Category Archives: Events

Iowa City Press-Citizen; UI prof faces bribery charges
Allegedly asks female students for sexual favors

A University of Iowa professor was arrested Friday afternoon for allegedly asking female students to let him fondle their breasts in return for an “A” grade for the class.
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Arthur Herbert Miller, 66, of 1700 N. Dubuque Road, faces four counts of bribery, a class C felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. He was admitted to the Johnson County Jail at 3:56 p.m. Friday and released early Saturday.

Miller is a professor in the University of Iowa Department of Political Science with an office in Schaeffer Hall.

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CSDU Meeting, Monday, August 18th, 4:00

Chicago, IL

Parthenon Restaurant, Free Valet

Agenda items:

updates on the trial of the vice president – scheduled to begin on August 19th, AFT Convention

raffle fundraiser tickets distributed to CDSU Members and supporters

1st Prize – Five Days in Las Vegas or Miami (including airfare)

winners’ choice of Thanksgiving, Winter Holidays or Spring Break

2nd and 3d Cash Prizes

Drawing – October 1st

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Dear Friends and Colleagues –

I am pleased to announce that the How Class Works- 2008 conference program, on-line registration, housing and other information are now available on the conference pages of the Center for Study of Working Class Life at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

The How Class Works – 2008 conference will be at Stony Brook, Thursday – Saturday, June 5 – 7, 2008

Topics Include The color line in the 21st century and the legacy of Theodore W. Allen – single-payer health care – corporate practices in higher education – teaching class – white working class anger in the UK – lessons of the Charleston 5 – class and the legal system – class and religion – labor law and union strategy – plus many more in 54 sessions.

Speakers Confirmedinclude Sam Anderson, Catherine-Mercedes Brillantes Judge, Pedro Caban, Rose Ann DeMoro, Fuat Ercan, Claudia Fegan, Bill Fletcher, Jr., Tami Gold, Elizabeth Hoffman, Sara Jarayaman, Stathis Kouvelakis, Sherry Linkon, Meizhu Lui, Manning Marable, Jack Metzgar, Nelson Motto, Manny Ness, Bertell Ollman, Jeff Perry, Catherine Pouzoulet, Dave Roediger, Andrew Ross, John Russo, Vinny Tirelli, Michelle Tokarczyk, Richard Trumka, Joe Wilson

Plus over 180 presentations in working class studies from graduate students, faculty, union and community activists — from Australia, Canada, France, Greece, Ireland, Lithuania, New Zealand, Nigeria, Turkey, UK, and US — plus film, music, photography, and poetry

See the conference program and register on-line. I look forward to welcoming you to Stony Brook in June.

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The 8th Tri-national Conference in Defense of Public Education will be held in Los Angeles on April 18-20, 2008. The UTLA (United Teachers’ of Los Angeles), which represents education workers in the K-12 system and is an affiliate of both the NEA and the AFT, will host the conference.

Since NAFTA created new links among Mexico, the U.S. and Canada in 1994, education union activists from the three countries have met at a conference every two to three years. The purpose has been to deepen understanding of the impact of the neo-liberal policies exemplified by NAFTA on public education and to find ways to work together in mutual support of public education in the three countries.

This 8th conference provides another opportunity to join in this process. While the context in each of the three countries is obviously different, we always find that there are also many similarities. The links formed through these conferences have been important in providing mutual solidarity in times of crisis, as well as in expanding knowledge of the realities of education in our neighboring countries.

The conference has generally had speakers from each of the three countries present on common themes, to get a transnational perspective on the issues. Discussion then focuses on looking for the patterns and exploring ideas about common or supportive actions that might be taken in relationship to the issues.

Funding for the conferences has come from two sources. Registration fees have covered costs of translation, since the conferences are conducted in English and Spanish through simultaneous translation. Grants from unions in Canada and the U.S. have provided funding to ensure that a significant number of teachers from Mexico can participate in the conference. If you or your organization is prepared to make a donation, please contact Dan Leahy.

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From the National Committee to Defend Dissent and Critical Thinking in Academia:

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week II (April 7-11, 2008)
Their slogan this time is “Stop the Genocide.” Here is
the intro to their new student guide – the full thing
can be downloaded here.

We will of course be having a lot more to say soon
about the latest round of this dangerous campaign to
turn universities into sites of indoctrination:

From October 22 to October 26, 2007, students on more
than 100 campuses across the country hosted speakers,
put on panels, conducted sit-ins and showed
documentary films designed to alert campus communities
to the global threat from Islamo-Fascism, and to
protest the oppression of women in Islam. This spring,
during the week of April 7-11, we will hold another
week of consciousness-raising events. The purpose of
this week and the campaign leading up to it will be:
1) To highlight the genocidal agendas of the
Islamo-fascist crusade; and 2) To make the public
aware of the “soft jihad” – the domestic networks that
fund and provide political support for the agendas of
the jihad, including its armies of terror.

The core of the jihad is its intention to conquer and
force into submission all religions and cultures which
are not its own. It has absorbed the Nazi-virus of
Jew-hatred and seeks as its first goal the
obliteration of the Jewish state, but its agendas
include the obliteration of Christian communities and
all non-Muslim cultures as well.

The focus of our spring campaign will be the
Declaration Against Genocide, which we will ask campus
groups to sign. Specifically we are asking all campus
groups to repudiate the genocidal passage within
Islam’s sacred texts which reads: “The prophet, prayer
and peace be upon him, said: ‘The time [of judgment
and resurrection] will not come until Muslims will
fight the Jews and kill them; until the Jews hide
behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim!
There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill
him!’” (Sahih Muslim book 41, no. 6985)

Christians have distanced themselves from far less
ominous passages in their religious tradition because
of the terrible consequences that have flowed from
misguided beliefs.

The terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah are Islamic
parties who have dedicated themselves to the
destruction of the Jews. We are asking campus groups
to condemn Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist
organizations and to repudiate their Jew-hatred,
including the Hamas charter which says: “Israel will
exist and will continue to exist until Islam will
obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before
it.” Signers of the Declaration will also be asked to
condemn and repudiate the Iranian dictator Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad who has said “The accomplishment of a
world without America and Israel is both possible and
feasible.”

These are hateful doctrines that threaten the lives
not only of Jews, but of Christians and secularists as
well. While Israel is condemned as “the Little Satan,”
America is targeted as “the Great Satan” – the
incarnation of evil. The genocidal hatred of
Islamo-fascists is aimed at all Americans.

We are therefore launching a “Stop the Genocide”
campaign which will be the focus of our activities
this spring and the theme of Islamo-Fascism Awareness
Week on April 7-11. During this campaign, we will be
calling on campus groups to affirm the equal dignity
of all men and women and the right of all people to
live free from violence, intimidation, and coercion.

To carry out the campaign of education and awareness,
we will:

Gather signatures for the Declaration Against
Genocide. Ask campus groups to officially support it.
Host speakers on the topic of Islamo-Fascism and its
genocidal agendas
Show documentaries and feature films including Islam
versus Islam, Suicide Killers, Obsession and Path to
9/11
Hold memorials for the thousands of victims of Islamic
radicals before and after 9/11
Distribute informational literature including the two
pamphlets “Islamo-Fascism On Campus” and “Plan for
Genocide”
As the first Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week
demonstrated, in the present campus climate this
program is bound be controversial. A coalition of
groups with ties to the Islamo-fascist jihad are
likely to protest this educational effort. This spring
Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week will again test
universities’ claims to be politically open and
intellectually diverse. Once again our goal will be to
refute the curriculum of the left, which teaches that
America is the enemy in the war on terror and the
terrorists are “freedom fighters,” and that any
attempt to alert Americans to the dangers they face is
“Islamo-phobia.” Once again our task will be to remind
people that America is the only force in the world
that has the power and the will to confront the threat
of a global Islamo-Fascist state.

We expect that some universities will create
impediments to the planned protests and events, refuse
necessary permits or room reservations, and otherwise
demonstrate their hypocrisy by failing to allow
patriotic students a voice on campus. We hope to be
proven wrong, but past experience counsels otherwise.
The David Horowitz Freedom Center will enlist lawyers
and alumni to help student organizers fight these
battles.

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“Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” – Expose & Defeat This
Reactionary Offensive
From The National Project to Defend Dissent and
Critical Thinking in Academia
www.defendcriticalthinking.org

David Horowitz has announced “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” (IFAW) for October 22-26, to take place on campuses around the country. Horowitz has enlisted
some of the most extreme, and dangerous, ideologues as spokespeople, and is working with Christian fundamentalists, military and veteran’s groups, and
the entire range of conservative and reactionary student organizations in an attempt to hold what he says will be the largest conservative university protest in US history.

This is a move to deepen the already serious chill in
academia by bringing together an aggressive social
base and unleashing it on what Horowitz calls the
“tenured left.” It seeks to unleash a pogromist and
hate-filled atmosphere against Muslim students, equate
dissent and critical thinking with treason, attack
Women’s Studies Departments, and build the US “will to
fight” more wars of aggression in the Middle East,
particularly against Iran. It hypocritically claims to
oppose the oppression of women and gays under Islamic
rule, while promoting Christian fundamentalists who
want to outlaw not only abortion but birth control as
well, and argue that homosexuality is a sin punishable
by death and women should not work outside the home.
IFAW cannot be allowed to go down unchallenged. It
needs to be thoroughly exposed, repudiated and
politically defeated. Go to www.terrorismawareness.org
for Horowitz’s plans and the list of schools targeted
– and visit www.defendcriticalthinking.org for
analysis and resources for combatting Horowitz and his
dangerous allies.

How DARE these people parade as anti-fascist?!
Anyone familiar with Horowitz and his allies can only
respond with outrage to their claim to be opponents of
fascism, intolerance and bigotry.
How dare David Horowitz, who says that Blacks should
be grateful for slavery and that Blacks owe a debt to
whites for ending slavery, talk about the “right of
all people to live in freedom and dignity”?!
How dare Ann Coulter, who said of Muslims, “We should
invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert
them to Christianity,” masquerade as an opponent of
“all forms of religious supremacism, violence and
intimidation”?!
How dare Rick Santorum, who equates homosexuality with
bestiality and openly advocates the revoking of
women’s right to abortion and birth control, parade as
a defender of the rights of women and gays?!

“Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week:” An Avalanche of Lies,
Distortions, Bigotry and Hate.
• Horowitz claims that IFAW will confront the “Big
Lie” that George Bush created the “war on terror:”
If Bush was just responding to 911, why did he target
and invade a country that had nothing to do with it?
Why did he lie about WMDs to justify that aggression
and why is he now threatening another country, Iran,
that also had nothing to do with 9/11? And for
decades, the US and Israel have destroyed secular
governments and forces in the Middle East and
elsewhere, while actively supporting Islamic
fundamentalist forces, as in Afghanistan. In Iran, the
US overthrow of the elected government of Iran in 1953
and the decades of support for the brutal regime of
the Shah contributed to the conditions which gave rise
to Islamic fundamentalist rule there.

• “A major theme of the Week will be the oppression of
women in Islam.”
The speakers for IFAW include some of the strongest
supporters of the Bush administration, whose policies
have been catastrophic for women, both here and
internationally. Horowitz’s speakers for IFAW include
biblical literalists like Frank Pastore who uphold the
execution of gays and the equation of abortion with
murder. It’s notable that the IFAW petition includes
the demand for “The equality of dignity of women and
men.” Not equality, but the “equality of dignity” – a
meaningless phrase which can be twisted to fit the
most patriarchal of viewpoints.

• IFAW will feature sit-ins “designed to protest the …
silence of Women’s Studies departments in the face of
… Islamic gynophobia:”
Women’s Studies Departments have hardly been “silent”
on the treatment of women (or gays and lesbians) under
Islamic fundamentalism. Horowitz’s problem with
Women’s Studies Departments is not their supposed
“silence” but the simple fact that they exist. His
website is full of rants directed against Women’s
Studies professors. Part of his overall agenda is the
elimination of Women’s Studies, along with Ethnic
Studies, Social Work, Social Justice, and other
programs which arose out of the struggles of the 60s
and 70s. And without Women’s Studies departments and
the feminist struggles which gave rise to them, people
like Horowitz would not even be giving hypocritical
lip-service to the oppression of women anywhere.

• Horowitz says that IFAW only targets
“Islamo-Fascists,” not “non-radical muslims:”
IFAW is an explicit attempt to demonize and isolate
Muslims in this country. Horowitz identifies the
Muslim Student Association as a front organization of
the Islamo-Fascist jihad intent on world domination,
and demands that they sign his petition or be branded
as “the enemy.” IFAW speakers like Gregory Davis say
that “Islam and its faithful adherents are trying to
undermine our secular governments with the ultimate
aim of replacing them with Sharia. Terrorism is a
means to this end as are Islamic proselytizing,
fund-raising, lobbying, education, etc.” Horowitz has
also said that “the Palestinians” (not some of them,
or just the radical ones, but all of them, including
those who are not Muslim) “are part of the
Islamo-fascist jihad against the West.”

• IFAW’s Petition demands “The right of all people to
live free from violence, intimidation, and coercion:”
This, from people who are clamoring for war against
Iran, who support Israel’s policies of military
occupation, targeted assassinations and collective
punishment; who support a government which is
responsible for the deaths hundreds of thousands of
Iraqi civilians, which has engaged in, advocated and
legalized torture, established a secret prison system,
engaged in widespread and illegal spying, and gutted
habeas corpus and other basic civil liberties?

• IFAW’s Petition supports “The freedom of the
individual conscience: to change religions or have no
religion at all.”
IFAW speakers include Christian fundamentalists who
believe that anyone who does not share their literal
interpretation of the Bible will go to hell. Rick
Santorum, one of the main speakers for IFAW, has said
in order to win against “Islamo-Fascism, “We must
educate, engage, evangelize and eradicate … We need to
do more, as I said, to spread these ideas throughout
your campuses.”

• And more, from Horowitz’s Frontpage.com
John Perazzo, who wrote “Why IFAW is Needed” for
Horowitz’s frontpage.com, also wrote “Black Racism and
‘The Jena Six.'” He called the Jena 6 a “pack of
thugs” and “raging predators,” and says the real
problem is “black racism, a disturbingly widespread
phenomenon in contemporary America” – while the
hanging of nooses from a “whites only” tree (in 2006!)
is simply “a dumb (non-violent) prank by a bunch of
teenage idiots.”

Some suggestions on what can be done.
• Call a meeting (immediately!), to discuss why IFAW
is so dangerous, and to make plans to oppose it.
Approach progressive political groups, feminist and
Women’s Studies Departments, GLBT groups, Muslim
student organizations and faculty. Reject the terms of
debate set by Horowitz: opposing IFAW does not mean
supporting terrorism or Islamic fundamentalism.
• Defend professors, Muslim student groups and Women’s
Studies Departments, which are under attack.
• Challenge organizers and speakers of IFAW at every
opportunity with facts and truth.
• Hold public forums by faculty and others.
• Saturate campuses with flyers and posters, exposing
Horowitz, IFAW and what it’s all about.
• Submit resolutions opposing IFAW to faculty and
student senates.
• Write op-eds, place ads, and give interviews to
campus and other media.
• Share material (flyers, graphics, posters, articles,
etc.) with others. Send them to the National Project
to Defend Dissent and Critical Thinking in Academia
(www.defendcriticalthinking.org). Share your
experience and plans, send us reports and updates on
your activities, discussions, and plans, so that
others around the country can learn from them.

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The New York Times: Virginia Tech Shooting Kills at Least 22

At least 22 people were killed today, some of them students, and about two dozen more injured during shootings at Virginia Tech, some of them in a classroom, the police said. A gunman was also shot to death, officials said.

The attack was the deadliest campus shooting in American history. According to several news agencies, the death toll continued to climb and could be as high 32.

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Indiana Daily Student: Illinois professors sue over ethics exam

Two Southern Illinois University-Carbondale professors and the faculty union filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Illinois’ inspector general, demanding the state drop possible discipline over an ethics exam that 159 university employees failed in the fall.

The suit — filed against Inspector General James Wright and the Executive Ethics Commission — claims the state acted illegally by threatening to discipline faculty members who failed the online test.

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TRADE UNION STRATEGIES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY:
AN INTERNATIONAL DISCUSSION

In the age of globalization, outsourcing and the ‘race for the bottom’ what strategies make sense for unions? How can falling union density in the private sector be reversed? What is social unionism and how can both public and private sector workers build alliances with their communities? How should unions relate to ‘progressive’ governments?

These questions and many more will be tackled by an outstanding international panel:

Willy Madisha President, Congress of South African Trade Unions

Cristina ErcoliWomen’s Secretary of CTERATeachers union in Argentina

George HeymanPresident, British Columbia Government and Service Employees’ Union

Moderator, David Chudnovsky, MLA Vancouver-Kensington, former president BCTF

When? Saturday, June 24, 7 PM
Where? 550 W 6th Avenue, Vancouver (BCTF Building)

Sponsored by Vancouver and District Labour Council and British Columbia Teachers’ Federation

Contacts: Mabel Elmore (604-254-0703), Larry Kuehn (604-871-2255)

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