Teacher is suspended after Hitler gibe leak

From James Bone in New York
 
A HIGH-SCHOOL geography teacher in Colorado has been put on leave after a 16-year-old pupil recorded him comparing George Bush to Hitler.

Sean Allen, 16, who attends a suburban high school outside Denver, has made headlines across the country by recording the teacher lambasting President Bush.

 

“Sounds a lot like the things that Adolf Hitler used to say,” Jay Bennish told his class. “We’re the only ones who are right, everyone else is backward and our job is to conquer the world.”

Mr Bennish called the US “probably the single most violent nation on Earth”, saying that it had committed more than 7,000 “terrorist sabotage acts” against Cuba. But he told pupils that they were free to disagree with him.

The boy’s father leaked the recording to a local radio and it was quickly picked up by the national media.

The teacher was placed on paid leave while the school board investigated whether he had violated its policy of providing a balanced point of view. He threatened to retaliate with a lawsuit asserting his constitutional right to free speech.

School teachers such as Mr Bennish who express left-wing views in the classroom are the latest group to face being recorded by their students. But unlike their counterparts in universities, it is conservative parents who are encouraging students to make recordings of their views.

The use of micro-recording devices, often built into mobile phones or digital music players, is the latest twist in conservatives’ struggle against what they see as the leftist slant of American education.

An alumnus group at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) caused an uproar by offering a $100 (£57) bounty for taped evidence of professors’ radical rants.

 

Horowitz

The Bruin Alumni Association was founded by Andrew Jones, the former head of the student Republican organisation who was dismissed from a job at David Horowitz’s Centre for the Study of Popular Culture in Los Angeles.

An outcry forced Mr Jones to withdraw the $100 bounty, but he is still collecting recordings of politicising professors for his list of the university’s “Dirty Thirty” academics.

Attacks on the liberal bent of America’s top universities date back to William F. Buckley’s 1951 book God and Man at Yale and to Allan Bloom’s 1987 bestseller, The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students.

But a new “academic freedom movement” was launched three years ago by Mr Horowitz, a former scion of the New Left turned neo-conservative activist who heads the Centre for the Study of Popular Culture. The neo-conservative think-tank surveyed professors at more than 150 departments at 32 elite universities and found that Democrats outnumbered Republicans on campus by more than ten to one. Mr Horowitz is the author of a new book entitled: The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, which has been criticised by some of its targets as a replay of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-Communist witchunt of the 1950s, as portrayed in the Oscar-winning film Good Night, and Good Luck.

He is now campaigning for state legislatures to enact an “Academic Bill of Rights” to protect students from discrimination by professors for their political views.
   

Horowitz exposes 101 academics—representative of thousands of radicals who teach our young people—who also happen to be alleged ex-terrorists, racists, murderers, sexual deviants, anti-Semites, and al-Qaeda supporters. Horowitz blows the cover on academics who: — Say they want to kill white people. — Promote the views of the Iranian mullahs. — Support Osama bin Laden. — Lament the demise of the Soviet Union. — Defend pedophilia. — Advocate the killing of ordinary Americans

Academic Bill of Rights

Horowitz and other Republicans promote his "Academic Bill of Rights," an eight-point manifesto that seeks to eliminate what he sees as political bias in university hiring and grading. Horowitz claims that liberal bias in universities amounts to indoctrination, and charges that conservatives and particularly Republicans are 'systematically excluded' from faculties. He has often attempted to prove this by examining party registrations of faculty members

Horowitz: "There are 50,000 professors ... [who] identify with the terrorists"

Summary: On MSNBC's Scarborough Country, right-wing activist David Horowitz claimed that "[t]here are 50,000 professors" who are "anti-American" and "identify with the terrorists." There are just over 400,000 tenured and tenure-track full-time university professors in the United States. If Horowitz's numbers are accurate, that means approximately one out of every eight tenured or tenure-track college and university professors is a terrorist sympathizer.

On the March 2 edition of MSNBC's Scarborough Country, right-wing activist David Horowitz claimed that "[t]here are 50,000 professors" who are "anti-American" and "identify with the terrorists." Horowitz, the president of Students for Academic Freedom and a proponent of an "Academic Bill of Rights" for American universities, is the author of The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America (Regnery, January 2006).

 

In his latest book, The Professors: the 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, Horowitz, CC ’59 and conservative activist, provides profiles of ostensibly left-wing professors whom he alleges are indoctrinating students with politically-charged rhetoric in the guise of academic instruction. Nine of 101 academics selected by Horowitz for study are Columbia professors, the most Horowitz profiled from any single school.

“Columbia is a national scandal. That a serious, top-tier university ... is an ideological fortress is an emblem of the utter debasement of the academic endeavor,” Horowitz told the New York Sun in February.

THE NAMES sound innocent enough. Since September 11, numerous so-called “watchdog” groups like Students for Academic Freedom, Campus Watch and The David Project have set up shop--in the name of “academic freedom.”

But their real aim is to silence any left-wing voice of dissent on college campuses--from the antiwar movement to activism in solidarity with Palestine.

Not surprisingly, the figures behind the groups are some of the most vicious right-wingers around. David Horowitz, an ex-leftist-turned-poisonous-reactionary, founded Students for Academic Freedom (SAF) in June 2003--as part of his campaign to pressure colleges into combating liberalism and radicalism. According to Horowitz, U.S. colleges and universities are “indoctrination centers for the political left,” and many college professors “hate America.”

horowitz video

David Horowitz

Video of this  BS artist

 

 

 

Issues of Free Speech Arise After Teacher Criticizes Bush

By Nicholas Riccardi, Times Staff Writer
March 4, 2006


 

DENVER — It was the day after President Bush's State of the Union address, and social studies teacher Jay Bennish was warning his world geography class not to be taken in.

"Sounds a lot like the things that Adolf Hitler used to say," Bennish told students at the suburban high school Feb. 2. " 'We're the only ones who are right, everyone else is backward and our job is to conquer the world.'
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The teacher quickly made clear that he wasn't equating Bush with Hitler, but the damage was done. A sophomore in the class had recorded the lecture on an MP3 player, and turned it over this week to a local conservative talk radio show.

Bennish, who has taught at Overland High School for five years, was placed on paid leave Wednesday by the Cherry Creek School District, sparking an uproar over issues of free speech and teacher conduct.

About 150 Overland students walked out of class Thursday to protest Bennish's absence, and the teacher's lawyer — who met with district officials Friday — has threatened a federal lawsuit.

Attorney David Lane contended on the Mike Rosen radio show, which originally played the tape, that his client's comments were not outlandish and were intended to get students to think about current events.

"Maybe it's not mainstream, middle-American opinion," Lane said Friday. "But the rest of the world agrees with him."

Lane added that if Bennish had spoken strongly in support of Bush, he would not be under investigation.

Tustin Amole, a spokeswoman for the school district, said officials were investigating whether Bennish had violated a policy that prohibited teachers from intimidating students who held political beliefs different from their own.

"Teachers do have a 1st Amendment right to express their opinion," Amole said, "but it must be in the context of the material being taught and it must provide a balanced point of view."

The Cherry Creek district, with 47,000 students, encompasses an arc of suburbs southeast of Denver; voter registration within its boundaries leans slightly Republican.

A partial transcript of the student's recording portrayed Bennish voicing a range of criticisms of U.S. policy and the war in Iraq. Bennish has not disputed the accuracy of the recording.

The teacher said in the recording that American troops had spent 30 years fighting the drug war in Colombia and using chemical weapons to eradicate coca fields. Bennish called the U.S. "probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth," saying it had committed more than 7,000 "terrorist sabotage acts" against Cuba.


Bennish questioned Israel


During the class, Bennish questioned why the United States was allowed to wage war in the Middle East but Palestinians were condemned as terrorists for attacking Israel. A student interjected that the U.S. did not single out civilians, unlike Palestinian terrorists. The teacher asked students how Israel was created, telling them that Zionists used assassination and bombings to create their state.

According to the transcript, Bennish concluded by telling his students: "I'm not implying in any way you should agree with me …. What I'm trying to do is to get you to … think about these issues more in depth." He thanked them for asking questions.




Reed Dickson, director of a program at Columbia's Teachers College that places Peace Corps volunteers in urban classrooms, said he thought teachers should express their personal political opinions in class and feared that cases such as Bennish's could intimidate some from questioning the government.

But, Dickson added, teachers must exercise restraint so they don't impose their views on students. "Once the teacher takes on the role of indoctrinating, the educational process is not possible," he said.

Rodney Smolla, dean of the University of Richmond law school in Virginia and a 1st Amendment expert, said that courts allow school districts to regulate teachers' speech.

"Teachers have 1st Amendment rights to speak on matters of public interest in the general marketplace, but they don't have as great a level of rights when speaking inside the classroom on matters related to the curriculum," he said.


 

Teacher on leave after comments
District cites policy requiring balanced views in classroom
STORY TOOLS
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By Tillie Fong, Rocky Mountain News
March 2, 2006
An Overland High School geography teacher was put on leave Wednesday while Cherry Creek Schools investigates whether he violated district policy that requires balanced viewpoints in the classroom.

Jay Bennish, who teaches 10th grade world geography, is being investigated for making biased, anti-President Bush comments in class during a discussion of the State of the Union speech last month.

"These are serious allegations and we're very concerned about it," said Tustin Amole, spokeswoman for Cherry Creek Schools. "This does not reflect the type of teaching that we want to see in Cherry Creek school district."

Bennish could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.

On Feb. 1, Bennish, who has been at Overland High School since the fall of 2000, had a discussion in his class about the State of the Union address.

Father

Sean Allen, a student in the class, taped the discussion, in which Bennish made a number of unfavorable comments about Bush that upset Allen's father.

"He said that some people may compare (Bush) to Hitler," Amole said.

 

The school district did not learn about Bennish's lecture until last Wednesday, when it received an e-mail about it from an out-of-state person who had seen an online column on it written by Walter Williams on , Amole said. That same day, Allen's father also called the principal of Overland High School to complain about the teacher, and the complaint was forwarded to the district, which began its investigation.

"After listening to the tape, it's evident the comments in the class were inappropriate," Amole said. "There were not adequate opportunities for opposing points of view."

Allen's father apparently gave a copy of the taped discussion to KOA radio host Mike Rosen, who did a show on the subject Wednesday.

Since then, a number of parents have called the school about Bennish's remarks, both in support and in opposition.

Amole said that Bennish told school officials he had received threats as a result of the controversy.

Amole said that the ensuing brouhaha over Bennish's lecture has become disruptive to the school, which led to Bennish's being put on leave Wednesday.

"We felt it was better for all concerned if he was out of class," she said. "This is not a punishment at this point."

In the meantime, the district is investigating whether Bennish violated its policy on teaching about controversial and sensitive subjects, and has reminded teachers about the policy. "We do want teachers to express their opinions, but to put that in context and to provide opposing points of view," Amole said. "All discussion must be fair and balanced."

District officials have been talking to Bennish and his students as part of the investigation.

"We want to find out all the facts, what other students have to say about it, whether there have been other incidents," Amole said.

Amole said the district hopes to complete its investigation of Bennish this week.

Apparently, this is not the first time he has been in hot water over comments made in class, according to Amole.

A few years ago, another student complained about remarks Bennish made in class. In that case, Bennish met with the parent and the school principal, and the issue was resolved without district intervention.

Amole could not provide details Wednesday of the earlier incident, but said the district encourages students and parents to voice their concerns.

Transcript

Bennish: [tape begins with class already underway. Bennish completing an unintelligble statement about Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.] Why do we have troops in Colombia fighting in their civil war for over 30 years. Most Americans don't even know this. For over 30 years, America has had soldiers fighting in Colombia in a civil war. Why are we fumigating coca crops in Bolivia and Peru if we're not trying to control other parts of the world. Who buys cocaine? Not Bolivians. Not Peruvians. Americans! Ok. Why are we destroying the farmers' lives when we're the ones that consume that good.

Can you imagine? What is the world's number one single cause of death by a drug? What drug is responsible for the most deaths in the world? Cigarettes! Who is the world's largest producer of cigarettes and tobacco? The United States!

What part of our country grows all our tobacco? Anyone know what states in particular? Mostly what's called North Carolina. Alright. That's where all the cigarette capitals are. That's where a lot of them are located from. Now if we have the right to fly to Bolivia or Peru and drop chemical weapons on top of farmers' fields because we're afraid they might be growing coca and that could be turned into cocaine and sold to us, well then don't the Peruvians and the Iranians and the Chinese have the right to invade America and drop chemical weapons over North Carolina to destroy the tobacco plants that are killing millions and millions of people in their countries every year and causing them billions of dollars in health care costs?

Make sure you get these definitions down.

Capitalism: If you don't understand the economic system of capitalism, you don't understand the world in which we live. Ok. Economic system in which all or most of the means of production, etc., are owned privately and operated in a somewhat competitive environment for the purpose of producing PROFIT! Of course, you can shorten these definitions down. Make sure you get the gist of it. Do you see how when, you know, when you're looking at this definition, where does it say anything about capitalism is an economic system that will provide everyone in the world with the basic needs that they need? Is that a part of this system? Do you see how this economic system is at odds with humanity? At odds with caring and compassion? It's at odds with human rights.

Anytime you have a system that is designed to procure profit, when profit is the bottom motive -- money -- that means money is going to become more important potentially than what? Safety, human lives, etc.

Why did we invade Iraq?! How do we know that the invasion of Iraq for weapons of mass destruction-- even if weapons had been found, how would you have known, how could you prove--that that was not a real reason for us to go there.

There are dozens upon dozens of countries that have weapons of mass destruction. Iraq is one of dozens. There are plenty of countries that are controlled by dictators, where people have no freedom, where they have weapons of mass destruction and they could be potentially threatening to America. We're not invading any of those countries!

0345.

[Pause.]

I'll give you guys another minute or two to get some of these [definitions] down. I agree with Joey. Try to condense these a little bit. I took these straight out of the dictionary.

Anyone in here watch any of Mr. Bush's [State of the Union] speech last night? I'm gonna talk a little about some of things he had to say.

0452

...One of things that I'll bring up now, since some of you are still writing, is, you know, Condoleezza Rice said this the other day and George Bush reiterated it last night. And the implication was that the solution to the violence in the Middle East is democratization. And the implication through his language was that democracies don't go to war. Democracies aren't violent. Democracies won't want weapons of mass destruction. This is called blind, naive faith in democracy!

0530.

Who is probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth?!

Unidentified brainwashed student interjects: We are.

The United States of America! And we're a democracy. Quote-unquote.

Who has the most weapons of mass destruction in the world? The United States.

Who's continuing to develop new weapons of mass destruction as we speak?!
The United States.

So, why does Mr. Bush think that other countries that are democracies won't wanna be like us? Why does he think they'll just wanna be at peace with each other?! What makes him think that when the Palestinians get their own state that they won't wanna preemptively invade Israel to eliminate a potential threat to their security just like we supposedly did in Iraq?! Do you see the dangerous precedent that we have set by illegally invading another country and violating their sovereignty in the name of protecting us against a potential future--sorry--attack? [Unintelligible.]

0625.

Why doesn't Mexico invade Guatemala? Maybe they're scared of being attacked. Ok. Why doesn't North Korea invade South Korea?! They might be afraid of being attacked. Or maybe Iran and North Korea and Saudi Arabia and what else did he add to the list last night - and Zimbabwe - maybe they're all gonna team up and try and invade us because they're afraid we might invade them. I mean, where does this cycle of violence end? You know?

This whole "do as I say, not as I do" thing. That doesn't work. What was so important about President Bush's speech last night--and it doesn't matter if it was President Clinton still it would just as important) is that it's not just a speech to America. But who? The whole world! It's very obvious that if you listen to his language, if you listen to his body language, and if you paid attention to what he was saying, he wasn't always just talking to us. He was talking to the whole planet. Addressing the whole planet!

He started off his speech talking about how America should be the country that dominates the world. That we have been blessed essentially by God to have the most civilized, most advanced, best system and that it is our duty as Americans to use the military to go out into the world and make the whole world like us.

0759.

Sounds a lot like the things that Adolf Hitler use to say.

We're the only ones who are right. Everyone else is backwards. And it's our job to conquer the world and make sure they live just like we want them to.

Now, I'm not saying that Bush and Hitler are exactly the same. Obviously, they are not. Ok. But there are some eerie similarities to the tones that they use. Very, very "ethnocentric." We're right. You're all wrong.

I just keep waiting. You know, at some point I think America and Mexico might go to war again. You know. Anytime Mexico plays the USA in a soccer match. What can be heard chanting all game long?

0841

Do all Mexicans dislike the United States? No. Do all Americans dislike Mexico? No. But there's a lot of resentment--not just in Mexico, but across the whole world--towards America right now.

We told--Condoleezza Rice said--that now that Hamas got elected to lead the Palestianians that they have to renounce their desire to eliminate Israel. And then Condoleezza Rice also went on to say that you can't be for peace and support armed struggle at the same time. You can't do that. Either you're for peace or war. But you can't be for both.

What is the problem with her saying this? That's the same thing we say. That is exactly the same thing this current administration says. We're gonna make the world safe by invading and killing and making war. So, if we can be for peace and for war, well, why can't the Palestinians be for peace and for war?!

0950.

*Student Sean Allen, who is taping Bennish's rant, speaks up:*

Allen: Isn't there a difference of, of, having Hamas being like, we wanna attack Israelis because they're Israelis, and having us say we want to attack people who are known terrorists? Isn't there a difference between saying we're going to attack innocents and we're going to attack people who are not innocent?

1007

Bennish: I think that's a good point. But you have to remember who's doing the defining of a terrorist. And what is a terrorist?

Allen: Well, when people attack us on our own soil and are actually attempting to take American lives and want to take American lives, whereas, Israelies in this situation, aren't saying we want to blow up Palestine...

Bennish: How did Israel and the modern Israeli state even come into existence in the first place?

Allen: We gave it to them.

Bennish: Sort of. Why? After the Israel-Zionist movement conducted what? Terrorist acts. They assassinated the British prime minster in Palestine. They blew up buildings. They stole military equipment. Assassinated hundreds of people. Car bombings, you name it. That's how the modern state of Israel was made. Was through violence and terrorism. Eventually we did allow them to have the land. Why? Not because we really care, but because we wanted a strategic ally. We saw a way to us to get a hook into the Middle East.

If we create a modern nation of Israel, then, and we make them dependent on us for military aid and financial aid, then we can control a part of the Middle East. We will have a country in the Middle East that will be indebted to us.

Allen: But is it ok to say it's just to attack Israel? If it's ok to attack known terrorists, it's ok to attack Israel?

Bennish: If you were Palestinians, who are the real terrorists? The Israelis, who fire missiles that they purchased from the United States government into Palestinian neighborhoods and refugees and maybe kill a terrorist, but also kill innocent women and children. And when you shoot a missile into Pakistan to quote-unquote kill a known terrorist, and we just killed 75 people that have nothing to do with al Qaeda, as far as they're concerned, we're the terrorists. We've attacked them on their soil with the intention of killing their innocent people.

1215

Allen: But we did not have the intention of killing innocent people. We had the intention of killing an al Qaeda terrorist.

Bennish: Do you know that?

Allen: So, you're saying the United States has intentions to kill innocent people?

Bennish: I don't know the answer to that question.

Allen: But what gain do we get from killing innocent people in the Middle East? What gain does that pose to us?

Bennish: Let me ask you this. During the 1980s, Iran and Iraq were involved in an 8-year-long war. The United States sold missiles, tanks, guns, planes, to which side?

Unidentified student: Iraq?

Bennish: Both. The answer is both. Why would we send armaments to two sides that are fighting each other. That seems to be self-defeating. Don't we want one side to win? Not always! Sometimes you just want there to be conflict!

The British -- this is one of the grand strategies of the British imperial system--was to play local animosities off each other. To prevent them is to divide and conquer.

Do we really want the Middle East to unite as one cohesive political and cultural body?

No! Because then they could what? Threaten our supremacy.

We want to keep the world divided. Do we really want to kill innocent people? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that.

I know there are some Americans who do. People who work in the CIA. People who have to think like that. Those kind of dirty minds, dirty tricks. That's how the intelligence world works. Sometimes you do want to kill people just for the sake of killing them. Right?

Listen, between the years 1960 and 1962, the United States through the CIA conducted over 7,000 terrorist sabotage attacks against the small island nation of Cuba. Over 7,000 terrorist attacks were waged against just one little country called Cuba in a two year period, intentionally, let me rephrase that, intentionally blowing up medical supplies, intentionally burning down crops that feed their country, thereby creating starvation, right? Intentionally trying to make that system collapse. And we're willing to expend however many thousands of people died because we just want to get rid of Castro. And the sad reality is that there are some policy planners who are willing to let people die in order to achieve their objectives.

1506

Now, do I think President Bush says 'I'd like to go kill some innocent Palestianians?' I don't think he thinks like that. But I also know that he's not the only one making decisions. I also know that after September 11, President Bush got on TV and he said, 'You will feel our wrath. You will feel the full force of the United States military. There will be paybacks.' He said it again last night. He said, 'We've killed a lot of top-ranking al Qaeda members. And for those who aren't killed yet, you're day will come!' Right? That kind of language to me is very obvious.

1547

And when you go trying to kill one particular type of person, you know that you're gonna kill other people, too. And let me ask you this...

Allen: Later in that, he stated that he's [Osama bin Laden] trying to kill innocents...

Bennish: I understand that, but hold on, you have to understand something, that when al Qaeda attacked America on September 11, in their view, they're not attacking innocent people. Ok. The CIA has an office at the World Trade Center. The Pentagon is a military target. The White House was a military target. Congress is a military target. The World Trade Center is the economic center of our entire economy.

1625

The FBI, who tracks down terrorists and so on and so forth around the world, has offices in the World Trade Center. Some of the companies that work in the World Trade Center are these huge multinational corporations that are directly involved in the military-industrial complex in supporting corrupt dictatorships in the Middle East.

And so in the minds of al Qaeda, they're not attacking innocent people. They're attacking legitimate targets. People who have blood on their hands as far as they're concerned!

We portray them as innocent because they're our friends and neighbors, family, loved ones. One of my best friends from high school, elementary school, and birth, lives in lower Manhattan. You know, he was right there, he was four blocks away from it. So, anytime it comes close to home, you begin to see things differently.

1711

In no way am I implying, I don't know, you got to figure this stuff out for yourself, but I want you to think about these things--you know, think about this right here. [Apparently pointing to American flag.] Here's the real homeland security. Fighting terrorism since 1492! Ok. I mean, to many Native Americans, that flag is no different than the Nazi flag or the Confederate flag. It represents the people that came and stole their land, lied, brought disease, rape, pillage, destruction, etc. So it all depends upon varying people's perspectives
varying. And of course, we're going to see ourselves as being in the right , at least the majority of us, because that's us.

Allen: But we were the ones that were attacked first. On September 11, 2001,
we were the ones that were attacked. We were not attacking anybody until that point. Then we said ok, we're going into Afghanistan. Then we said ok, the Iraqi government has ties with al Qaeda. We're going to go into Iraq. We were the ones that were attacked.

Bennish: In actuality, if you remember back to my first day, the Sept. 11 attacks were, according to bin Laden, a direct response to our 1) support of the nation of Israel, which they consider to be a terrorist regime that does not have the right to control the land that the Palestinians lived on for over 1,500 years, and they also did it because of what George Clinton did--Bill Clinton, not George Clinton, they had a little documentary on him on PBS last night I was watching--Bill Clinton, when he launched the missile attacks into Afghanistan and Sudan and killed thousands of innocent Africans and Afghanistan people - Afghanis - that had nothing to do with al Qaeda or anything. In fact, in sudan, he blew up the country's largest pharmaceutical plant, which was producing medicines, alright, um, you know, that's as far as, in their eyes, that was retaliation for those attacks.

And so this whole idea of who attacked who first, how far back in time do you wanna go!? This is the whole thing with the Arab-Israeli conflict. Well, who was there first? Well, if you believe the Bible, you say, well, God gave the land of Canaan to the Israelites. But who was in that land when they got there? The Canaanites, who some archeologists would argue are the ancient descendants of the Palestinians. You know.

Other archeologists say the Hebrews didn't really come from Egypt. They were actually a group of Canaanites who decided they didn't like the other Canaanites and developed this story afterward to justify how they killed all their neighbors
and took over the land.

2002

Alright, and so this becomes very, very muddled. And I'm not in any way implying that you should agree with me. I don't even know if I'm necessarily taking a position. But what I'm trying to get you to do is to think, right, about these issues more in-depth, you know, and not just take things from the surface. And I'm glad you asked all your questions, because they're very good, legitimate questions. And hopefully that allows other people to begin to think about some of those things, too.

END

The mother

By Julie Poppen, Rocky Mountain News
March 6, 2006
 

AURORA - Patti Allen has spent a good chunk of her life as a staunch supporter and defender of public education.

She said she didn't know until after the fact that her son and husband had given the recording - made on her son's MP3 player - to Rosen and others.

His dad wants him to transfer to another school. His mom doesn't, even though some friends who were at the family's home for Sean's 16th birthday party have turned against him.

"I've spent years loving Overland High School," Patti Allen said. "I don't know that I'm afraid, but when you're 16 it's all about being accepted."

As for concerns about limiting Bennish's free speech, Patti quickly said: "Where's Sean's free speech?"

She believes Bennish "crossed the line."

Her dad was a high school English teacher in Illinois who changed careers and later became a member of a local school board.

She has been the kind of tireless volunteer and promoter that school districts can be hard- pressed to find. She's served as president of every Parent/Teacher Community Organization

(PTCO) group at her son's Cherry Creek schools. She even ran the district's budget and bond election for her area.

"I believe in public school systems," said Allen, 52, during an interview at her immaculate home Sunday.

"I admire our educators. I love our children. This isn't about Democrat or Republican. . . . We're not some crazy family here."

Now, she and her family believe they are under attack by some of the public school teachers, students and parents she has tried to support.

It was her 16-year-old son, Overland High School sophomore Sean Allen, who made national headlines after recording his world geography teacher Feb. 1 railing against President Bush and U.S. foreign policy. The family turned the recording over to the media.

The teacher, Jay Bennish, is on paid leave pending the outcome of an investigation into whether he violated a district policy requiring balanced viewpoints be presented in class.

In Bennish's lecture, first aired on The Mike Rosen Show on 850 KOA-AM Wednesday, Bennish compared statements made by Bush to those of Adolf Hitler, called the war in Iraq an illegal invasion and said the definition of a terrorist is in the eye of the beholder.

Patti Allen and her husband, Jeff Allen, 50, said they never wanted Bennish placed on leave and they do not want him fired.

Patti Allen, a national account manager for an armored car company, is so stressed, she said, she spent Sunday morning getting her nails done after biting them off.

She said she didn't know until after the fact that her son and husband had given the recording - made on her son's MP3 player - to Rosen and others.

Yet the registered Democrat said she fully supports her son.

"I'm proud of him," she said. "He is passionate with everything that he does."

As for concerns about limiting Bennish's free speech, Patti quickly said: "Where's Sean's free speech?"

She believes Bennish "crossed the line."

"The teacher has young minds in the classroom. He has a responsibility to present both sides no matter what the issue is," she said.

Bennish has repeatedly declined to comment publicly and his lawyer couldn't be reached Sunday.

But attorney David Lane has said Bennish was merely trying to get students to think for themselves by presenting controversial material.

Jeff Allen, in a voice made hoarse from many media appearances, said he and his son spent days debating whether to turn the recording over to Rosen and other conservative media.

It was the father's impression that a complaint to the principal would do no good.

Jeff Allen, a sales manager in the video game industry, described Bennish as being "intimidating," even though he has never met him.

He said Sean was willing to put up with the class "until it got too radical."

"If you get the media involved, they have to take you seriously," he said. "I did, and it worked, but it worked too well."

Even though all three of her sons turned out to be Republicans, Patti Allen said her children have been exposed to various political viewpoints during impassioned dinner table discussions.

Jeff Allen said he's the only Republican on his side of the family.

One of Sean's brothers is a 24- year-old firefighter; the other is 21 and a student at Colorado State University.

Both parents say nobody forced beliefs upon Sean, an independent young man active in speech and debate who already has gone on stage to do stand-up comedy.

He is a "well-rounded kid" who has told his folks he'd like to be a stand-up comic or a forensic scientist.

If he decides to go the science route, both parents said their little news junkie had better work harder on his grades.

They described their son as a good student who could do better. But they said he had an A in Bennish's class.

Sean wasn't available for interviews Sunday, his parents said.

He was hiking with friends through Young Life, a nonprofit Christian organization.

He has not yet decided whether to return to Overland.

His dad wants him to transfer to another school. His mom doesn't, even though some friends who were at the family's home for Sean's 16th birthday party have turned against him.

"I've spent years loving Overland High School," Patti Allen said. "I don't know that I'm afraid, but when you're 16 it's all about being accepted."

 

 

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Littwin: Talk radio chews up opinionated teacher
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Mike Littwin
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March 7, 2006
For you parents out there, today we bring you a little pop quiz.
 
Your child is having trouble with a teacher. You want to clear up the problem.

And so you:

A. Ask for a conference with the teacher.

B. Ask for a conference with the principal.

C. Ask for a conference with the teacher and the principal.

D. Send your concerns to a college professor in faraway Virginia who sometimes subs for Rush Limbaugh on his radio show - and never bother to talk to the teacher at all.

 


 

Obviously, the correct answer is D. And if that seems strange, you haven't been paying attention in class.

This is a talk-radio world we live in, and the rest of us are fortunate if we can occasionally control the volume.

No such luck this time.

As you might have guessed, this story is about Jay Bennish, the geography teacher from Overland High School, and it's getting Ward Churchill loud out there.

Bennish is, of course, the 28-year-old Cherry Creek geography teacher who was recorded by a student saying, among other things, that George Bush and Hitler had similar communication styles.

It's not "little Eichmanns," and Bennish wasn't explaining away a terrorist act. But mentioning the president and a genocidal monster in the same sentence is close enough.

This was made for talk radio. You can find the audio - 21 minutes taken from one class - on Mike Rosen's Web page. It's worth a listen. For instance, Bennish calls the United States the most violent country in the world. Some might argue that point. Because it's geography class, someone might even point out to him, say, Sudan on a map.

David Lane, Bennish's lawyer - and also, for symmetry, Churchill's lawyer - has said that Bennish was simply trying to be provocative and to stimulate his students' minds.

I know he stimulated some talk-radio ratings. Talk about a sure thing. It's like throwing a 78-year-old lawyer in front of Dick Cheney.

It all started when a 16-year-old student recorded one of Bennish's classes on his MP3 player - and you thought your kids were just listening to Three 6 Mafia. He took the recording to his father, who decided to send it to Walter E. Williams, a George Mason professor with the Limbaugh connection.

Jeff Allen, the father, says he didn't think he could accomplish anything by talking to Bennish. He thought - and see if you can follow the geographic logic - that writing to Williams in Virginia would help clear things up in Colorado.

Williams wrote a column on Bennish, which got some Internet play but - surprisingly - didn't clear up anything at all. The day the column ran, Allen talked to the Overland principal, who said she would investigate.

A day later, Allen contacted Mike Rosen. Soon, Rosen has the whole thing on the air, and you know how it went from there.

Cherry Creek is still investigating. Bennish is on paid leave. The talk shows light up. Editorialists editorialize. People talk about the First Amendment, as if it's a First Amendment case (it's not). The governor weighs in. Today, Bennish goes on the Today show.

And, of course, Rush Limbaugh, who calls Bennish "one of these long-haired, maggot-infested FM types" is taking credit for it all.

According to a transcript from Limbaugh's Web site, he argues that "Rush Limbaugh babies" - those growing up in houses where people listen to his show - are taking on their maggot-infested teachers. The revolution has begun.

"And some of them," Limbaugh said of his baby ditto-heads, "are more armed with facts and information than their stupid teachers are - and they're challenging them."

Limbaugh, with few facts and no information, then explained that the several hundred students who protested Bennish's removal from the classroom weren't actually protesting at all. It was just a ruse to get out of class.

It's one theory. Bennish has his own. The class he's teaching - attorney Lane says - "is not your grandfather's geography." Meaning, you can get by without knowing the capital of Montana. It's a class, according to the syllabus - which each student's parents must sign - that looks at how "economic, political, cultural and social processes interact to shape patterns of human populations. . . ."

Still, I listened to the lecture and thought it sounded more like 20 minutes from Air America than a geography class. At age 28, you should have more questions than answers. And all good teachers listen more than talk.

And if you're going to slam, say, capitalism - and why not? - you need to provide balance. These are high school sophomores, after all. Many have not given that much thought to capitalism, except maybe while at the mall.

I know something about this. A million years ago, when I was a high school junior, I had a U.S. history teacher named Col. Bartlett, as in Col. Bartlett. He used to like to say that in World War II, his company took no Japanese prisoners. It was the beginning of the Vietnam War, and it led to some interesting debate.

I didn't tape the class, though. It's hard to carry a reel-to-reel. We argued what seemed like every day. Nobody called the cops, but I think someone did call the Kiwanis Club. It was my favorite hour of the school day.

I don't know what became of Col. Bartlett. I know what will happen to Bennish. Cherry Creek will not fire him. The Allens, father and son, don't think he should be fired. The talk show boys, who will soon forget him, don't even think he should be fired.

He'll get a letter. And before you think he's getting away easy, remember it's going to go on his permanent record.

Got the tape first - Uncle Tom

In a column originally posted on his Web site at 1 a.m. Feb. 22, George Mason University economics professor and syndicated columnist Walter E. Williams addressed the Overland High School teacher's message in a 600-word piece titled "Indoctrination of our Youth."

"Regardless of whether you're pro-Bush or anti-Bush, pro-American or anti-American, I'd like to know whether there's anyone who believes that the teacher's remarks were appropriate for any classroom setting, much less a high school geography class," Williams wrote. "It's clear the students aren't being taught geography."

In an interview Friday afternoon, Williams said he first learned about Bennish in the middle of last month in an e-mail from Jeff Allen, father of the Overland sophomore who recorded Bennish on an MP3 player.

Allen asked if Williams would like to receive a CD of that recording. Send it along, said Williams.

"I think he ought to be fired," Williams said of Bennish, in Friday's interview.

 
Let's start off with a few quotations, then a question. In reference to the president's State of the Union: "Sounds a lot like the things Adolf Hitler used to say." "Bush is threatening the whole planet." "[The] U.S. wants to keep the world divided." Then the speaker asks, "Who is probably the most violent nation on the planet?" and shouts "The United States!"

What's the source of these statements? Were they made in the heat of a political campaign? Was it a yet-to-be captured leader of al Qaeda? Was it French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin? Any "yes" answer would miss the true source by a mile. All of those statements were made by Mr. Jay Bennish, a teacher at Overland High School in Aurora, Colo.

During this class session, Mr. Bennish peppered his 10th-grade geography class with other statements like: The U.S. has engaged in "7,000 terrorist attacks against Cuba." In his discussion of capitalism, he told his students, "Capitalism is at odds with humanity, at odds with caring and compassion and at odds with human rights."

Regardless of whether you're pro-Bush or anti-Bush, pro-American or anti-American, I'd like to know whether there's anyone who believes that the teacher's remarks were appropriate for any classroom setting, much less a high school geography class. It's clear the students aren't being taught geography. They're getting socialist lies and propaganda. According to one of the parents, on the first day of class, the teacher said Karl Marx's "Communist Manifesto" was going to be a part of the curriculum.

This kind of indoctrination is by no means restricted to Overland High School. School teachers, at all grades, often use their classroom for environmental, anti-war, anti-capitalist and anti-parent propaganda. Some get their students to write letters to political figures condemning public policy the teacher doesn't like. Dr. Thomas Sowell's "Inside American Education" documents numerous ways teachers attack parental authority. Teachers have asked third-graders, "How many of you ever wanted to beat up your parents?" In a high school health class, students were asked, "How many of you hate your parents?"

Public education propaganda is often a precursor for what youngsters might encounter in college. UCLA's Bruin Standard newspaper documents campus propaganda. Mary Corey, UCLA history professor, instructed her class, "Capitalism isn't a lie on purpose. It's just a lie," she continued, "[Capitalists] are swine. . . . They're bastard people." Professor Andrew Hewitt, chairman of UCLA's Department of Germanic Languages, told his class, "Bush is a moron, a simpleton, and an idiot." His opinion of the rest of us: "American consumerism is a very unique thing; I don't think anyone else lusts after money in such a greedy fashion." Rod Swanson, economics professor, told his class, "The United States of America, backed by facts, is the greediest and most selfish country in the world." Terri Anderson, a sociology professor, assigned her class to go out cross-dressed in a public setting for four hours. Photos or videotape were required as proof of having completed the assignment.

The Bruin Alumni Association caused quite a stir when it offered to pay students for recordings of classroom proselytizing. The UCLA administration, wishing to conceal professorial misconduct, threatened legal action against the group. Some professors labeled the Bruin Alumni Association's actions as McCarthyism and attacks on academic freedom. These professors simply want a free hand to proselytize students.

Brainwashing and proselytization is by no means unique to UCLA. Taxpayers ought to de-fund, and donors should cut off contributions to colleges where administrators condone or support academic dishonesty. At the K-12 schools, parents should show up at schools, PTAs and board of education meetings demanding that teachers teach reading, writing and arithmetic and leave indoctrination to parents. The most promising tool in the fight against teacher proselytization is the micro-technology available that can expose the academic misconduct.

Since 1980, Dr. Williams has served on the faculty of George Mason University in Fairfax, VA as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics.

 


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