Forget crunches and push-ups, the University of Houston’s Center for Diversity and Inclusion has some diversity exercises for students and faculty to enjoy on its website. Now there are some ones we’ve seen before like the “Privilege Walk,” where if you’re a white male you take a step forward, that kind of thing, but then there’s one called “Whom to Leave Behind,” according to Campus Reform.
The instructions say “The twelve persons listed below have been selected as passengers on a space ship for a flight to another planet because tomorrow the planet Earth is doomed for destruction. Due to changes in space limitations, it has now been determined that only eight persons may go.”
Since the traditional lifeboat dilemma tests utilitarianism, you might expect to find that the people you choose from add varying amounts and types of value to society.
But the passenger list the University of Houston promotes has another kind of diversity. It tells you that some passengers are apparently militant African American, Muslim, anti-gay, female, etc.
Does the University of Houston wantyou to put superficial stuff like race and gender on the same plane as a person’s job and personality? Like, what’s the point of including those things here? It makes you wonder if the point of diversity and inclusion is to eliminate those factors from consideration or rather to create a new hierarchy of identity-based oppression.
The Israeli-Palestinian debate is an intense one, packed with questions of history, demography, and land disputes. But why does it always seem like it’s one side of the debate that’s shutting down events, making violent threats (or actually taking violent action), and just generally acting really immature?
Students from numerous universities gathered in October for the 2017 National Students for Justice in Palestine Conference at the University of Houston. Some of them weren’t just pro-Palestinian, but have spread misinformation and actively incited violence, watchdog group Canary Mission found.
Take Samer Alhato, for instance, a Saint Xavier University student and workshop leader at the 2017 NSJP. Alhato tweeted “Barack Obama, shut up about gay marriage and go kill all the Jews.” He’s also made no secret that he’s a fan of terrorist group Hamas, saying “YES I SUPPORT HAMAS!” and “Hamas promotes peace.”
When discussing the tragic shooting of children in Israel, Alhato lies by omission, saying “Marah al Bakri a 15 year old girl shot by Jewish settlers & the Israeli police, accusing her of carrying a knife,” leaving out the part when al Bakri stabbed the Israeli policeman who proceeded to shoot and injure her in self-defense. The student also said “Jewish settlers in east Jerusalem executed 3 school children…one of them was a 14 year-old boy,” but didn’t include the part after the attack where the teen reportedly said he “went there to stab Jews” nor any of the footage showing him and his brother chasing after a man with knives.
Also present at the NSJP Conference was Halima Eid, a member of San Diego State University’s Muslim Students Association. It’s perfectly okay if a person doesn’t agree with the concept of Zionism, but Eid takes what could be an interesting conversation a little bit further, suggesting that “we should just stone all the Zionists to death, Palestinian style,” saying “I would never kill a human or animal…only Zionists cuz they are neither,” and really seeming to get into it with “let your killing go crazy…Zionist Massacre…Make them all drop.”
For the record, the term Zionist has been twisted into a pejorative by both Palestinians and the Left. Zionism, in reality, is a belief in the self-determination of the Jewish people and their right to a homeland in Israel. Gee, who else believes they have a right to their own nation on legal and historical grounds? Could it be just about every people on the planet, including Palestinians?
Vigorous debates, peaceful protests, these things are what college is about. But calling for violence, making it impossible for the speakers to speak, those tactics won’t solve anything. And regardless of your political beliefs, after seeing events on campus the past couple of years, it’s clear that the left has a lot to learn.
Conservative writer and activist David Horowitz gave a speech at the University of Houston, but was interrupted by protesters with cries of “racist,” “Islamophobe,” and “off our campus.”
The university’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter protested Horowitz at a campus the author alleges “is home to an increasing radical and Hamas-promoting chapter.”
The students interrupted the writer after he asserted that Hamas essentially created SJP. American Muslims for Palestine “is arguably the most important sponsor and organizer for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which is the most visible arm of the BDS campaign on campuses in the United States,” says a 2016 report from the House of Representatives. The group reported giving SJP chapters $100,000 in 2014 alone.
American Muslims for Palestine is composed of people who gave $12.4 million to Hamas. Members of the donating group, Holy Land Foundation, started American Muslims for Palestine after the Justice Department sentenced several of their former colleagues for funneling cash to terrorists.
“I specifically asked the UHPD officers standing outside the building to please let the first line of non-protestors in before they allow protestors to fill the room,” said Karen Ben-Moyal, president of the University of Houston’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter, which invited Horowitz to campus, while speaking with Campus Unmasked. “When I came back into the room with David to give my introduction speech, I saw a long line of protestors waiting outside and walked into a room full of protestors and some YAF students. UHPD obviously did not comply with what they had initially agreed to.”
Ben-Moyal told Campus Unmasked that her group’s signs promoting the event were defaced and torn down. She said the students kept shouting after leaving the room and received no punishment.
Campus Unmasked reached out to the University of Houston for comment, but received none in time for press.
