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13 June 20
Jane Mayer | Ivanka Trump Fuels a Cancel-Culture Clash at Wichita State
Jane Mayer, The New Yorker
Mayer writes: "A showdown over who rules America's college campuses came to a head in Kansas on Wednesday, in a clash that might be called Cancel Culture vs. the Big Donors."
Jane Mayer, The New Yorker
Mayer writes: "A showdown over who rules America's college campuses came to a head in Kansas on Wednesday, in a clash that might be called Cancel Culture vs. the Big Donors."
It began last week, when a technical college affiliated with Wichita State University scrapped plans for a virtual commencement address by Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, in a bow to student and faculty criticism of the President’s response to the nationwide protests over George Floyd’s killing. On Twitter, Ivanka blamed “cancel culture,” calling it “antithetical to academia.” In a compromise brokered by the university, Ivanka’s remarks, instead of headlining the event, were demoted to being one in a menu of choices during the ceremony, on June 6th. If they wished, students could click on a link and see her dressed for the occasion, in a regal white sheath and turquoise earrings and brooch, as she addressed them as “wartime” graduates.
The approach of Wichita State University’s president, Jay Golden, won praise from students and faculty members who had circulated petitions opposing the address. But the decision roiled the school’s conservative corporate donors, including, reportedly, the billionaire libertarian oil magnate Charles Koch, the owner of Koch Industries, the largest company in Wichita and one of the two largest private companies in the country. According to the Wichita Eagle, Koch Industries threatened to withdraw its financial support for the university; its basketball arena bears Koch’s name. The newspaper’s story cited a letter, sent to the Kansas Board of Regents, by another corporate booster of the school, Steve Clark, which called for Golden to be fired and warned that Koch Industries and other major corporate donors—including Dan Carney, the founder of Pizza Hut—were “very upset and quite vocal in their decisions to disavow any further support.”
In his letter, according to the Eagle, Clark described a conversation that he’d had with Koch Industries’ chief financial officer, Steve Feilmeier, the chair of a fund-raising campaign for a new business building on campus. “He advised me he’s resigning . . . from any further association with the University,” Clark reportedly wrote. “He is also advising that Koch Industries rescind all their financial support for programs at the University they’ve previously funded.” In an interview, Clark told the Eagle, “We had Koch in the fold. Now we’re going to lose them, and they’ll never be back.” To avoid risking the loss of millions of dollars in financial support for the university, Clark called on the Board of Regents to fire Golden.
Instead, the board held a closed-door session on the matter on Wednesday, while students held a rally and circulated a campus petition in support of Golden, which has now garnered eighty-seven hundred signatures. After meeting for four hours, the board issued an equivocal statement supporting “freedom of speech and diversity and inclusion.” Tajahnae Stocker, one of the W.S.U. students who helped organize the rally, told the Eagle, “The Koch brothers have had a huge influence for way too long, and now is about time to start supporting us instead of supporting a check to the university.”
Clark, who had called for Golden’s dismissal, declined to comment.
The political pressure that wealthy donors exert on universities rarely gets aired so publicly. But there’s no mystery in why W.S.U. might quake at the prospect of alienating the Kochs. Charles Koch, whose fortune is estimated to be slightly more than fifty billion dollars, has reportedly given or pledged some fifteen million to W.S.U. in the past seven years. In addition, Koch has committed $3.6 million to fund the university’s Institute for the Study of Economic Growth. Although W.S.U. is a public university, the Koch-funded center is a think tank devoted to promoting the billionaire’s personal political philosophy, which promotes private enterprise, and not government, as the panacea to virtually all societal problems. In recent years, exposing college students to his libertarian ideology has been a major focus of Koch’s philanthropy, and there are now similar Koch-funded programs at some three hundred American colleges and universities. Despite reportedly bridling at the disinvitation of Ivanka Trump, Koch has not been a full-throated supporter of her father, nor a donor to his campaigns. However, Koch and his private political operation have enthusiastically backed a number of Trump Administration policies, including the 2018 corporate tax cuts and the Administration’s rollbacks of environmental regulations.
In a statement sent to me on Wednesday, a spokesman for Koch Industries tried to distance the company from the controversy. “Steve Clark is a private citizen who is not affiliated with Koch Industries,” the statement read. “His views were inaccurate and do not represent Koch Industries.” The statement went on to say that the company “is continuing its commitments to WSU” and believes in “academic freedom.” Yet it also said, “We object to speaker disinvitations,” adding that “universities offer students opportunities to encounter new ideas and think for themselves. Limiting access to unpopular speakers, viewpoints, and scholarship doesn’t protect students, it cuts off the chance to engage, debate, and criticize.”
A wealthy donor casting the controversy as a matter of free speech sounds noble. But some of the professors and students who led the protests against Ivanka Trump’s commencement address dismissed that argument as specious. Jennifer Ray, an associate professor of photo media at Wichita State, who wrote an open letter to the administration opposing the address that gathered nearly five hundred signatures, pointed out that “any student who wants to opt-in and hear Ivanka Trump’s speech can. It wasn’t cancelled, or censored. It’s on a menu of speakers they can listen to. So, this First Amendment talk doesn’t really apply. The people who are complaining know full well that the speech is available. They just don’t like the politics. It was all about the symbolism.”
Ray acknowledged that her reason for opposing the speech was symbolic as well. “It would have sent a message that the university was against the protesters,” she said. “Instead, the university tried to neutralize the situation. They did the right thing. It was quite brave.”
Amira Coleman, an aspiring opera singer who is a senior at W.S.U. and an African-American supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement, noted that “Ivanka’s speech is still available for anyone who wants to watch it. They just didn’t want it to be the headliner. It was a compromise, yet the donors said they wanted to pull their donations. It was not an act of censorship. It was a shift of focus from Ivanka to the needs of the black community here. And now the president is getting punished for listening to the students here. That’s sad.”
If, in fact, there is any threat to free speech on campus, Ray suggested, the episode showed that it is posed by the school’s big donors. “The real peril is these business partnerships,” she told me. “They think they own the school. That’s the First Amendment issue.”
A Black Lives Matter protest. (photo: Taylor Hartz/The Day)
Black Candidates and Political Groups See a Surge of Support Amid Protests
Daniel Strauss, Guardian UK
Strauss writes: "African American candidates and political groups focused on racial justice have experienced a surge of donations and support amid ongoing national protests about police reform and anti-racism."
Daniel Strauss, Guardian UK
Strauss writes: "African American candidates and political groups focused on racial justice have experienced a surge of donations and support amid ongoing national protests about police reform and anti-racism."
EXCERPTS:
In Kentucky, state representative Charles Booker, said he’s raised $1m over the past month. Roughly over that same period he’s also been endorsed by top progressive Democrats: Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
In New York, Democrat Jamaal Bowman, who is challenging New York congressman Eliot Engel in a tough primary, has surpassed fundraising benchmarks since the beginning of June, as he’s tried to capitalize on missteps by the incumbent congressman – including a hot mic incident at a Black Lives Matter event. Sanders has endorsed Bowman as well.
The Real Justice Pac, a group that works to boost progressive “reform-minded prosecutors”, said it had seen an influx of support amid the ongoing national discussion of reforming the police.
“Real Justice Pac is seeing a significant increase in the frequency and amount of donations – large and small,” said Chris Lazare, the group’s organizing director, in a statement. “We think people across the country are realizing that electing reform minded prosecutors is an integral part of achieving the change we want and holding police accountable.”
Kentucky’s Booker, the underdog Senate candidate competing with Amy McGrath for the Democratic nomination to face Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, said in an interview on Friday his campaign raised $1m in the first week of June.
“With all the racial tension that has been growing in [not only] my state but across the country I think what you’re seeing is people are looking to ‘who’s going to lead in this moment,” Booker said.“We have seen a big surge in our fundraising. We’ve seen an outpouring of support from across Kentucky and across the country. And we have a very real shot to win this race.”
Booker added: “It’s come from this energy, this sense of resolve, this fire, this aggressive urge and plea from regular folks to [say] we gotta do things different and make sure that we don’t keep playing the status quo.”
A demonstrator holds a sign at a transgender rights rally. (photo: National Center for Transgender Equality
Trump Administration Erases Health Care Protections for Transgender Patients During Pride Month
Li Cohen, CBS News
Cohen writes: "Just two weeks into Pride Month - and on the anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting - the Trump administration announced that it is rolling back Obama-era health care protections for people who are transgender."
READ MORE
Li Cohen, CBS News
Cohen writes: "Just two weeks into Pride Month - and on the anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting - the Trump administration announced that it is rolling back Obama-era health care protections for people who are transgender."
READ MORE
Minneapolis police point a rubber bullet gun at protesters on May 31. (photo: Victor J. Blue/NYT)
Rubber Bullets and Beanbag Rounds Can Cause Devastating Injuries
Knvul Sheikh and David Montgomery, The New York Times
Excerpt: "As protesters filled the streets of downtown San Jose, Calif., recently, the police fired munitions known as rubber bullets into the crowd - a common technique to disperse throngs."
Knvul Sheikh and David Montgomery, The New York Times
Excerpt: "As protesters filled the streets of downtown San Jose, Calif., recently, the police fired munitions known as rubber bullets into the crowd - a common technique to disperse throngs."
Breanna Contreras’s head jerked back from the impact as a black projectile “roughly the size of an extra-jumbo marshmallow” struck her temple, near her eye. “I instantly felt my head just starting to throb, blood poured down my face,” Ms. Contreras, a 21-year-old student, said.
A bystander who used her face mask to help stop the bleeding was also struck. “There were so many rubber bullets being fired, I wanted to think how to protect my eyes,” said Peter di Donato, 75, a veteran of anti-Vietnam War protests, who was hit in the leg. Derrick Sanderlin, 29, a community organizer, approached a line of police officers to ask them to stop. But he got hit too — in the groin — and had to have emergency surgery. He said his doctors have told him he may not be able to have children as a result of the injury.
Medical staff attend to a patient infected with COVID-19. (photo: Thomas Samson/AP)
Coronavirus Hospitalizations Climb, Cases Spike in Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, NC
Marisa Iati, Lateshia Beachum, Keith McMillan, Samantha Pell and Angela Fritz, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "Anthony S. Fauci said Friday that it is a 'danger' and 'risky' for people to be gathering in large groups - whether at a Trump rally or a protest. The nation's top infectious-disease expert advised on a podcast that if gatherings take place, people should 'make sure' to wear a mask."
READ MORE
Marisa Iati, Lateshia Beachum, Keith McMillan, Samantha Pell and Angela Fritz, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "Anthony S. Fauci said Friday that it is a 'danger' and 'risky' for people to be gathering in large groups - whether at a Trump rally or a protest. The nation's top infectious-disease expert advised on a podcast that if gatherings take place, people should 'make sure' to wear a mask."
READ MORE
An 11-year-old boy chops sugarcane stalks in a Bolivian village. (photo: Noah Friedman-Rudovsky/Time)
COVID-19 Fuels Child Labor Crisis in Latin America
teleSUR
Excerpt: "United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) warned that in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the reduction of incomes and the economic insecurities for families would increase the number of children and adolescents that have to labor to survive in the region."
READ MORE
teleSUR
Excerpt: "United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) warned that in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the reduction of incomes and the economic insecurities for families would increase the number of children and adolescents that have to labor to survive in the region."
READ MORE
Scientists said the month of May 2020 was the hottest for average global temperatures since 1979. They expect this trend to continue throughout the year. (photo: WQAD)
May 2020 Tied for Earth's Hottest May on Record, Federal Scientists Report
Doyle Rice, USA TODAY
Rice writes: "May 2020 tied for the warmest May on record, federal scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Friday. Climate records go back to 1880."
Doyle Rice, USA TODAY
Rice writes: "May 2020 tied for the warmest May on record, federal scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Friday. Climate records go back to 1880."
May 2020 was 1.71 degrees above average globally, NOAA said, which put the month in a tie with May 2016 for the warmest May on record. The 10 warmest Mays have all occurred since 1998.
The warmth was most noteworthy in Asia, NOAA said.
The heat wasn’t just limited to May, according to NOAA: The three-month season (March through May) and the year-to-date (January through May) ranked second-warmest in the 141-year global record, NOAA said.
A separate analysis from NASA said that May 2020 was the record-warmest month.
Can the warmth be blamed on human-caused climate change? NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt said yes: "It’s no surprise that records keep getting broken because we know that fossil-fuel emissions are driving the long-term trends and we are still adding to atmospheric CO2 – even with the pandemic."
"Not every month and not every year will be a new record, but this continuing drumbeat of records is exactly what we expect to continue," Schmidt told USA TODAY.
Yet another group, Berkeley Earth, which also tracks global temperatures using a slightly different method, reported that May was the warmest May on record by itself. "May 2020 continues the ongoing pattern of wide-spread warmth," the group said.
"Very warm conditions were again present across most of Asia, including record monthly averages for parts of central Asia. Warm conditions were also present in both the Arctic and Antarctic, as well as parts of Africa, South America and Central America."
Looking ahead to the entire year, Berkeley Earth said that "updated projections for the rest of 2020 give a 89% chance that 2020 will be a new record warm year, a significant increase relative to prior projections."
However, climate scientist James Hansen, formerly of NASA and now of Columbia University's Earth Institute , said in an email that "2020 and 2016 will be the two warmest years, but which one will wear the crown? The answer is of little import – they will be close, likely a statistical dead heat."
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