Day: December 29, 2020

Family Files Civil Rights Lawsuit Against Charter School for Mandating Anti-White ‘Critical Race Theory’ Class

Minnesota Sun Staff

A Nevada mother has followed through on her threat to file a civil rights lawsuit against her son’s charter school for refusing to let him opt out of a mandatory class that promotes hostility toward whites as a race.

Democracy Prep at the Agassi Campus (DPAC) forced William Clark “to make professions about his racial, sexual, gender and religious identities in verbal class exercises and in graded, written homework assignments,” creating a hostile environment, the biracial high school student and Gabrielle Clark allege in their federal lawsuit filed Tuesday.

Read More

Tennessee Man Arrested After Feared Copycat Vehicle Attack

Peter D'Abrosca

Police in Rutherford County arrested a man Sunday afternoon when they feared he was about to perpetrate a copycat attack similar to the Christmas day bombing in downtown Nashville.

“Sheriff’s deputies in Rutherford and Wilson Counties are investigating a box truck parked at a store playing audio similar to the Christmas explosion in Nashville. The driver was stopped by deputies and detained. Residents evacuated. Investigation active,” the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office (RCSO) said on Twitter.

Read More

Berkeley Cheating Allegations Spike Nearly 400 Percent with Online Classes

Minnesota Sun Staff

According to the University of California-Berkeley student newspaper, The Daily Cal, the university’s Center for Student Conduct has seen a 400 percent increase of alleged academic misconduct compared with last year, amounting to more than 300 reports of misconduct as of early November.

The Berkeley Campus Code of Student Contact manual states that academic misconduct includes “cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, or facilitating academic dishonesty.”

Read More

US-Backed Forces Raiding ISIS Cells in Syria

Minnesota Sun Staff

The Syrian Democratic Forces are executing a new series of raids against active ISIS-affiliated militants in eastern Syria with the support of the U.S., VOA News reported Sunday.

The new campaign targets ISIS remnants in the Deir al-Zour province near Iraq, VOA News reported. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) military alliance is focusing on ISIS cells in the northern part of the province.

Read More

Commentary: Zoom School Gets an ‘F,’ But Some Online Learning Providers Excel

Minnesota Sun Staff

Students in 40 percent of school districts across the country haven’t been inside a classroom since last spring, and others are now returning to virtual “Zoom school” as coronavirus cases rise. Remote public schooling as a response to school shutdowns has been a disaster for many children, with a record number of F grades issued this academic year. Both parents and kids are fed up with Zoom school, and teachers are frustrated with it as well. The Washington Post ran a headline this month saying we must finally admit that “remote education is a failure.”

Read More

Commentary: Biden’s Immigration Agenda

Minnesota Sun Staff

A lasting legacy of President Trump’s immigration policies will be his administration’s willingness to acknowledge and address the broad scope and wide spectrum of how immigration—both legal and illegal—impacts American life.

Our political debates tend to regress into entrenched and cyclical discussions of border security and amnesty for illegal populations, a polarized framing that ignores how significantly our labor policies, law enforcement practices, and even the shape of our congressional representation, are affected by the choices we make concerning immigration.

Read More

Social Justice Favorites Including LGBT+, Climate Change Take a Prominent Role in the New Draft of Social Studies Standards in Minnesota

Minnesota Sun Staff

Minnesota’s newly proposed social studies standards for public schools place significant emphasis on race, gender, climate change and LGBT issues.

Under the first draft of the proposed standards, students will be asked to “develop a respectful awareness about how ideas and norms about gender have changed over time,” accept that “some forms of slavery continued even after emancipation” and learn how the “fight for social justice” continues today.

Students will also be asked to “analyze how resistance movements in the U.S. have organized and responded to oppression,” and “imagine and work toward an equitable and caring future” in keeping with the social justice model.

Read More