Month: December 2020

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

We have been discussing student editors and student government leaders using their positions to retaliate against the exercise of free speech by other students with the support of faculty. This trend is hardly surprising as journalism deans call for censorship and journalism professors call for the rejection of neutrality in the media. Universities have generally remained passive as students and faculty harass and punish those with opposing views.  The latest such example was detailed in a column on the site College Fix on how students at Cornell University moved to oust student representatives who voted against disarming and defunding campus police.

According to the report, students failed to pass a resolution calling for the defunding and disarming of the Cornell Police Department. After the measure failed, student leaders called for the removal of opposing leaders from committees or the student government as a whole.

Uchenna Chukwukere, the Student Assembly vice president of finance declared

“These 15 student assembly members watched us pour out our traumas and fears on the floor practically begging them to vote no, and finally send a message to the university that we can no longer allow these oppressive institutions to keep us down. Many of these assembly members are white-cis-het men and women who quite literally laughed and danced in our faces when the resolution failed…Their faces are all over social media…We will never forget… their campus careers are over… We must disarm, defund, and disband the Cornell University Police Department.”

Eventually, after a series of failed votes, the student organizers were able to pass Resolution 30, calling to disarm campus police by two votes.

Student Dakota Johnson, a Marine veteran, recounted a confrontation with a government leader where he was allegedly told that:

“As a white man, you cannot be the arbiter of what is and isn’t racist and who is a good or bad person. … You will never be the arbiter because you are a white man.”

The question is the responsibility of universities when students use their positions to deny the free speech of other students or punish those who hold opposing views. There has been a conspicuous silence from faculty ad administrators as both free speech and academic freedom has been attacked in recent years. It is a disgraceful failure to protect the foundational values for academia. Many are afraid of being the next to be targeted by campaigns like those directed against the students at Cornell.  This silence has continued even as faculty are hounded for their views or writings.  We have been discussing these cases across the country including a similar effort to oust a leading economist from the University of Chicago as well as an effort at Harvard targeting a leading academic.  It is part of a wave of intolerance sweeping over our colleges and our newsrooms — a campaign that will devour its own in the loss of academic freedoms and free speech.

Even if we will not protect our colleagues, we have a duty to protect the students who come to our campuses to learn and develop their own views and values. That includes protecting them from being formally punished or ousted for their viewpoints. If we do not fight for them and their rights, we have become entirely untethered from any principle other than our personal advancement and safety.

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

Official figures out of San Francisco show that drug overdoses have killed almost four times more people than COVID-19 this year, and yet the government continues to hand out free needles to addicts.

“A record 621 people died of drug overdoses in San Francisco so far this year, a staggering number that far outpaces the 173 deaths from COVID-19 the city has seen thus far,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

“Many people overdosed in low-income apartment buildings and in city-funded hotel rooms for the homeless. Others died on sidewalks, in alleyways and parks around the city.”

Despite the deaths, the government continues to hand out some 5.8 million free syringes a year to drug users.

It also appears as though lockdowns have exacerbated illegal drug use throughout the state of California.

“Other areas of the state have seen a spike in drug use and overdoses amid lockdowns, including in Los Angeles County,” reports the Washington Examiner.

“In 2013 in the county, fentanyl accounted for 3% of drug-related deaths. At the start of 2020, 42% of drug deaths were fentanyl-related in the area, and that number jumped to 51% when lockdowns were enacted in March.”

San Francisco’s homeless drug user problem is so chronic that in 2019, residents began desperately installing boulders on the side of streets in an effort to prevent camping.

A knock-on effect of the massive increase in the city’s homeless population has been the routine sight of feces on the street.

A 2019 study discovered that each case of poop that has to be cleaned up on the streets of San Francisco costs the taxpayer $32 dollars, with 118,352 recorded reports of human feces since 2011.

As we document in the video below, San Francisco is a shit-stained cesspool that is only getting worse, a situation increasingly being mirrored in other major Democrat-run cities across America.

*  *  *

New limited edition merch now available! Click here. In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. I need you to sign up for my free newsletter here. Support my sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Also, I urgently need your financial support here.

More than 1/3 of California bar exams taken online in October were flagged for possible cheating, the state bar reported after the testing software program alerted authorities.

California Bar’s Committee of Bar Examiners is "currently reviewing 3,190 applicants" out of 9,301 who took the exam, according to a Dec. 4 statement by state bar official Tammy Campbell. According to Bloomberg Law, test takers were flagged based on several rules infractions, including having cell phones or other electronic equipment during the test, as well as gazing off-screen or having food.

The inquiry, first reported by the ABA Journal, puts test takers flagged by the system at risk of being required to retake the exam, which is typically required before a law school graduate is allowed to work as an attorney in the state. Any review that substantiates widespread cheating also could give critics of bar exams in California and other states further ammunition to promote alternatives like diploma privilege, which allows law school grads to get licensed without taking an exam. –Bloomberg Law

"We believe there were multiple factors that contributed to the number of flagged videos, including the unprecedented nature of this first-ever online remote bar exam and the large and diverse population who took it in California," said state bar spokeswoman Teresa Ruano, adding "We will continue to refine and improve this process based on learnings from this first online exam."

Attorneys for several flagged test-takers say the allegations are preposterous and an overreaction. Georgia-based lawyer Megan Zavieh who has offices in California is representing over two-dozen of the applicants who were contacted by the CA Bar, and said that some of her clients received letters accusing people of moving their eyes out of camera range at the wrong moment.

"It’s not only, ‘no, I didn’t do that.’ It’s, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about," she said.

California shifted to an online bar exam in October due to the pandemic. Most states which have done so are using Dallas-based ExamSoft to provide software. The company uses AI proctors who are logged into test takers’ computers, including web cams, to monitor behavior.

So-called “Chapter 6 Notices” of potential violations were sent to numerous test takers after ExamSoft video-file software flagged the conduct to the Bar, according to ABA Journal.

That spurred students to hire lawyers like Zavieh and Pasadena, Calif.-based ethics attorney Erin Joyce.

Joyce said her clients are concerned because of the impact the notices they’ve received might have on their ability to gain permanent or even provisional law licenses—even if they’re ultimately exonerated. “They’re frightened and they’re angry,” she said. “They put a lot of effort and expense into the test.”

Chapter 6 Notices contain allegations that are either “disputable” or “indisputable,” according to a list of frequently-asked questions the Bar posted on its website. A dozen types of alleged infractions are disputable and thus eligible for a hearing, according to a state bar Chapter 6 “Decisional Matrix.”

Indisputable allegations include those in which the test taker possessed notes or other study aids, or electronic devices like cell phones or digital watches. Disputable allegations, which can be contested by a hearing, include having radios or stereos, or “food or beverages, including but not limited to coffee and water,” in exam rooms during a remote-proctored exam.-Bloomberg Law

The allegations of cheating comes fresh on the heels of a similar online cheating scandal at West Point, where over 70 cadets were accused of cheating on a calculus exam last spring.

Fifty-nine of the cadets admitted to cheating on the test, which was taken remotely rather than on academy grounds due to the pandemic, according to West Point officials. Two of the cases were dropped for lack of evidence, four cadets resigned, and eight cadets face honor code hearings which could result in their expulsion, according to public affairs director Lt. Col. Christopher Ophardt.

"The honors process is working as expected, and there have been no exceptions to policy for any of these cases," said Ophardt, adding "Cadets are being held accountable for breaking the code."