University of Chicago threatens Condoleezza Rice protestors
By Benjamin Doherty – The Electronic Intifada – 11/14/2011
In an Orwellian move, the Provost of the University of Chicago sent an email to the entire campus titled “Freedom of Expression” to announce the university’s intention to crack down on any protestors of tomorrow’s event with former Bush administration officials Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
Provost Thomas Rosenbaum wrote:
We will continue to respect the rights of protesters to express their views in a peaceful manner that does not prevent invited guests from speaking. However, should individuals violate these expectations and attempt to shut down the speech of others, we must take action to protect our fundamental values. This means escorting disruptive individuals out of events and pursuing appropriate disciplinary action in accordance with longstanding policies noted in the University’s Statutes and in the Student Manual.”
Undoubtedly Rosenbaum had in mind what happened when former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert visited the campus in October 2009 to give the King Abdullah II leadership lecture. On that occasion, as the viral video of the event shows, members of the audience disrupted Olmert, preventing him from speaking.
But as The Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah, who took part in the Olmert protest explained, this was because the University itself had already shut down all possibility of challenging Olmert and holding him accountable even to the point of banning media from the event. Then, as now, the University disingenuously claimed to be protecting “free speech.”
On this occasion, the University is making a special effort to protect the free speech rights of someone promoting a book published by Random House that will be distributed in the mass market and has already been reviewed in mainstream publications including the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post.
We can only speculate as to whether the University of Chicago has been emboldened in its anti-free-speech stance by the September conviction of the Irvine 11 for protesting Israeli ambassador and military officer Michael Oren.
The University’s threats of “appropriate disciplinary action” against its own students may in fact be much worse than arrest, because these measures include suspension and expulsion.
Here’s the email in full
No comments yet.
Featured Video
American Military Failure in Afghanistan
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
Frlom the Archives
The Fiction of the Jewish History in Palestine
By Hasan Afif El-Hasan | The Palestine Chronicle | April 8, 2011
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told NNC Pierce Morgan on March 18, 2011 that he might agree to a Palestinian state through negotiations. And he added, “We will make territorial concessions although it is very painful to do that in our ancestral land.” Netanyahu was not talking about Poland where his ancestors lived. He was talking about Palestine where generations of its indigenous population ancestors lived, cultivated the land and are buried.
By the end of the nineteenth century, Zionism created a new Jewish identity of blood and soil. To mobilize their followers and supporters and appeal to their emotions, the Zionists created myths. Zionism started as a tribal religion without god, but in order to fulfill its function as a unifying force, Zionism required external religious and race symbols, not inner content. Its leaders regarded metaphysical religious belief and purity of race as having value in itself. They created a divine paradisiacal state of merger with the gods. Despite his non-religious ideology, Herzl’s writings were replete with religious references. The Jews should settle in Palestine because, in his words, “the Temple will be visible from long distance, for it is only our ancient faith that has kept us together”.
The Zionists and their supporters have invested tremendous financial and scholarly resources to work within the Hebrew Bible historical narratives to affirm the links between the intrusive Zionist population and the ancient Israelite past, and by doing so assert the right of that population to the land. The political end-game shaped the investigation and the outcome. Tracing the roots of Israel’s ethnic state in biblical antiquity is effectively to silence the indigenous Palestinian claim to the past and therefore to the land. The Biblical scholarship employs a bewildering array of terms for the region: “the Holy Land”, “the Land of the Bible”, “Eretz Israel”, “the Land of Israel”, or “Judah and Samaria.” To the casual reader these names appear interchangeable, but they all imply connection to ancient Israel.
Biblical narratives or poems that cannot be supported by archeology and common sense are treated by the Zionists and their supporters as historical language. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- The Sludging of Rural America
- Lawyers’ groups demand end to British military bases in Cyprus
- CIA Assessment: The Resistance Cannot Be Crushed
- Hezbollah Returns: It Didn’t Start a War, It Is Ending One
- EU states seek ‘talks’ with Iran for access to Strait of Hormuz: Report
- Trump on Hormuz: “Others must take care of it” after US falters
- Who Is closer to collapse?
- A War that Backfired: Why the US-Israeli Campaign Is Strengthening Iran
- How Zionist Control Is Hurting US Interests
- Iran warns it may target US missile launch sites in UAE cities
- If Americans Knew
- As US-Israel war on Iran rages, Gaza faces massive dust storm – Not a ceasefire Day 156
- No let-up in attacks on Gaza as Israel takes on Iran, Lebanon – Not a ceasefire Day 155
- ‘Of Course’: IDF Drops Case Against Soldiers Accused of Raping Palestinian Prisoner
- Don’t Fall for the Regime Change Talk. Israel Is ‘Mowing the Lawn’ in Iran
- Will Israel and the US wreck the Gulf States along with Iran?
- US so far burned through ‘years’ of munitions in Iran war: Report
- How the Israeli Tail Wags the American Dog
- Outdated intel likely led to deadly U.S. strike on Iranian elementary school, sources say
- Pentagon insider says high U.S official Douglas Feith reported to Netanyahu
- In fond memory of Walid Khalidi, the historian of Palestine
- No Tricks Zone
- Storing Green Energy To Last Germany 10 Days Would Require A 60-Million Tonne Battery
- New Studies: UK Sea Levels Were 4 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Destructive Green New Deal: German Energy And Metal Group Warns Of Drastic Crisis
- New Study Documents A 20-Year Pause In Arctic Sea Ice Decline – Driven By Internal Variability
- Wake-up Call: Survey Shows Majority Of Germans Now Favor Postponing Climate Targets!
- Televised! Leading German Political Candidate Tells Schoolchildren CO2 Makes Sun Hotter!
- New Study: A Century Warming Of 1.1°C Is ‘Commonplace’ And ‘Not Unusual’ During This Interglacial
- New Study: ‘Internal Noise’ And Volcanic Forcing Can Trigger 10-15°C Warming Within Decades
- Glaciers Worldwide Are Suddendly Surging, Experts Blame Warming!
- Surprising Discovery: Sahara Is Greening…Billions Of Trees Where Once Thought To Be Barren
Aletho News 
Leave a comment