Former president writes open letter to American librarians and appears in TikTok video decrying rightwing censorship push
In an open letter to American librarians, Barack Obama criticised “profoundly misguided” rightwing efforts to ban books from libraries in public schools.
“Some of the books that shaped my life – and the lives of so many others – are being challenged by people who disagree with certain ideas or perspectives,” the former president wrote.
Continue reading...Melissa Tempel dismissed after she tweeted frustration at ban of Dolly Parton and Miley Cyrus song exalting virtues of inclusivity
A teacher in Wisconsin has been fired from her job after she criticized her public school district’s decision to ban the song Rainbowland, which exalts the virtues of inclusivity, from a children’s concert at her campus.
The members of the board governing public schools in the solidly Republican community of Waukesha voted unanimously to dismiss Melissa Tempel from her job on Wednesday, saying the teacher’s defense of the Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton duet violated district policy because she did not speak to her supervisors first.
Continue reading...Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York sues cleaner’s employer after freezer turned off to mute ‘annoying alarm’
A cleaner at a college in New York state accidentally destroyed decades of research by turning off a freezer in order to mute “annoying alarm” sounds.
The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), in Troy, is suing the cleaner’s employer, alleging improper training. According to a lawsuit filed in the New York supreme court in Rensselaer county earlier this month, the university is seeking more than $1m in damages, the Times Union newspaper reported.
Continue reading...Kairan Quazi, the youngest graduate in the school’s history, will start at the company’s satellite internet division Starlink in July
Kairan Quazi is years away from legally being able to watch an R-rated movie at the theater by himself or buy a drink at the bar, but he’s about to get a college degree and start a job at SpaceX.
Other than that, the 14-year-old insists he’s had a fairly normal academic journey.
Continue reading...Congressman Adam Schiff condemns ‘acts of violence’ as punches thrown outside meeting about designating June as Pride month
Democratic politicians across California condemned a volatile anti-gay protest outside a suburban Los Angeles school board meeting on Tuesday, as the school board heard public comment on whether to officially designate June as LGBTQ+ Pride month.
Footage from a local television station showed crowds of people shoving, kicking and throwing punches outside a school district building in Glendale, California.
Continue reading...Several conservative parents of students at Lyman high school complained about two pages highlighting LGBTQ+ students
A high school in Florida will offer refunds and reprints to parents and students who argued its yearbook featured “disgusting and wrong” LGBTQ+ content.
Students at Lyman high school in Seminole county received their yearbooks a few weeks ago. Several conservative parents complained.
Continue reading...Davis school district says it will assess text after complaint for ‘pornographic or indecent materials’ under law passed last year
A school district in Utah that last week banned the Bible from school libraries is now being asked to consider a further title for removal: the Book of Mormon.
The Davis school district, which serves Davis county, north of Salt Lake City, said it was considering a new complaint demanding the removal of the foundational text of the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Continue reading...Rehan Staton became a viral media sensation on his admission, and film-maker Tyler Perry covered his tuition fees
The man who worked as a trash hauler in Maryland before earning international news headlines by gaining admission into the prestigious Harvard Law School has graduated.
Rehan Staton received his juris doctorate from Harvard after walking across the stage in his cap and gown during a commencement ceremony on Thursday afternoon at the school’s campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Continue reading...Former employees at Houghton University say administrators claimed pronouns in signatures violated new school policy
A New York Christian university terminated two employees for putting pronouns in their respective email signatures, these former workers allege, according to reports.
Raegan Zelaya and Shua Wilmot, who were residence hall directors at Houghton University, said that administrators told them to take the words “she/her” and “he/him” off of their email signatures.
Continue reading...Agent for bestselling Australian children’s author says she has ‘nothing to say’ about the ban and Duval county ‘is not important’
Bestselling Australian author Mem Fox has become the latest victim of ultra-conservative Florida governor Ron DeSantis, with the writer’s 1988 children’s book Guess What? being banned in the Jacksonville county of Duval.
The book, about a witch called Daisy O’Grady, appears to have fallen foul of Florida’s parental rights in education bill, widely referred to as the “don’t say gay” law, championed by DeSantis, the Republican widely considered to be Donald Trump’s closest rival for the 2024 presidential race.
Continue reading...Jenna Barbee, who is under investigation, insists film is related to curriculum and warns investigators are traumatizing her students
A Florida teacher under investigation because she showed her class the Disney animated movie Strange World which features a gay character has defended herself on social media, insisting the film related to the curriculum and warning that state investigators were traumatizing her 10- and 11-year-old students.
Jenna Barbee, a teacher at Winding Waters school in Hernando county, Florida, released a six-minute TikTok video in which she gave her side of the story. She said she had been reported to the local school board by one of her students’ mother, who sits on the board and was on a “rampage to get rid of every form of representation out of our schools”, Barbee alleged.
Continue reading...Shania Muhammad earned bachelor of arts degree from Langston University in Oklahoma and plans career in public speaking
Among the millions who are celebrating having received their university diplomas in the US this spring is a 15-year-old girl from Oklahoma, one of the youngest ever American college graduates.
Shania Muhammad graduated from Oklahoma’s Langston University with a bachelor of arts degree as well as a 4.0 grade-point average that was the highest in her class, according to a recent report from the local news media outlet KOCO-TV. She said she plans to pursue a career in public speaking and publish a book about her experience in school titled Read, Write, Listen: 13 in College.
Continue reading...Dennis Maliq Barnes of New Orleans announces he will attend Cornell University this fall to study computer science
The 16-year-old American high schooler who set what is believed to be a US record after collecting more than $10m in college scholarship offers is bound for the Ivy League.
Dennis Maliq Barnes announced on Friday that he plans to enroll at Cornell University for the fall semester to study computer science after his 24 May graduation from New Orleans’s International high school. The Ithaca, New York, university only accepts 9% of applicants, and just 7% of its 15,000 or so students are Black like Barnes, according to the US News & World Report.
Continue reading...Stanley Kurtz’s crusade against ‘woke civics’ in schools has shaped Republican bills across the US
When two US senators – a Texas Republican and a Delaware Democrat – introduced a bill in June 2022 to expand grants for civics education, most observers saw it as something of an olive branch between the parties.
But despite initial momentum, three now-familiar letters stopped the bill in its tracks: CRT.
Continue reading...Hope Carrasquilla, forced to resign after parents condemned Michelangelo’s statue as pornography, invited to Florence
A Florida principal who resigned after parents at her school decried Michelangelo’s David statue as pornography has traveled to Florence, Italy, following invitations from the museum director and mayor of Florence.
Hope Carrasquilla, the former principal of Florida’s Tallahassee Classical school, touched down in Florence on Friday and visited the Accademia Gallery with her family where David’s statue resides.
Continue reading...Rocky Hanna is accused of ignoring Florida governor’s directives in latest move against those who oppose Republicans’ politics
Florida officials are threatening to revoke the teaching license of a school superintendent who criticized the governor, Ron DeSantis.
The educator is accused of violating several statutes and DeSantis directives and allowing his “personal political views” to guide his leadership.
Continue reading...Dennis Barnes’s offers from 125 colleges and universities approach a national record
A high school student in Louisiana has received more than $9m in scholarship offers, an amount that leaves him at least close to clinching what is believed to be a US record.
Dennis Barnes has been offered aid from 125 colleges and universities, after maintaining a cumulative grade point average of 4.98, among other academic accomplishments, at International high school in New Orleans.
Continue reading...Opponents say memoir The Courage to be Free, published in February, violates law governor signed last year
Democrats in Florida are attempting to use a state law that censors books in public schools against the governor who signed it, Ron DeSantis, by asking schools to review or ban the Republican governor’s own book, The Courage to be Free.
“The very trap he set for others is the one that he set for himself,” Fentrice Driskell, the Democratic minority leader in the Florida state house, told the Daily Beast.
Continue reading...A former student killed three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Nashville on Monday, armed with two “assault-style” weapons and a handgun after elaborately planning the massacre by drawing a detailed map and conducting surveillance of the building, police said.
Nashville chief of police John Drake told NBC News the shooter had planned to attack several different places, saying a manifesto belonging to the suspect “indicates that there was going to be shootings at multiple locations, and the school was one of them”.
Continue reading...New Orleans students Calcea Johnson and Ne’Kiya Jackson recently presented their findings on the Pythagorean theorem
Two New Orleans high school seniors who say they have proven Pythagoras’s theorem by using trigonometry – which academics for two millennia have thought to be impossible – are being encouraged by a prominent US mathematical research organization to submit their work to a peer-reviewed journal.
Calcea Johnson and Ne’Kiya Jackson, who are students of St Mary’s Academy, recently gave a presentation of their findings at the American Mathematical Society south-eastern chapter’s semi-annual meeting in Georgia.
Continue reading...