Student Union
Bannon to Speak at Berkeley ‘Free Speech’ Event
Former White House chief strategist and Breitbart editor Steve Bannon has been invited to speak at the University of California-Berkeley’s “Free Speech Week” at the end of September.
Bannon was invited by the event organizer, the Berkeley Patriot, a conservative student group.
This year, the campus has become engulfed in protests over planned speeches by conservative commentators and has struggling to ensure security. This week, the school said it spent $600,000 on security measures, deploying scores of extra police to protect a speech by Ben Shapiro, a conservative writer.
Next week could see even bigger security measures.
Speakers denounce restrictions
Conservative commentators Milo Yiannopoulos, Ann Coulter and Steve Bannon are expected to speak during four days of events marking “Free Speech Week.”
Universities have struggled over how to ensure security at such contentious events, in some cases canceling them after worries that police were not equipped to handle angry crowds. The issue is especially potent at Berkeley, a school is famous for its role in free-speech protests in the 1960s that turned student protests into national debates.
Some conservatives see the focus on security as a way to restrict speech.
“The greatest threat to your future, the greatest risk to the American republic, is from the unprecedented assault on free speech committed by the media, Silicon Valley, politicians, Hollywood producers and the Academy,” Yiannopoulos announced on his YouTube page.
Berkeley’s policy is not to deny any student group their choice of speaker. However the university’s student newspaper Daily Californian reported Tuesday that the school had yet to receive confirmation on when and where Bannon will speak.
The school also has not received the necessary contract filing from the Berkeley Patriot, specifying the event and security needed, according to university spokesperson Dan Mogulof.
He said the police “can’t do their job without the information that they rely on.” The Berkeley Patriot said all but one document of the paperwork has been filed.
As of Friday evening, the university had not indicated if the event had made the required deadline.
Security worries
Berkeley requires the on-campus organization to submit a contract eight weeks before the event. Mogulof said the university gave the Berkeley Patriot an extension, but the contract needed to be submitted by late Friday afternoon.
“They’ve missed every single deadline and time is running out,” Mogulof said.
In February, the Berkeley campus erupted in protests the night Yiannopoulos was scheduled to speak at an event hosted by the school’s College Republicans. While Yiannopoulos’ campus speeches drew protests at other universities, the February incident at UC-Berkeley turned violent.
Groups such as antifa (short for anti-fascist) and other left-wing protesters looted Berkeley’s streets in the hilly city outside of San Francisco.
“What happened around the Yiannopoulos event was unprecedented,” Mogulof said.
The incident got so much coverage, President Donald Trump weighed in on Twitter.
“If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view - NO FEDERAL FUNDS?” the president tweeted.
“Our police department did a comprehensive review and has adapted accordingly,” Mogulof said, “We want these students to have a safe and successful event.”
He said campus police will stop people wearing masks and arrest anybody who refuses to take them off.
Tolerating offensive speech
Conservatives are not the only ones who have been silenced by Berkeley in recent years. In 2014, liberal talk-show host Bill Maher was uninvited from giving the commencement speech at university’s December graduation. The Berkeley administration did not honor that vote and Maher delivered the speech at the December graduation.
“The UC Berkeley administration cannot and will not accept this decision, which appears to have been based solely on Mr. Maher’s opinions and beliefs, which he conveyed through constitutionally protected speech,” the school said in a statement to CNN in October 2014.
“The law is extremely clear, that these speakers are protected by the First Amendment. They have every right to be here,” Mogulof said, “We have no discretion and we want no discretion when it comes to the First Amendment.”
In February, Yiannopoulos’ appearance on campus ignited violence between supporters and counter-demonstrators. Faculty members sent a letter to then-Chancellor Nicholas Dirks, asking him to cancel Yiannopoulos’ event.
“We support both freedom of speech and academic freedom on campus and realize that controversial views must be tolerated in any campus community dedicated to open debate and opposed to censorship,” the letter stated.
“Although we object strenuously to Yiannopoulos’ views— he advocates white supremacy, transphobia, and misogyny — it is rather his harmful conduct to which we call attention in asking for the cancellation of this event.”
The university canceled the event, citing safety concerns.
With news of the appearance of Bannon and others, 132 UC Berkeley faculty members have called to boycott classes and other campus activities during “Free Speech Week.”
UC Berkeley’s Chancellor Carol Christ advocates varied voices on campus and says she is tolerant to peaceful protests.
“If you choose to protest, do so peacefully. That is your right, and we will defend it with vigor. We will not tolerate violence, and we will hold anyone accountable who engages in it.”
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Survey: Social integration, career prep are important to international students
A recent survey of international students in the United States found that before starting school, they were concerned about personal safety, making friends and feeling homesick.
Inside Higher Ed reports that international students want specialized orientations, peer connections, career preparation and job placement to help make their college experiences successful. (July 2024)
US advisory council ends Nigeria visit, signs student exchange deal
Members of a U.S. presidential advisory council have approved a student exchange deal between an American college and a Nigerian university as part of the council's effort to strengthen collaboration on education, health, entrepreneurship and development between Africa and Africans living abroad.
The council also visited a health facility supported by the United States Agency for International Development in the capital.
Nigerian authorities and visitors chatted with members of the U.S President's Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement as they toured a healthcare facility in Karu, a suburb of Abuja, on the last day of the council's three-day visit to Abuja and Lagos.
The facility is one of many supported by the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, to improve the management of childhood illnesses, family planning, immunization and delivery.
The tour was part of the council's effort to promote African diaspora-led investments in technology entrepreneurship, education and healthcare delivery.
"They're doing a phenomenal job there, it really gave us a sense of what the healthcare system is in Nigeria," said Deniece Laurent-Mantey, executive director of the advisory council. "This is our first trip as a council to the continent and we chose Nigeria for a reason — the diaspora in Nigeria is very active, very influential, and they're really a source of strength when it comes to our U.S.-Africa policy. And so for us coming to Nigeria was very intentional."
The council was created by President Joe Biden in September to improve collaboration between Africa and its diaspora in terms of economic and social development.
Akila Udoji, manager of the Primary Healthcare Centre of Karu, said officials in Nigeria were pleased that the council members were able to visit.
"We're happy that they have seen what the money they have given to us to work with has been used to do, because they have been able to assist us in capacity-building, trainings, equipment supply and the makeover of the facility," Udoji said.
Earlier, the council signed a deal for a student exchange program between Spelman College in the southern U.S. city of Atlanta and Nigeria's University of Lagos.
Laurent-Mantey said education exchanges are one of the council's top priorities.
"In Lagos, we had the president of Spelman College — she's also a member of our council — she signed an agreement with the University of Lagos to further education exchange programs in STEM and creative industries between those two universities," Laurent-Mantey said. "And I think for us it's very important, because Spelman College is a historically Black university, and so here we are promoting the importance of collaboration between African Americans and Africans."
In March, the advisory council adopted its first set of recommendations for the U.S. president, including the student exchange initiative, advocating for more U.S. government support for Africa, climate-focused initiatives, and improving U.S. visa access for Africans.
The council met with Nigerian health and foreign affairs officials during the visit before leaving the country on Wednesday.
American Academy of the Arts College announces closure
The American Academy of Art College in Chicago announced it would be closing after 101 years of preparing students for careers in art and illustration.
WTTW news reported that like other art colleges, the academy saw enrollment drop after the pandemic, and officials made the decision to close the college last month. (July 2024)
5 killed, dozens injured in clashes over Bangladesh jobs quota system
At least 5 people were killed and dozens injured in two separate incidents in Bangladesh as violence continued Tuesday on university campuses in the nation's capital and elsewhere over a government jobs quota system, local media reports said quoting officials.
At least three of the dead were students and one was a pedestrian, the media reports said. Another man who died in Dhaka remained unidentified.
The deaths were reported Tuesday after overnight violence at a public university near Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka. The violence involved members of a pro-government student body and other students, when police fired tear gas and charged the protesters with batons during the clashes, which spread at Jahangir Nagar University in Savar, outside Dhaka, according to students and authorities.
Protesters have been demanding an end to a quota reserved for family members of veterans who fought in Bangladesh's war of independence in 1971, which allows them to take up 30% of governmental jobs.
They argue that quota appointments are discriminatory and should be merit-based. Some said the current system benefits groups supporting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Some Cabinet ministers criticized the protesters, saying they played on students' emotions.
The Bengali-language Prothom Alo daily newspaper reported that one person died in Dhaka and three others, including a pedestrian, were killed after they suffered injuries during violence in Chattogram, a southeastern district, on Tuesday.
Prothom Alo and other media reports also said that a 22-year-old protester died in the northern district of Rangpur.
Details of the casualties could not be confirmed immediately.
While job opportunities have expanded in Bangladesh's private sector, many find government jobs stable and lucrative. Each year, some 3,000 such jobs open up to nearly 400,000 graduates.
Hasina said Tuesday that war veterans — commonly known as "freedom fighters" — should receive the highest respect for their sacrifice in 1971 regardless of their current political ideologies.
"Abandoning the dream of their own life, leaving behind their families, parents and everything, they joined the war with whatever they had," she said during an event at her office in Dhaka.
Protesters gathered in front of the university's official residence of the vice chancellor early Tuesday when violence broke out. Demonstrators accused the Bangladesh Chhatra League, a student wing of Hasina's ruling Awami League party, of attacking their "peaceful protests." According to local media reports, police and the ruling party-backed student wing attacked the protesters.
But Abdullahil Kafi, a senior police official, told the country's leading English-language newspaper Daily Star that they fired tear gas and "blank rounds" as protesters attacked the police. He said up to 15 police officers were injured.
More than 50 people were treated at Enam Medical College Hospital near Jahangir Nagar University as the violence continued for hours, said Ali Bin Solaiman, a medical officer of the hospital. He said at least 30 of them suffered pellet wounds.
On Monday, violence also spread at Dhaka University, the country's leading public university, as clashes gripped the campus in the capital. More than 100 students were injured in the clashes, police said.
On Tuesday, protesters blocked railways and some highways across the country, and in Dhaka, they halted traffic in many areas as they vowed to continue demonstrating until the demands were met.
Local media said police forces were spread across the capital to safeguard the peace.
Swapon, a protester and student at Dhaka University who gave only his first name, said they want the "rational reformation of the quota scheme." He said that after studying for six years, if he can't find a job, "it will cause me and my family to suffer."
Protesters say they are apolitical, but leaders of the ruling parties accused the opposition of using the demonstrations for political gains.
A ruling party-backed student activist, who refused to give his name, told The Associated Press that the protesters with the help of "goons" of the opposition's Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami party vandalized their rooms at the student dormitories near the Curzon Hall of Dhaka University.
The family-of-the-veterans quota system was halted following a court order after mass student protests in 2018. But last month, Bangladesh's High Court nulled the decision to reinstate the system once more, angering scores of students and triggering protests.
Last week, the Supreme Court suspended the High Court's order for four weeks and the chief justice asked protesting students to return to their classes, saying the court would issue a decision in four weeks.
However, the protests have continued daily, halting traffic in Dhaka.
The quota system also reserves government jobs for women, disabled people and ethnic minority groups, but students have protested against only the veterans system.
Hasina maintained power in an election in January that was again boycotted by the country's main opposition party and its allies due to Hasina's refusal to step down and hand over power to a caretaker government to oversee the election.
Her party favors keeping the quota for the families of the 1971 war heroes after her Awami League party, under the leadership of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, led the independence war with the help of India. Rahman was assassinated along with most of his family members in a military coup in 1975.
Police open hazing investigation after Dartmouth student found dead
Police have opened a hazing investigation after a Dartmouth College student was found dead in a river in early July.
Police received a tip that hazing was involved, and there was evidence that alcohol might have been involved in the death, USA Today reported. (July 2024)
