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Wheaton College Students Say Black Pro-Life Speaker Made People of Color 'Feel Unsafe'
"Safe" BS again: "Safe" is a favorite Leftist word. There is no way a talk about abortion can make a person feel unsafe in the ordinary meaning of that word. "Safe" is just an attempt to encode Leftist prejudices in a humane sounding word. "Unsafe" can usually be decoded as "Conflicts with my beliefs"
On Thursday, black pro-life activist Ryan Bomberger shot back after the leadership of the Wheaton College student body condemned a speech he gave as threatening to people of color. In the speech, he decried the "black genocide" of abortion and criticized Black Lives Matter for teaming up with Planned Parenthood. About a week after the event, the student leaders sent an email to the entire student body, denouncing it.
"The speaker of this event, Ryan Bomberger, made several comments at the event that deeply troubled members of our community," the students wrote. "His comments, surrounding the topic of race, made many students, staff, and faculty of color feel unheard, underrepresented, and unsafe on our campus."
In his official response, Bomberger suggested this attack constituted slander and said he was considering legal action. He directly addressed the three authors of the email — Lauren Rowley, student body president; Tyler Waaler, student body vice president; and Sammie Shields, executive vice president of community diversity.
"I am a person of color, a clarifying fact which you conveniently left out of your letter of denouncement. I was primarily presenting a perspective of those who are never heard, always underrepresented, and are actually unsafe — the unborn," he declared.
"For anyone—student, faculty, or staff— to claim that they were 'unheard' or 'underrepresented' obviously didn't stay for the 25 minutes of Q&A that followed or the additional 30 minutes that I stayed and responded to more thoughtful questions as well as some baseless (and even hostile) accusations," Bomberger added. "For anyone to claim they felt 'unsafe' by anything that I said is unfortunate and simply hyperbole."
"Are students at Wheaton taught to fear or taught to think?" the black pro-life activist quipped.
The student leaders' claims seem particularly laughable considering the facts that Bomberger's entire presentation is publicly available via Facebook video and that he began his discussion with an attack on "factophobia." He lamented, "When you're speaking facts or speaking truth, you'll be called a hater." That claim now seems rather prophetic.
Furthermore, the speaker focused on the fact that many abortion clinics specifically target black women for abortion — a trend confirmed by billboards in Dallas this August and Cleveland this past January, not to mention the disgusting history of the eugenics movement.
Yet Bomberger addressed these emotionally charged issues with nuance. He recalled that Steve Ivester, the dean of student engagement at Wheaton, "came up to me after the event and praised me for the way in which I approached such heavy issues." Indeed, this praise seems natural, as Wheaton is a Christian college with a clear pro-life stance.
As LifeSiteNews's Dorothy Cummings McLean rightly noted, Wheaton joined many other Christian colleges in suing the Obama administration over the Health and Human Services (HHS) contraception mandate under Obamacare. Like so many other institutions, Wheaton objected to the government's order that it must provide abortion-inducing drugs in employee healthcare plans. In February 2018, a federal judge ruled in Wheaton's favor.
Wheaton's pro-life stance goes beyond the administration, however. The Community Covenant calls on all Christians at the college — students included — to "uphold the God-given worth of human beings, from conception to death, as the unique image-bearers of God." The covenant grounds this pro-life stance in Psalm 139, where the psalmist recounts that God "knitted me together in my mother's womb."
Bomberger's talk — with its discussion of the dark history of the U.S. eugenics movement and the references to race-focused abortion as "black genocide" — may indeed have been uncomfortable to hear, but the purpose of a college is to expose students to uncomfortable truths.
Then again, a spokeswoman for Wheaton told LifeSiteNews that "Wheaton College's philosophy is to couple the presentation of challenging ideas with opportunities for care and reflection in response to the needs of our campus community." For this reason, she stood by the students who were "concerned" with Bomberger's statements.
The spokeswoman said administrators have reached out to Bomberger and his organization, the Radiance Foundation, to discuss his concerns.
While progressive activists often claim to be offended by conservative speakers, saying the speakers made them "feel unsafe," it is a serious charge for the student leaders to claim Bomberger — himself a black man who was conceived in rape and might have been aborted — made people of color "feel unsafe" at his speech.
After all, the Wheaton College Republicans — the group that invited him — have students of color serving as president (Hispanic) and vice president (Asian).
In a fiery conclusion, Bomberger threatened legal action.
"Your campus-wide email defies your school’s mission and teeters on the edge of slander and libel, which the Radiance Foundation never takes lightly," the activist declared. "We will pursue a discussion with your school’s administration/leadership and our attorneys at which time we will decide whether or not to take legal action against this defamation."
While Bomberger — a Christian — arguably should avoid bringing a lawsuit against other Christians (1 Corinthians 6:1), it is indeed remarkable for pro-life students at a pro-life school to take such offense at a pro-life speech that they accuse a black man of making people of color "feel unsafe."
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Making lunches great again? Chocolate milk, biscuits and tortillas are back on the menu as Trump relaxes Michelle Obama's healthy school lunch regulations to allow more salt and fat
President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday relaxed rules championed by former first lady Michelle Obama aimed at making U.S. school lunches healthier, a move that will affect institutions that feed 30 million children annually.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, delivering on a promise he made when he took office in May 2017, said schools under the current rules faced challenges serving meals that were both appetizing and nutritious.
'If kids are not eating what is being served, they are not benefiting, and food is being wasted,' Perdue said in a statement.
The Trump administration has vowed to slash regulations, which it says are burdensome for industries such as oil and coal, and has already rolled back a number of Obama-era rules as part of its business-friendly agenda.
Not everyone welcomed the relaxed rules.
The American Heart Association encouraged schools to 'stay the course' and commit to meeting the stricter standards that started going into effect in 2012.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest also said the decision to roll back the whole-grain requirement makes no sense because most schools were already in compliance.
Those still struggling to meet the standard would have eventually been able to comply as well, said Colin Schwartz, the center's deputy director of legislative affairs.
The 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act was championed by Michelle Obama and became a rallying cry for her critics after it set school lunch maximums for calories, cut sodium and artery-clogging trans fat, and required more fruits, vegetables and whole grains.
The new rules will provide the option to offer flavored, low-fat milk to children and more time to reduce sodium levels in school meals.
The former First Lady was known as an advocate for healthier eating, but users of social media posted gruesome images showing school lunches that didn't look so edible after the Obama-era regulations were put in place.
School children chose not to eat the newly required meals, instead photographing them and posting them to social media with the hashtag #thanksmichelleobama.
While Obama's initiative was largely panned by schoolchildren, some studies did show that they were eating healthier compared to when they were bringing lunches from home, according to The Washington Post.
Trump, meanwhile, is known as a man who doesn't partake in good nutrition.
In August, it was reported that his wife, First Lady Melania Trump, asked the White House kitchen to prepare healthier meals for the President.
Donald Trump is notoriously a lover of fast food - drinking multiple cans of diet Coke a day and taking in McDonald's and KFC regularly.
The New York Times report claims that despite Melania's best efforts 'he still prefers two scoops of ice cream for dessert'.
In January, Admiral Dr Ronny Jackson, the White House physician who also served Barack Obama, examined the president and declared Trump to be in 'excellent health'.
Despite his bill of good health, Jackson advised the president to improve his diet and exercise.
Trump is teetering on the edge of obesity at 239 pounds and a height of 6 feet 3 inches, giving him a BMI of 29.9.
Poll
One pound heavier at the same height and Trump would be categorized as obese.
Under the new rules introduced by the Trump administration, the U.S. school lunch program is making room on menus again for noodles, biscuits, tortillas and other foods made mostly of refined grains.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Thursday only half the grains served will need to be whole grains, a change it said will do away with the current bureaucracy of requiring schools to obtain special waivers to serve select refined grains foods.
Low-fat chocolate milk will also be allowed again.
Previously, only fat-free milk could be flavored, although that rule had also been temporarily waived.
The School Nutrition Association, which represents local cafeteria operators and companies like Domino's Pizza, Kellogg and PepsiCo, had called for relaxing the whole grain-only requirement, saying it was too difficult for some districts to meet.
Diane Pratt-Heavner, a spokeswoman for the association, said whole-grain bread and buns generally aren't a problem.
But she said students complained about other items, in many cases because of cultural or regional preferences.
Finding whole-grain biscuits and grits that students like are a challenge in the U.S. South, she said, while tortillas are a challenge in the Southwest.
For the current school year, the USDA said 20 percent of schools were applying for exemptions to the whole-grain rule. Pasta, tortillas, biscuits and grits were the most commonly requested items for exemption, it said.
The USDA school lunch program provides low-cost or free lunches in public schools and other institutions. Last year, it served an estimated 30 million children.
Brandon Lipps, deputy undersecretary for the USDA's food and nutrition division, said that at some schools that only serve whole grain foods, some is wasted if students won't eat it. In those cases, schools might now consider other options, Lipps said.
Reaction on social media was divided. Some said that Michelle Obama's reforms did not succeed, while others say they were necessary.
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Harvard student accused of rape far from campus sues university for investigating it
Does a university have the responsibility — or even the right — to investigate a claim that one of its students raped someone hundreds of miles away?
The question is central to a case filed in federal court by a Harvard University student who argues the school is overstepping its authority by investigating him for a rape allegation lodged by a nonstudent in a city where police declined to prosecute.
Saying he faces “a grave risk of being incorrectly branded a rapist,” the unnamed male Harvard student argues in the suit that the school has no jurisdiction and he wants the investigation halted.
The lawsuit was filed Nov. 28, less than two weeks after the Trump administration proposed revising the rules for college sex assault investigations — including by stipulating that colleges are responsible for policing misconduct that occurs only on their property or within their programs.
The suit signaled to some worried Harvard activists that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s efforts to overhaul the Title IX process are altering the landscape of sex assault investigations before they’re finalized.
“That demonstrated to me that [there are] students who see the Department of Education backing away from enforcing strong protections against sexual violence on campus and taking advantage of this political moment,” said Amelia Y. Goldberg, 21, a Harvard senior from New York City. “Title IX is about enforcing a violence-free campus.”
Like DeVos’s rewrite of the regulations, the lawsuit aims to rein in the perceived excesses of the campus disciplinary process that men’s rights advocates and civil rights attorneys have described in recent years as Kafkaesque.
Harvard’s Title IX officer launched an investigation after learning about the allegation. It’s unclear, the suit says, whether the woman sought Harvard’s investigation. But since she is not a student at Harvard — and never was — the school does not need to make accommodations to safeguard her education and presence on campus, as required by Title IX.
“I don’t think there’s much the school can or really should do unless the evidence is so bad that this person is deemed an obvious danger on campus,” said Robert Shibley, executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which has fought for greater due process in college disciplinary actions.
But women’s rights groups fighting the new federal proposal say that interpretation misunderstands the purpose of Title IX, the civil rights law that guards women’s education from sexual discrimination or harassment. Shiwali Patel, senior counsel for the National Women’s Law Center, said schools such as Harvard should know about such troubling behavior from a student — or an employee for that matter — whether on campus or off.
Imagine, Patel said, if a college learned about a rape allegation against an incoming professor relocating from a different school. “Wouldn’t you have an obligation at a school to ensure this behavior isn’t continuing against your own students?” Patel asked.
Moreover, Patel said, the new federal limit would ignore a host of behavior off campus, including sexual assaults that occur in apartments.
“Our concern is that by forcing schools to not investigate these complaints and dismiss them, they’re ignoring a lot of sexual harassment and not taking into account the reality of how often off-campus sexual harassment or sexual assault occurs,” Patel said, noting that many survivors of sexual assault eventually drop out of school. “This will exacerbate a very significant problem.”
The scope and reach of a college’s sexual harassment policy are at the heart of the lawsuit filed by a Harvard student identified by the pseudonym John Doe. In the suit, Doe claims he had a consensual sexual encounter in July 2017 with a fellow summer intern in an undisclosed city. The woman later filed a rape complaint with local police, who declined to prosecute, according to the lawsuit; she also filed a civil suit in that jurisdiction in March.
“The incident did not take place at Harvard, anywhere close to Harvard, or even in-state; the incident did not take place during the academic year or in connection with any Harvard program; and none of the witnesses to Mr. Doe’s knowledge were, or are, connected to Harvard in any way,” says the lawsuit.
Doe’s lawsuit argues that Harvard’s Office of Dispute Resolution does not have jurisdiction to investigate.
Harvard’s policy on sexual- and gender-based harassment does not cover off-campus behavior, except in university-recognized programs or activities. But the Faculty of Arts and Sciences — one of several colleges that fall beneath the university’s umbrella policy — has its own standard that goes further, mandating that students “behave in a mature and responsible manner.” The policy also notes that sexual misconduct will not be tolerated, even when it falls outside the jurisdiction of the universitywide policy.
Harvard paused the disciplinary proceedings on Nov. 15 — the day the US Education Department issued its proposed new rule, the suit states. But on Nov. 27, Harvard’s Title IX investigator announced the investigation would continue, with no changes to procedures, and asked Doe to appear for an interview the following day or the following week. Instead, he sued the next day.
Harvard officials would not speak to the details of the lawsuit. On the broader Title IX changes proposed by DeVos, a spokesman said the university is still reviewing them to determine how they would affect current policies and practices.
“Harvard’s top priority remains ensuring the safety and well-being of every member of our community, supported through thoughtful and fair policies and procedures,” Harvard spokesman Jonathan Swain said in a statement. “Essential to this is ensuring that all members of our community are both encouraged to report and feel comfortable in reporting incidents of sexual and gender-based harassment, including sexual assault.”
Enacted in 1972, Title IX is intended to ensure women and girls have equal opportunities at school.
In 2011, amid concerns about an unchecked rape culture on college campuses, the Obama administration tightened schools’ requirements for investigating assault and harassment and threatened to withhold federal funding from schools that were noncompliant.
But in the ensuing years, many lawyers argued the scales of justice tipped too far, with the accused not receiving due process. Many colleges did not guarantee the accused student would have a hearing, a lawyer, or the right to see evidence.
“I think that the Obama administration so egregiously overdid it,” said Janet Halley, a Harvard Law School professor. “We started out with a bad situation of underenforcement. The Obama administration corrected that by moving in the direction of overenforcement, overly broad definitions, and lack of fundamental fairness in the process.”
The changes proposed by DeVos would require colleges to hold live hearings to review the evidence in any sexual assault allegation. Many schools had adopted a “single investigator” model, in which an employee or professional hired by the Title IX officer assesses the evidence.
In addition, under DeVos’s revisions, a student accused of sexual harassment could not go unrepresented by a lawyer; the university would have to appoint a representative.
The draft rule DeVos proposed is up for public comment through Jan. 28.
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