The five individuals received identical messages telling them they would "suffer," ordering them to "shut the fuck up" and declaring that "you are not welcome here." "We will destroy you," the message said.

Though the message did not explicitly mention the Anscombe Society, the four students who received emails were Anscombe vice president Jonathan Hwang '09, president Kevin Staley-Joyce '09, former president Sherif Girgis '08 and administrative committee chair Francisco Nava '09. Politics professor Robert George — who has publicly supported conservative causes, including the Anscombe Society's goal of promoting chastity — also received the message.

"It would be safe to say that the Anscombe Society is a common factor linking all of us," Hwang said. "It is the most intense reaction to the Anscombe Society that I've ever received."

University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt '96 said the University is investigating the threat but declined to elaborate because of security concerns. "The normal protocol for these types of threats is for public safety to determine the credibility and proceed to investigate," she said in an email.

Now I won't claim that Sheltzer is in any way morally, legally, or personally responsible for these threats -- though I would be willing to bet that Sheltzer would make precisely such an assertion if a conservative student had written such a piece against a liberal group and it had been followed immediately by death threats against that group's officers and adviser. After all, it would be the clearly foreseeable consequence of such speech, he and his fellow liberals would no doubt argue, claiming that such speech had created a hostile environment for and diminished the safety of the members of whichever protected class the group represented. Such threats would have become the university's top priority -- and "normal protocol" would have been suspended by the University, with the threats being immediately treated as serious and solidarity shown with the threatened group.

That didn't happen.

Indeed, it hadn't happened the last time Anscombe Society members had received such threats.

It is tempting to believe that this is only an isolated incident. It is not. These tactics are part of a pattern designed to silence members of our community who speak out against the hookup culture and sexual liberationist ideology.

Francisco Nava '09 returned to Princeton after the summer break feeling a new sense of intellectual liberation. He had resolved to a kind of political coming-out, deciding that he would, as he told me, "no longer mask my views on contemporary moral issues."

And so he joined the Anscombe Society as an active member. He spoke up in class and precept in order to defend the beliefs that do not just belong to him — they define him and his faith. It was then that he was first faced with personal intimidation here at Princeton University. Anonymously scrawled on a piece of paper and laid hauntingly in his mailbox, Nava found the aggressive message: "YOU HAVE FOUND THE WRONG CAUSE."

Though rendered a little "afraid and paranoid" by the malice behind such a threat, Francisco tried to let it slip from his mind. Mustering the courage to continue to speak out, he published a well-argued opinion piece in these pages entitled "Princeton's Latex Lies." Heralded by some and denounced by others, the article prompted campus-wide discussion of pertinent issues of health and morality.

Two days passed. Returning from Sunday morning church services, Nava discovered a new note written with the same ominous green and black ink as the first. It read, chillingly: "ONE MORE ARTICLE AND YOU WON'T LIVE TO SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY."

He wrote to me: "For several days I lived in fear of saying, writing or even thinking anything controversial in class or informally among my friends." Nava's foray into intellectual openness came to an abrupt, horrible stop. And only a week later, a third threat with the same message was placed in his mailbox.

On the afternoon of the second threat, Public Safety dutifully arrived on the scene and collected the letter as evidence. Presumably a report was filed and, as Nava, an alternate RCA, informed me, all reports involving students are forwarded to the administration. Herein lies the most disturbing detail: The administration of Princeton University knows that a member of its student body has had his life threatened. And nothing happened.

After nearly a month of waiting, he received a two-line email from Public Safety. But from Butler College, from Nassau Hall, from West College, there was nothing.

As Princetonian columnist Brandon McGinley points out, this stands in stark contrast to how Princeton had responded to another such incident around the same time.

It is instructive here to compare the treatment of Nava, the morally conservative Mormon student, with the administration's swift and forceful reaction to another incident on Princeton's campus.

Returning from Fall Break, some homosexual students found obscenities — apparently phalluses and other images — sketched on the blackboards outside their rooms. Within a few hours, Whitman College had RCAs, counselors and two deans to the scene. The LGBT Center sent out a notice about the event and encouraged students to mount pink triangles in their windows and doors to show solidarity.

On the afternoon of Sunday, Nov. 11, Nava sat alone in his room. There were no counselors. There were no deans. There was no University-sponsored center to raise awareness, offer support and encourage solidarity. There was just Francisco.

It seems pretty clear who is valued and protected by the university, isn't it -- and that if you are a conservative student with traditional religious values, you are not valued and will not be protected by the university when your life is threatened. You certainly will not receive the sort of outspoken, public support that gay students will receive when confronted with disgusting images. After all, what is one potentially dead conservative religious student when there are offended homosexuals to be comforted and lifted up? Such a conservative is not the victim of a hate crime (and, unlike the offended gay students, Nava was the victim of a crime) -- and besides, with his positions he deserves to be hated, reviled and harassed, right?

Now this would be a scandalous enough situation if the story ended there. It didn't.

Francisco Nava '09 was physically attacked by two men in Princeton Township Friday evening, sustaining a concussion but no other serious injuries. The assault comes on the heels of several threatening messages recently sent to Nava, apparently in connection with his involvement with the socially conservative Anscombe Society.

Details of the incident have not been confirmed by Princeton Township Police or the University Medical Center at Princeton, but Nava said in an interview Friday evening that he was walking from a borrowed car to the house of a boy he is mentoring when he was stopped by a man dressed in black and wearing a ski cap. According to Nava, the man said that someone was hurt and asked for his help. A second assailant, who was waiting around the corner, grabbed Nava from behind. Together, the two men checked him against a wall and repeatedly hit his head against the bricks.

"Eventually I just blacked out," Nava said in an interview last night. "I don't remember what happened; I just saw a bunch of white." When he came to, he said, the two men were still hitting him.

The two men told Nava to "shut the fuck up" as they left him lying on the ground. Though he was carrying a wallet, credit cards and a cell phone, the assailants did not take any of Nava's belongings.

Indeed, Nava draws the obvious connection between this act of physical violence designed to silence him and the threats that have been coming for months with no significant action by the university.

There have been two very interesting and eloquent posts on The Prox, the blog of the Daily Princetonian. Also interesting is the lack of comment there from columnist Jason Sheltzer. I guess his moral consciousness is out at the dry cleaners or some such thing.

And, for that matter, so was the moral consciousness of the Princeton University community as a whole. The scheduled event expressing solidarity with the conservative victims of these hate crimes did not happen after all. I guess they don't have enough PC points to qualify for support. But it appears that conservative students at Princeton plan on standing firm for their principles.

And somehow, neither the local paper nor the national media can be troubled to report the story. maybe its because Princeton itself refuses to issue an alert to students about the incident or take any serious action in response to the threats or the attack.

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Posted by: Greg at 05:26 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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We've got public colleges and universities installing special Muslim footbaths and other accommodations that would never be given to Christians, Jews, or other religious groups. Now we've got one school that has effectively created a mosque in what is supposedly a non-sectarian "meditation room".

Last week, I visited a Muslim place of worship. A schedule for Islam's five daily prayers was posted at the entrance, near a sign requesting that shoes be removed. Inside, a barrier divided men's and women's prayer space, an arrow informed worshippers of the direction of Mecca, and literature urged women to cover their faces.

Sound like a mosque?

The place I'm describing is the "meditation room" at Normandale Community College, a 9,200-student public institution in Bloomington.

Architectural features have been added to "accommodate" Muslims. Students are directed to follow Muslim practices when they enter the room. The only literature available there is Muslim. There is nothing there that accommodates members of any other faith group. And what's more, attempts by members of other religious traditions to use the facility have been met with acts of bigotry and intolerance from Muslim students.

Confrontations also erupted in the sex-segregated meditation room, according to Lunaas. "Muslim students just took it over. They made people who were not of the Muslim religion feel very uncomfortable, especially if they were female."

One female student tried to use the room when Muslim students were in it, said Lunaas. "She believed she should be treated equally. They were telling her to leave, to take off her shoes, to go to the other side of the divider."

The response of college officials?

[Dean of Student Affairs Ralph] Anderson said that in the incident involving the young woman, "both sides were probably out of line."

Both sides were probably out of line? How, exactly, was the young woman out of line? By trying to make use of a university provided facility? By refusing to follow a religious tradition not her own? While I am sure that there is significantly more to the story than we are told in this commentary piece, it seems pretty clear that refusing to abide by demands that she not use the space as an equal and in a manner that is in accord with her religious tradition is not "out of line". And if Anderson believes the young woman was "out of line" for making a forthright, and perhaps even heated, defense of her right to not be treated as a second-class citizen in a public space on a public college campus where she is a student, I think it is fair to say that the college is out of line in employing him in any capacity.

But then again, perhaps the reality is that we have reached an Orwellian situation where certain animals are more equal than others. And rather than the communist pigs of Animal Farm being more equal than the rest, perhaps at Normandale Community College we are dealing with Muslim pigs seeking to dhimmify the other animals on campus.

H/T Captain's Quarters, Powerline

Posted by: Greg at 10:46 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 Because everyone knows what Mohammed's Little Darlings can do if they should ever get Upset (TM)... And the Islamic Caliphate continues its march to Global Triumph. Does the Koran have any commandments as to what predators are to eat after they've killed off all their prey?

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Posted by: Robert at Thu Apr 30 20:56:39 2009 (0Jwqn)

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I’m a public school teacher – and used to be a private school teacher.

I attended public schools – and also attended private schools.

I attended public universities – and one private one.

My cousin home schools her kids – and many of my top students have at least some home schooling background.

What IÂ’m suggesting is that I see the benefits and drawbacks of different sorts of education, and the appropriateness of different types of education for different kids.

But I wonder if the “pro-education” folks in South Carolina would consider me fit to serve on – much less head – the state board of education.

WednesdayÂ’s choice of a home-schooling educator to be the State Board of EducationÂ’s chairwoman in 2009 signals a new dynamic in the stateÂ’s crusade to fix its troubled public schools.

Kristin Maguire, of Clemson, would be the nationÂ’s only home-schooling educator to lead a state school board if she took office this year, according to the National Association of State Boards of Education.

Maguire lobbied intensively for legislation that created a statewide charter school system and has voiced support for Sanford allies who want the Legislature to OK financial incentives for parents who send their children to private schools or educate them at home.

Maguire says political or philosophical differences she might have with others won’t distract her from being an advocate for improving education “for all children.”

Of course, Maguire just infuriates those who support monopolistic public education.

Others see Maguire’s election as a step backward — or at the least, a distraction.

Molly Spearman, a former educator and lawmaker who heads the S.C. Association of School Administrators, said, “It’s time for public school supporters to take the election of legislators and appointments to state boards more seriously. We need people who are going to make sure we have people committed to moving public education forward.”

Spearman, of course, has it exactly wrong. What we need on the state and national level are people who are going to move EDUCATION, not PUBLIC EDUCATION, forward. And part of that involves recognizing and acting on the reality I pointed to above, namely that a traditional public school classroom is not necessarily the best option for every student. That is why I support charter schools. That is why I support private schools (both religious and non-religious). That is why I support home schooling. They each meet the educational needs and desires of a subset of students and their families better than the traditional public school classroom that I teach in. And there is no sound reason – educational, constitutional, or moral – for not providing state funding and assistance to each and every one of those sorts of educational formats. After all, we need to ensure that every child receives the opportunity for a quality education that helps develop the student to the fullest. That is a simple matter of equity, of justice, and of decency.

Not that Spearman was alone in her assessment.

Leaders from the public education establishment were displeased by her election.

Sheila Gallagher, president of the S.C. Education Association, a teachers’ group, called the vote “a missed opportunity.” Gallagher said the DuBard family is well known in the Pee Dee area as public education advocates.

“His children attend public schools, and he knows what is happening there,” Gallagher said.

Business leaders had a mixed reaction.

Jim Reynolds, a Columbia businessman active in business group activities focusing on education, said, “I don’t think it’s going to hit the radar.”
Reynolds said South Carolinians are focused on finding solutions to public education problems and not the debate about funneling state aid to support private schools.

“Those are the things that capture the attention of South Carolina and the nation rather than the selection of the position of chair of the State Board of Education,” Reynolds said.

Lee Bussell of Columbia, the 2007 state Chamber of Commerce businessman of the year, said MaguireÂ’s election is shocking.

“It’s like having a CEO of an airline who has no experience flying,” he said. “I don’t think (home-schoolers) ought to be put in a leadership position in something as important as public education. It is the foundation for everything we need to do to improve our state. The one place we don’t need partisan politics is in our school.”

Some Democrats were quick to criticize MaguireÂ’s selection.

“Having Kristin Maguire chair the State Board of Education is akin to Dick Cheney teaching a gun safety course,” said state Democratic Party Chairwoman Carol Fowler.

“What does a woman who home-schools her four children know about South Carolina public schools?”

LetÂ’s notice the condescension in all of those comments. They assume that government-operated schools are the only option. They assume that those who home school are ignorant and know nothing of education generally and public schools in particular. And worst of all, they make a mockery of the notion that citizens who exercise their right to directly oversee the education of their own children should have a voice in the direction of public education, despite the fact that they are taxpayers whose tack money is being spent on public schools they are not using. Such a position is a rejection of the

And I love the juxtaposition of the statements of the Chamber of Commerce representative and the Democrat hack – one declaring that we don’t need politics in our schools, and one explicitly politicizing the selection of Maguire with partisan insults. But then again, the supporters of the status quo in education lack any real answers to the tough questions that get asked about improving education, and they lack any new solutions to the problems that have arisen doing things their way. So instead of engaging their opponents, they actively seek to “kill the messenger” when change agents like Maguire achieve a position that allows them to actually influence education policy. And that is not merely bad policy, it is also a rejection of the basic civic value of public participation in government.

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Posted by: Greg at 11:52 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I've got no use for teachers who sexually abuse students. If this guy did this thing, I hope he rots. But the details here leave me asking one question.

On Nov. 30th, Antrim brought the teen to his home in Rogers, Minn. where she spent the weekend. She called her father and told him she was staying at a friendÂ’s house. According to the charges, Antrim had sex with his player on the night of Dec. 1 to Dec. 2.

In a statement, Antrim told police he gave her the cell phone and iPod as gifts. He admitted sending suggestive text messages and said he had been having “issues” lately. He admitted having sex with the teen the previous weekend.

Nathan Paul Antrim is in police custody and faces up 15 years in prison and a $30,000 fine if convicted.

So, does anyone want to guess the odds of this guy getting a sentence like all these buxom young (and not-so-young) have gotten? I'm willing to bet that he does the full 15 years. After all, there does remain a double standard in the application of the law that no one wants to address.

Posted by: Greg at 02:27 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I'm wary of disciplining teachers for their online writings -- especially since I'm a teacher who writes a controversial political blog and who has been attacked by my political opponents. I've even had a couple attempt to interfere with my employment because they don't like what I write. But even without that experience, my natural inclination is to be supportive of the First Amendment rights of my fellow educators.

But I think this one probably went far enough that action should be taken.

Bloggers and free speech advocates are calling on prosecutors not to file charges against a teacher arrested for allegedly posting an anonymous comment online praising the Columbine shooters.

Some were disturbed by the post police say James Buss left on a conservative blog, but other observers said it was a sarcastic attempt to discredit critics of education spending.

The suburban Milwaukee high school chemistry teacher was arrested last week for the Nov. 16 comment left on http://www.bootsandsabers.com, a blog on Wisconsin politics. The comment, left under the name "Observer," came during a discussion over teacher salaries after some commenters complained teachers were underworked and overpaid.

Buss, a former president of the teacher's union, allegedly wrote that teacher salaries made him sick because they are lazy and work only five hours a day. He praised the teen gunmen who killed 12 students and a teacher before committing suicide in the April 1999 attack at Columbine High School.

"They knew how to deal with the overpaid teacher union thugs. One shot at a time!" he wrote, adding they should be remembered as heroes.

The comment disturbed at least one teacher, who called police in West Bend, 40 miles north of Milwaukee and home of the blog's administrator. Police traveled to arrest Buss at his home in Cudahy, south of Milwaukee, last week after the blogger gave them the anonymous poster's IP address.

After his arrest, Buss spent an hour in the Washington County jail before he was released on $350 bail. He did not return phone messages and e-mails seeking comment, and it was unclear whether he had a lawyer.

How should this be handled? I'm not entirely sure, but I think that a good place to start would be to consider how a student who wrote that comment would be dealt with by both the law and the school. I suspect that there might be criminal charges -- at least a misdemeanor -- if this were a student. I'm certain that the student would face expulsion from school over words like these, which would be appropriately seen as a threat due to the lack of any context that could make them appear otherwise.

Obviously, Buss should receive a similar treatment -- and I can't help but argue that such misconduct could be legitimate grounds for termination. And given some of the cases in which I've supported the free expression rights of teachers and students who have done things I find distasteful outside of instructional time, I hope you realize how difficult it is for me to take such position.

And best regards to the guys at Boots and Sabers for their fine way of handling the issue. Their post on the incident is here.

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