Dangers of a Trump Presidency--Part 7

BlueRidge

BlueRidge

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The Executive order is not about anti-Semitism it is about campus political activities with regard to Israel.

this from an article in the Washington Post:

Already, the Education Department had begun using this broader definition on its own, so the practical effect of Trump’s order is muted. Last year, the agency’s Office for Civil Rights revived an investigation into allegations of anti-Semitism at Rutgers University and in doing so said it would view discrimination against Jews as part of its mandate.

...In doing so, the department said it would rely on a definition of anti-Semitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. That definition includes “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor,” applying a double standard to Israel by requiring of it “behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation” and comparing “contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”
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The executive order enables anti-Semitism to be included under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to the Post, and that will allow the withholding of funding to education instituions.

I don't know much more than I've read in the article but it doesn't seem to me that there's any problem with defining anti-Semitism so that it can be included in policies that ban discrimination based on ethnicity. Its just the intent here.

 
PRlady

PRlady

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BlueRidge said:
The Executive order is not about anti-Semitism it is about campus political activities with regard to Israel.

this from an article in the Washington Post:



The executive order enables anti-Semitism to be included under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to the Post, and that will allow the withholding of funding to education instituions.

I don't know much more than I've read in the article but it doesn't seem to me that there's any problem with defining anti-Semitism so that it can be included in policies that ban discrimination based on ethnicity. Its just the intent here.

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If you’re interested, here’s the oped from the guy who actually wrote the IAHA definition, who opposes it being applied to college campuses: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/12/opinion/will-campus-criticism-of-israel-violate-federal-law.html

Although the executive order does not redefine Jews as a nationality, which would be very dangerous, there are real free speech problems with it. There are already ways that campuses can handle threatening behavior by students without shutting down debate.

(I certainly don’t think that Israel is a colonialist enterprise but it’s a legitimate academic debate.)
 
BlueRidge

BlueRidge

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On a different note, quoted in the Guardian, Nancy Pelosi:

I’ve said to many of my friends in the press, “You’re accomplices, whether you want to be or not,” [and they say,] “If he’s saying it, then it’s news.” I don’t think it’s news, but it monopolizes the airwaves. So there is a lot of responsibility to go around in terms of the creation of whatever that is in the White House.

But he has a tactic, one that is used by autocrats, which is, “Just as long as they’re talking about me, no matter if it’s bad, then you’re not talking about my opponent.” When [the press was] talking about him, they weren’t saying what Hillary was going to do about health care, to make our economy fair.
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he has a tactic, one that is used by autocrats: that is a really really important point.
 
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