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a debacle in brooklyn

Quote:

Critics Cost Muslim Educator Her Dream School
By ANDREA ELLIOTT

Debbie Almontaser dreamed of starting a public school like no other in New York City. Children of Arab descent would join students of other ethnicities, learning Arabic together. By graduation, they would be fluent in the language and groomed for the country’s elite colleges. They would be ready, in Ms. Almontaser’s words, to become “ambassadors of peace and hope.”

Things have not gone according to plan. Only one-fifth of the 60 students at the Khalil Gibran International Academy are Arab-American. Since the school opened in Brooklyn last fall, children have been suspended for carrying weapons, repeatedly gotten into fights and taunted an Arabic teacher by calling her a “terrorist,” staff members and students said in interviews.

The academy’s troubles reach well beyond its cramped corridors in Boerum Hill. The school’s creation provoked a controversy so incendiary that Ms. Almontaser stepped down as the founding principal just weeks before classes began last September. Ms. Almontaser, a teacher by training and an activist who had carefully built ties with Christians and Jews, said she was forced to resign by the mayor’s office following a campaign that pitted her against a chorus of critics who claimed she had a militant Islamic agenda.

In newspaper articles and Internet postings, on television and talk radio, Ms. Almontaser was branded a “radical,” a “jihadist” and a “9/11 denier.” She stood accused of harboring unpatriotic leanings and of secretly planning to proselytize her students. Despite Ms. Almontaser’s longstanding reputation as a Muslim moderate, her critics quickly succeeded in recasting her image.

The conflict tapped into a well of post-9/11 anxieties. But Ms. Almontaser’s downfall was not merely the result of a spontaneous outcry by concerned parents and neighborhood activists. It was also the work of a growing and organized movement to stop Muslim citizens who are seeking an expanded role in American public life. The fight against the school, participants in the effort say, was only an early skirmish in a broader, national struggle.

“It’s a battle that’s really just begun,” said Daniel Pipes, who directs a conservative research group, the Middle East Forum, and helped lead the charge against Ms. Almontaser and the school.

In the aftermath of Sept. 11, critics of radical Islam focused largely on terrorism, scrutinizing Muslim-American charities or asserting links between Muslim organizations and violent groups like Hamas. But as the authorities have stepped up the war on terror, those critics have shifted their gaze to a new frontier, what they describe as law-abiding Muslim-Americans who are imposing their religious values in the public domain.

Mr. Pipes and others reel off a list of examples: Muslim cabdrivers in Minneapolis who have refused to take passengers carrying liquor; municipal pools and a gym at Harvard that have adopted female-only hours to accommodate Muslim women; candidates for office who are suspected of supporting political Islam; and banks that are offering financial products compliant with sharia, the Islamic code of law.

The danger, Mr. Pipes says, is that the United States stands to become another England or France, a place where Muslims are balkanized and ultimately threaten to impose sharia.

“It is hard to see how violence, how terrorism will lead to the implementation of sharia,” Mr. Pipes said. “It is much easier to see how, working through the system — the school system, the media, the religious organizations, the government, businesses and the like — you can promote radical Islam.”

Mr. Pipes refers to this new enemy as the “lawful Islamists.”

They are carrying out a “soft jihad,” said Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, a trustee of the City University of New York and a vocal opponent of the Khalil Gibran school.

Muslim leaders, academics and others see the drive against the school as the latest in a series of discriminatory attacks intended to distort the truth and play on Americans’ fear of terrorism. They say the campaign is also part of a wider effort to silence critics of Washington’s policy on Israel and the Middle East.

“This is a political, ideological agenda,” said John Esposito, a professor of international affairs and Islamic studies at Georgetown University who has been a focus of Mr. Pipes’s scrutiny. “It’s an agenda to paint Islam, not just extremists, as a major problem.”

That portrait, Muslim and Arab advocates contend, is rife with a bias that would never be tolerated were it directed at other ethnic or religious groups. And if Ms. Almontaser’s story is any indication, they say, the message of her critics wields great power.

Ms. Almontaser watched city officials and some of her closest Jewish allies distance themselves from her as the controversy reached its peak. She was ultimately felled by an article in The New York Post that said she had “downplayed the significance” of T-shirts bearing the slogan “Intifada NYC.”

Last month, federal judges issued a ruling — related to a lawsuit brought by Ms. Almontaser to regain her job — stating that her words were “inaccurately reported by The Post and then misconstrued by the press.”

While city officials and the Education Department declined to comment about Ms. Almontaser because of the lawsuit, a lawyer for the city said she had not been forced to resign.

In her first interview since stepping down, Ms. Almontaser said that education officials had pressured her to speak to The Post and had monitored the conversation. After the article was published, she said, the department issued a written apology in her name, without her approval.

“I kept saying I wanted to set the record straight,” said Ms. Almontaser, 40. “And they kept telling me, ‘You can’t undo what was done.’ ”

A Call to Lead

In April 2005, Debbie Almontaser got a telephone call that would change her life. The man on the line, Adam Rubin, worked for a nonprofit organization, New Visions for Public Schools. He was exploring whether to help the city create a public school that would teach Arabic. The group already had seed money — a $400,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — but needed the right person to help lead the venture.

Everywhere Mr. Rubin went — from the mayor’s office to a falafel stand in Brooklyn — people mentioned Ms. Almontaser. She was a teacher, a native Arabic speaker and arguably the city’s most visible Arab-American woman.

After 9/11, Education Department officials had enlisted Ms. Almontaser to hold workshops on cultural sensitivity for schoolchildren. She spread the message that Islam was a peaceful religion. She told of how her own son had served as a National Guardsman in the clearing effort at ground zero. She was soon attending interfaith seminars, befriending rabbis and priests. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg honored her publicly. She became a ready commentator for the media, prompting some Muslims to joke that she was the city’s “talking hijabi.”

In fact, it had taken a long time for Ms. Almontaser to embrace the hijab, or head scarf. Born in Yemen, she was 3 when she moved with her family to Buffalo. Her parents encouraged her to blend in. She called herself Debbie rather than Dhabah, her given name. She began wearing a veil in her 20s, as a Brooklyn mother whose life revolved around PTA meetings and Boy Scout trips. She took to riding on the back of her husband’s motorcycle, her head scarf tucked beneath a black helmet. She got used to the stares and learned to be unapologetic.

In the months following the Sept. 11 attacks, she offered other Muslim women the lessons she had learned: “The only way to claim this as your country is to continue on with your life here,” she recalled telling them.

For years, Ms. Almontaser had hoped to become a principal. But soon after joining hands with New Visions, she faced her first challenge. To administer the Gates grant, the school needed a community partner. Two groups wanted the job: a secular Arab-American social services agency and a Muslim-led organization that runs Al-Noor School, a private Islamic establishment in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

Ms. Almontaser said she tried to remain neutral as discord erupted between the two groups. Quietly, though, she worried that if an organization linked to a private Islamic school took the lead, the city would never approve the project, despite the group’s pledge to keep religion out of the curriculum.

Ultimately, a steering committee led by Ms. Almontaser voted in favor of the social services agency. Leaders of the Muslim group walked away feeling disrespected and distrustful of her, several of the group’s members said in interviews. It was a rupture that would come back to haunt Ms. Almontaser.

As preparations moved forward, a design team assembled by Ms. Almontaser named the school after the Lebanese Christian poet and pacifist Khalil Gibran. A Palestinian immigrant had suggested the name, hoping it would deflect any concerns that the school carried a Muslim orientation.

In February 2007, the Department of Education announced that the school had been approved. It would eventually encompass grades 6 through 12, teach half of its classes in Arabic and be among 67 schools in the city that offer programs in both English and another language, like Russian, Spanish and Chinese. Ms. Almontaser designed a recruitment brochure to attract the school’s first class of sixth graders.

The leaflet cited the words of Mr. Gibran: “In understanding, all walls shall fall down.”

Opposition Forms

Irene Alter, a peppy, retired Queens schoolteacher, was sitting at her computer one morning that February when she read an article in The New York Times about the Khalil Gibran school, she said. A series of questions flooded her head.

Which courses would be taught in Arabic? How would Israel be treated in the study of Middle Eastern history? Then in April, she read an op-ed article by Mr. Pipes in The New York Sun.

Conceptually, such a school could be “marvelous,” Mr. Pipes wrote, but in practice, it was certain to be problematic. “Arabic-language instruction is inevitably laden with Pan-Arabist and Islamist baggage,” he wrote, referring to the school as a madrassa, which means school in Arabic but, in the West, carries the implication of Islamic teaching.

Given how little Mr. Pipes knew about the school at the time, the word was “a bit of a stretch,” he said in a recent interview. He defended its use as a way to “get attention” for the cause. It got the attention of Ms. Alter, 60, who contacted Mr. Pipes and, with his encouragement, helped form a grass-roots organization in response to the school project. Mr. Pipes joined the advisory board of the group, which called itself the Stop the Madrassa Coalition.

Mr. Pipes, 58, has emerged as a divisive figure in the post-9/11 era. An author of 12 books who has a doctorate in history from Harvard, he has made a career out of studying and critiquing Islam. His research group, which he established in downtown Philadelphia in the early 1990s, “seeks to define and promote American interests in the Middle East,” according to its Web site.

Among his supporters, Mr. Pipes enjoys a heroic status; among his detractors, he is reviled. Those sharply divergent views reflect the passions that infuse Middle Eastern politics, arguably nowhere in the United States more than in New York City.

Mr. Pipes is perhaps best known for Campus Watch, a national initiative he created to scrutinize Middle Eastern programs at colleges and universities. The drive has accused professors of, among other things, being soft on militant Islam and sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. It has stirred widespread controversy and, in some cases, may have undermined professors’ bids for tenure.

Mr. Pipes was joined in the monitoring effort by other self-declared watchdogs of militant Islam. Their Web sites are often linked to one another and their messages interwoven. One critic, David Horowitz, founded Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, a campaign aimed at college campuses. He noted in an interview that monitors of radical Islam have increasingly trained their sights on nonviolent Muslim-Americans.

“They don’t throw bombs, but they create political cover for ideological support of this jihadi movement,” he said.

Mr. Pipes places Muslims in three categories, he said: those who are violent, those who are moderate and those in the middle. It is this middle group, he argued, that now poses the greatest threat to American values.

“Are these people who are not using violence but who are not fully enthusiastic about this country and its mores, its culture — are they on our side or are they on the other side?” he asked.

Ms. Almontaser never considered herself unenthusiastic about America, she said. But as the conflict over the Khalil Gibran school intensified, she came to be seen by many through Mr. Pipes’s lens. In his article in The Sun, he referred to Ms. Almontaser by her birth name, Dhabah, and called her views “extremist.” He cited an article in which she was quoted as saying about 9/11, “I don’t recognize the people who committed the attacks as either Arabs or Muslims.” (As The Jewish Week later reported, Mr. Pipes left out the second half of the quote: “Those people who did it have stolen my identity as an Arab and have stolen my religion.”)

The Stop the Madrassa Coalition focused primarily on Ms. Almontaser as a strategy, said Mr. Pipes, because the group could get little information about the school itself. The coalition quickly publicized several discoveries. Ms. Almontaser had accepted an award from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a national Muslim organization that critics claim has ties to terrorist groups (an assertion the group adamantly denies). In news articles, Ms. Almontaser had been critical of American foreign policy and police tactics in fighting terrorism. She also gave $2,000 to Representative Cynthia A. McKinney of Georgia, whom Mr. Pipes and others have characterized as an Islamist sympathizer. (Ms. McKinney, who is no longer in office and did not respond to requests for an interview, has had a strong following among Arab-Americans in part because of her criticism of the Patriot Act.)

Critics of the Madrassa Coalition say its tactics are typical of campaigns singling out Muslims: They lean heavily on guilt by association. The nuances of the claims against Ms. Almontaser were lost as the controversy lit up the blogosphere, said Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at Political Research Associates, a liberal organization outside Boston that studies the political right. One Web site, MilitantIslamMonitor.org, displayed photographs of Ms. Almontaser wearing her hijab in different styles, suggesting that she had undergone a public relations makeover to “disguise” her “Islamist agenda.” The criticism of Ms. Almontaser and the school spread to newspapers, eliciting negative editorials in The Daily News and The New York Sun.

Ms. Almontaser was stunned, she said: Her school would touch upon religion only in its global studies class, following the same curriculum as all New York public schools. She tried to keep her head down, she said, and set out to recruit students, half of whom she hoped would be Arab. But opposition to the school mounted after critics learned that its advisory council included three imams (along with rabbis and priests), that there would be an internship for students with a Muslim lawyers’ association and that the proposal for the school suggested it might offer halal food. (The advisory council never met and has since been dismantled, and the school does not offer halal food, Education Department officials said.)

As the attacks continued, Joel Levy of the New York chapter of the Anti-Defamation League published a letter defending Ms. Almontaser in The Sun. Mr. Levy made reference to the possibility that his organization would provide anti-bias training to Ms. Almontaser’s staff.

The letter caused a stir among some Arab-Americans, who were bothered by Ms. Almontaser’s ties to Jewish groups. In late June, Aramica, an Arabic and English newspaper based in Brooklyn, ran a cover story with the headline “Zionist Organization Supports Gibran School Principal,” focusing on the link between Ms. Almontaser’s school and the Anti-Defamation League.

In just five months, Ms. Almontaser’s image had been transformed. She was rendered a radical Muslim by one group and a sellout by another.

T-Shirts, and a Resignation

At first, some city officials rallied to Ms. Almontaser’s side. Among them was David Cantor, the chief spokesman for the Department of Education, who wrote in an e-mail message to the editor of The New York Sun, Seth Lipsky: “I won’t allow Dan Pipes a free pass to smear Debbie Almontaser as an Islamist proselytizer who denies Muslim involvement in 9/11. It is a false picture and an ugly effort.”

But behind closed doors, department officials were nervous, Ms. Almontaser recalled. With her help, she said, they drafted a confidential memo of talking points to review with reporters: the school was “nonreligious,” for example, and Ms. Almontaser was a “multicultural specialist and diversity consultant.”

The Stop the Madrassa Coalition pressed its campaign. In July, one of its members, Pamela Hall, made a discovery that would elevate the controversy. At an Arab-American festival in Brooklyn, she spotted T-shirts on a table bearing the words “Intifada NYC.” The organization distributing them, Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media, trains young women in community organizing and media production. The group sometimes uses the office of a Yemeni-American association in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Ms. Almontaser sits on the association’s board.

Ms. Hall took a photograph, and a few weeks later, the coalition announced on its blog that Ms. Almontaser was linked to the T-shirts.

On Aug. 3, Ms. Almontaser received a call from Melody Meyer, a spokeswoman for the Education Department. “What does ‘Intifada NYC’ mean?” Ms. Almontaser recalled Ms. Meyer asking.

Ms. Almontaser was stumped, she said. She knew of the group. But she had never heard about the T-shirts, she said she told Ms. Meyer, adding that “intifada” meant “uprising” and was linked to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Most reporters lost interest in the T-shirts after Ms. Meyer explained that neither Ms. Almontaser nor the school was linked to them, but The Post persisted. Ms. Almontaser said Ms. Meyer and Mr. Cantor pressured her to respond to the newspaper in an interview.

“I said, ‘Wait a minute,’ ” recalled Ms. Almontaser, who was critical of The Post’s coverage of Arabs and Muslims. “ ‘I am not comfortable doing the interview.’ ”

Ms. Meyer promised to monitor the conversation, Ms. Almontaser said, and Mr. Cantor instructed her not to be “apologetic” about the T-shirts. While both Ms. Meyer and Mr. Cantor said they could not comment on the case, a city lawyer said that Ms. Almontaser was told to avoid discussing the T-shirts and intifada altogether, and was never pressured to speak to The Post.

During the Post interview, Ms. Almontaser said, she told the reporter, Chuck Bennett, that the Arab women’s organization was not connected to her or the school, and that she would never be affiliated with any group that condoned violence. Then Mr. Bennett asked her for the origins of the word intifada, she said.

“The educator in me responded,” Ms. Almontaser said. She explained, with Ms. Meyer listening in on the three-way phone call, that the root of the word means “shaking off.” Ms. Almontaser then offered what she described as a lengthy explanation about the evolution of the word and the “negative connotation” it had developed because of the Arab-Israeli struggle.

“The thought went across my mind to be extremely careful with my words — not to offend the Jewish community and not to offend the Arab-American community,” she said. “I was feeling pressure from all sides.”

Although Ms. Almontaser said she never spoke to the reporter about the T-shirts, she defended the girls in the organization because she believed that the reporter was set on “vilifying innocent teenagers.”

After the reporter hung up, Ms. Almontaser recalled, Ms. Meyer told her, “Good job.”

The next day, The Post ran the article under the headline “City Principal Is ‘Revolting’ — Tied to ‘Intifada NYC’ Shirts.” The article quoted Ms. Almontaser as saying that the girls in the organization were “shaking off oppression,” words that The Post, according to a ruling by federal appellate judges, attributed to Ms. Almontaser “incorrectly and misleadingly.”

Complaints about Ms. Almontaser began pouring into the Education Department, and Mr. Cantor informed her that an apology would be issued in her name. Ms. Almontaser objected, she said, and asked that the department clarify her comments to The Post, which she said were distorted, rather than apologize.

Mr. Cantor insisted on an apology, she said, and e-mailed her the proposed wording. The first sentence was not negotiable, she recalled him telling her. The apology began: “The use of the word intifada is completely inappropriate as a T-shirt slogan for teenagers. I regret suggesting otherwise.” Ms. Almontaser responded in an e-mail message that Mr. Cantor should change the latter sentence to “I regret my response was interpreted as suggesting otherwise.”

The press office issued the original apology. Pressure soon mounted for Ms. Almontaser to resign. Randi Weingarten, the head of the teachers’ union, published a letter in The Post criticizing Ms. Almontaser for not denouncing “ideas tied to violence.” On Aug. 9, Deputy Mayor Dennis M. Walcott asked Ms. Almontaser to step down, she said. “The mayor wants your resignation by 8 a.m. tomorrow so he can announce it on his radio show,” Ms. Almontaser recalled Mr. Walcott saying.

She said he promised her that in exchange for her resignation, the school would still open, and she would remain employed. She resigned the next day, taking an administrative job at the Education Department. She kept her principal’s salary of $120,000.

On his radio program, Mayor Bloomberg announced that Ms. Almontaser had “submitted her resignation,” which “was nice of her to do.”

“She’s certainly not a terrorist,” he said, adding that she was not “all that media savvy maybe.”

Three days later, Ms. Almontaser was replaced by an interim principal, Danielle Salzberg, who is Jewish and speaks no Arabic.

Chaos in a New School

On Sept. 4, the Khalil Gibran International Academy opened its doors at 345 Dean Street as parents ushered their children past a throng of reporters, photographers and television crews.

Chaos soon erupted inside. Students cut classes and got into fights with little consequence, said staff members, parents and students. At least 12 of the 60 students showed signs of behavioral problems or learning disabilities, said Leslie Kahn, a licensed social worker and counselor who was employed at the school until January. (Education Department officials, who denied repeated requests by The Times to visit the school, said there are currently six special-needs students there.)

“Something is flying through the air, every class, every day,” Sean R. Grogan, a science teacher at the school, said in an interview. “Kids bang on the partitions, yell and scream, curse and swear. It’s out of control.”

Physical altercations are frequent, Mr. Grogan and others said, with Arab students and teachers the target of ethnic slurs. “I just don’t feel safe,” said an Arab-American student, 11, who will not return to the school next year.

In the first days after Ms. Almontaser resigned, she felt numb, she said. Her support among Arab-Muslims remained uneven. Had she not alienated some who wanted more of a role in the school’s creation, “the whole community would have stood behind her,” said Wael Mousfar, president of the Arab Muslim American Federation. “A lot of our kids would be part of that school.”

Ms. Almontaser soon found herself flanked by a new group of supporters, including Jewish and Muslim activists, who began lobbying for her to be reinstated as the school’s principal. On Oct. 16, Ms. Almontaser announced that she was suing the Education Department and the mayor. She claimed that her First Amendment rights had been violated because she was forced to resign after she was quoted as saying something controversial.

She requested that the city be prevented from hiring a permanent principal until her case was resolved. A judge rejected the request, and Ms. Almontaser appealed. In March, a federal appeals court upheld the ruling, but the judges were sharply critical of the city’s handling of Ms. Almontaser’s case.

“This was a situation where she was subject to sanction not for anything she said, not for anything she did, but because a newspaper reporter twisted what she said and the result of it was negative press for the city and the Board of Ed,” Judge Jon O. Newman told a city lawyer at a hearing in February.

Ms. Almontaser’s case will proceed in the Federal District Court in Manhattan.

The Stop the Madrassa Coalition continues to protest the school. The group sued the Department of Education in October, requesting detailed information about the school’s creation, faculty and curriculum. While the department has handed over thousands of records, the coalition’s lawyer said the documents leave many questions unanswered, including which textbooks the school is using to teach Arabic. A department spokeswoman said that a list of textbooks selected for the school was sent to the lawyer last fall.

The coalition has also broadened the reach of its campaign. Some members have joined with the Center for Policy Research in American Education, a new organization that will research the influence of radical Islam on public schools around the country.

In recent weeks, conditions at the Khalil Gibran school have improved, said several students and staff members. Holly Anne Reichert, who was appointed as the permanent principal in January, said in an interview that she had reduced some of the disruptive behavior by minimizing class sizes. She added that the media attention had led to a “chaotic experience” for students. “Adults have created this, and children are the ones who have had to endure,” she said.

The school will move to a larger space in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, by next fall.

Ms. Almontaser still attends interfaith dinners and awards ceremonies. During the day, she works for the city’s Office of School and Youth Development. Part of her job entails evaluating other schools.

In an odd twist of fate, she was sent to the Bronx last fall to review a small, innovative school that had opened the same month as Khalil Gibran. It also taught a foreign language: Spanish. The students seemed to be thriving. As Ms. Almontaser walked the hallways, she was shaken, she said.

“It wasn’t that I was envious that her dream materialized,” said Ms. Almontaser, referring to the principal. “It was seeing her sixth graders, her teachers, and seeing that she did it. And I didn’t get a chance.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/ny...c48&ei=5087%0A

this is a foul situation: a mccarthyite campaign led by that rightwing nitwit daniel pipes on the basis of an "understanding" of islam that makes the huntington thesis seem nuanced in comparison---and scuttling about the story is also a range of the usual-but-thought-to-be-discredited educational/ideological hatchetmen of the extreme right (the good mister horowitz?)----this particular campaign looks to me like straiht up smear business that is only possible if your smear comes backed with a load of non-earmarked money, in this case from conservative sources.

the stuff from pipes et all noted in this article is entirely of a piece with the dissociative stuff that his organization---the middle east forum----puts out---see for yourself:

http://www.meforum.org/

the stuff is, across the board, laughable.

EXCEPT

that because this is amurica and cash rules everything around me, it seems that it doesn't matter--at all--how bankrupt the message if you can pay for its placement. so the upshot in this case is that pipes et al put a publicity storm into motion that in the end causes almontaser to alientate folk from all sides when all she really wanted to do was start a school.

in the middle of all this chaos, the classrooms are reported to have been chaotic--which is not good---and in the end almonstaser if forced to resign as principal of the school that she started.

personally, i think the whole of the blame for this lay at the feet of daniel pipes.
and i think it is appalling.

but what do you think?

I'll give you $12 if you summarize that article.

i kinda did--but read it----you can do it, will--i know you can.
sometimes there's no way around it.
this is one of them.

well, there is a way around it: you can not read it.

either way, i don't do cliff notes--the summary is polemical.

what's with not wanting to read stuff?

4500 words is a chunk of time, and normally matters dealing with New York don't interest me. I'll try to fit it in later tonight.

RB - I'm glad to see you're accepting posts from host as proxy. :)\

And will, you'd never ask host that question. Just pointing it out....

I read the wall of text - with great interest, actually. It's an interesting story, but I don't see exactly what you want to discuss since the author seems to mostly agree with your assessments of a smear campaign and travesty. But that's school system politics for you. An extreme example, but no real different than a vice-principal fired for having a sexual relationship with and changing grades for a highly-recruited football player when she did neither.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Jazz

And will, you'd never ask host that question. Just pointing it out....

Host highlights.
/threadjack

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Host highlights.
/threadjack

sorry, i can't stop laughing my ass off at that.

Well you knew where the article was going from the first sentence.

Debbie Almontaser

Her real name is Dhabah Almontaser, Debbie is the Americanized nick name. It really shouldn't matter but by omitting it, it signaled they wanted to stress the 'woman just trying to bring peace and love' angle.

I'm more concerned that we are still playing with the multicultural school BS than anything else. Multiculturalism is a bankrupt policy that weakens any nation that embraces it and creates factions in their host country. I don't want to see an Arab school any more than a Hispanic, Estonian, or Israeli school, at least not in any way funded by public money.

Perhaps Mrs. Almontaser only had the best of motivations and her unfortunate remark was just that, but I really have no sympathy for the enclave schooling method.

Of course if I were 14 I'd like to attend just because it would guarantee employment with the CIA when I was finished.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Multiculturalism is a bankrupt policy that weakens any nation that embraces it and creates factions in their host country. I don't want to see an Arab school any more than a Hispanic, Estonian, or Israeli school, at least not in any way funded by public money.

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

K, read some of this now. An Arab school would be perfect in the US maybe a few years own the line. Children are a bad way to improve race relations because they can be targeted by those who aren't ready to change. I certainly appreciate what she was trying to do, but there are better ways to go about doing it. Educate the adults.

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

If a religious or ethnic group wants to create private schools within specific education guidelines for private schools, that's cool with me. But as quoted from the article: "Debbie Almontaser dreamed of starting a public school like no other in New York City" ... schools for Arabic, Hebrew, Islamic, Catholic, Black Liberation Theology, etc. do not belong in the public education system. This was the critical flaw in her concept regardless of perceived bigotry or pressures from conservative wingnuts.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Multiculturalism is a bankrupt policy that weakens any nation that embraces it and creates factions in their host country.

That's your opinion, or your opinion of the word you think you're using, us Canadians do quite well with our multicultural society.
http://www.canadianheritage.gc.ca/pr...at-multi_e.cfm

Not commenting on the article yet but what is really needed is more Western funded schools in Arabia...

EDIT: (Jay posted while I was posting) I wouldn't go as far to say that Multiculturalism is bankrupt but it isn't without its issues. To say that Canada doesn't have *any* problems with it is a tad disingenuous.

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Children are a bad way to improve race relations because they can be targeted by those who aren't ready to change.

I don't get this. I'm an American. I like being an American. I dont' want to change. Why do I need to change?

Quote:

Originally Posted by dksuddeth

I don't get this. I'm an American. I like being an American. I dont' want to change. Why do I need to change?

So what you got from the article is that people want you not to be American? If you're feeling insecure, I can mail you a bumper magnet. Or a bigger flag for your front yard.

Quote:

Originally Posted by silent_jay

That's your opinion, or your opinion of the word you think you're using, us Canadians do quite well with our multicultural society.
http://www.canadianheritage.gc.ca/pr...at-multi_e.cfm

Ontario Premier rejects use of Shariah law
Last Updated: Sunday, September 11, 2005 | 5:19 PM ET
CBC News

Premier Dalton McGuinty said today Ontario will reject the use of Shariah law and will move to prohibit all religious-based tribunals to settle family disputes such as divorce.

His announcement comes after hundreds of demonstrators around the world this week protested a proposal to let Ontario residents use Islamic law for settling family disputes.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2005/...-20050909.html

Give it time.

ok so first off there's one article, will, and it works in a more or less straight line logically. there's no particular reason to highlight--and i think that highlighting in a single article is patronising--like it's assuming you're not able to read for yourself.
you**are** able to manage a single article, aren't you?
there's no good direction to go with this.

consider the ability of someone opening a thread to post a long article with the expectation that folk will read the article to be a kind of constraint.
like a rule that binds the players in a game.
if you don't want to read it, dont play the game.
but the assumption behind the op is that the article is interesting: i think this pays off-----so there we are.
=============================
i don't understand the "issue" in an immigrant largely euro-society with "multi-cultural" cirricula. that sort of linguistic and by extension cultural (a word i think is problematic) diversity is an integral part of the history of the us as a whole. so if you locate yourself as an "american" i would think that you'd really have no choice, if you're even a little consistent logically (that is, in the context of a logic that takes account of history), but to endorse the school, and the idea of the school, in principle.

another way: what exactly does an american "monoculture" mean? what is it? isn't everything about "american culture" in a sense mongrel?
isn't that true of everyplace?

personally, i think that we are so mongrel, so multiple, that the notion of culture is itself a problem...i don't see how there are "cultures" or "monocultures"--everything, everywhere, is mixing, is hybrid, is mongrel.....

second: even if you don't agree with the above, there's another angle: teaching arabic in school is no more objectionable than teaching spanish or teaching french or teaching latin, is it?
if it is--apart from the nitwit reasons adduced by pipes, horowitz et al, why is it a problem?
let's assume that there was, once upon a time, a reason for insular, parochial monlingual americans to he happy about their ignorance, parochialism as expressed by being monolingual--those days are over--so on pragmatic grounds, learning another language in school seems necessary.
and if the population of this school was 60% arab-american--and if alot of those kids don't speak arabic, but are learning it in this school--where's the objection?

i don't see it.
where's the problem?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Premier Dalton McGuinty said today Ontario will reject the use of Shariah law and will move to prohibit all religious-based tribunals to settle family disputes such as divorce.

His announcement comes after hundreds of demonstrators around the world this week protested a proposal to let Ontario residents use Islamic law for settling family disputes. [/i]

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2005/...-20050909.html

Give it time.

I believe Hasidic law is used to settle family disputes among the Hasidic Jewish communities in NYC and Baltimore.

Freedom of religion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

So what you got from the article is that people want you not to be American? If you're feeling insecure, I can mail you a bumper magnet. Or a bigger flag for your front yard.

no, i got that from your statement. didn't really read the article. i'll end the threadjack now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

We have been, that story is almost 3 years old........

and multiculturalism doesn't mean letting religious laws override laws of this country, so us not allowing Shariah Law doesn't mean our multiculturalism is dwindling.

I cannot believe Pipes is that overtly anti-Arabic. I thought he was more subtle than that. Has he changed over the years, or have I just been trying to avoid reading about him? It's deplorable.

roachboy, your last post (#16) is a good summation to the OP. I'll need some time to think about this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_dux

I believe Hasidic law is used to settle family disputes among the Hasidic Jewish communities in NYC and Baltimore.

Freedom of religion.

Hasidic laws? You mean Jewish religeous belief and having a bes din (Jewish court). Yes Jewish communities tend to police their own in many ways, but it does not exactly replace courts. But most stuff there is dealt in house in the hasidic community.

Hey Roach... this is a heated argument. So heated you're ignoring one huge point, MacCarthyism didn't cause these kids to bring guns to school.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xazy

I stand corrected...I grew up orthodox, but recall the bes din (I forgot what it is was called) being more of a Hasidic institution in Baltimore used to settle family disputes.

Or maybe I recall it from The Chosen by Chaim Potak (a favorite book as a kid)

But it seems comparable to using sharia law to settle disputes among agreeable Muislim in Canada before taking it to the civil courts.

/threadjack

seaver: you know, i'm not sure what i think about that--i'm inclined to be skeptical (that looks like it's spelled incorrectly) about the report, frankly. i'm interested in the sourcing of it--i wonder if it's true or not. i have no way of reaching around the article to know, however. maybe it's a good moment for some research.

perhaps if the celtics pull away from atlanta, i'll do a bit of it...

a bit later: the more i read around about this, the more i'm inclined to think the report isn't true--but it's hard to say, as the level of detail you can find searching the net is all garbled by daniel pipes-styel horseshit--it's as if the gun report confirms the xeonphobic anti-islamic drool that he posts on a routine basis via the middle east forum.

i would imagine, seaver, that as a more or less conservative fellow, that pipes et al would be problematic--kinda embarrassing--but nada to say about that?

I read this article earlier today at Starbucks. It's a fucking scandal, but what else is new? Can't say I was surprised to read it. Just the familiar vague nausea.

So what I take from the thread is:

1. Americans are Americans therefore multiculturalism is un-American.

2. If you think multiculturalism is un-American then you don't need to comment on the disturbing overtones of hysterical xenophobia in the article.

3. People are really, really tired of reading...I mean, why read when you can type?

4. Post more than a couple of scroll wheels of text and people start calling you host.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_dux

/threadjack on
Bes Din deals with family matters, financial (law suites, someone charing interest to another Jew which is not allowed by Jewish law and yes there is loopholes in how to do it), if someone smeared someones name. As far as family matter it is mainly only in divorce, normally local rabbi's or other people will get involved in other form of family matter. And way back centuries ago when Bes Din had to deal with criminal matter, the Jewish calendar. I am sure there is other issues, but that is primarily the main thing.

Any orthodox community will have a Bes Din, but they are as good as the Rabbi's that make them up. A Rabbi just means that he has 'x' amount of knowledge. Does not really mean the quality of his judgment I myself could have become a Rabbi if I answered the last question on a test, but I refused to even attempt it since I did not think I knew enough for the responsibility. Basically some Bes Din are great and some well I would never step foot in them.
/threadjack off

Quote:

Originally Posted by mixedmedia

I don't think Americans are so much against multiculturalism as they are opposed to dedicating public education to specific cultures. Let them have private schools as a choice.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mixedmedia

Multiculturalism isn't 'un-American' its stupid. Allow me to introduce you to the primer.

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Its not about race, its about culture, if you want to retain your own ways of life, stay in your own country, its working great there I'm sure.

that's a bizarre argument, otto:

what, then, is the ideological function of a public school? to inculcate some illusion that there is a single, unified "american" culture in the face of overwhelming evidence that this is a tenuous fiction at best? i mean historically and empirically (in "real time")?

and even if you did accept the (illusion) that there *is* some unified "american culture", why would you still not accept the idea that a public school should be able to teach multiple perspectives?

i mean, a public school in nyc is able to do things that a public school is east podunk is not, really.
but that's self-evident: so where's the problem?
if you oppose this school in nyc, you'd also have to oppose arts schools or anything interesting or specialized in a public school...but why would you do that, unless what you really oppose is the idea of public school?

are you really arguing that public schools should be parochial, otto?
what would be the point of that?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ottopilot

I don't think Americans are so much against multiculturalism as they are opposed to dedicating public education to specific cultures. Let them have private schools as a choice.

Ever cracked open a history textbook? They're all, without fail, biased. My history book from Jr. year in high school had a conservative bias (it was from the late 80s). On the other side, I remember attending Captain Elementary School in St. Louis and spending an entire school year on nothing but Africa and Native Americans, which were very liberal lessons. To this day I know more about long-houses than I could ever hope to know about the Constitution.

At least the school in the article was open about being a magnet school for particular interests, which is actually common. Have you ever been to a magnet school? I went to a few music magnet schools.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Multiculturalism isn't 'un-American' its stupid.

Multiculturalism is about a melting-pot of different races and cultures, each bringing a different experience and perspective to the table. It's about social cohesion. Say it with me: social cohesion. Anyone who doesn't understand the importance of social cohesion should spend a few days in a house located between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq or between blacks and latinos in LA.

seaver--right not the celtics are winning by 10. it won't last.

if you start digging into the gun story, you find that the source of it are sites like this:

http://ourkidscomefirst.blogspot.com/
and other blogs kept byu parents in the neighborhood of kgia who are basically pissed off about the way they've been treated by the department of education. it's hard to say beyond that what's true and what's not--but these are strange sources to rely on for much of anything, given how pissy the writers are about their understanding of how they've been treated by the city (which may be true enough) and the kind of information they adduce seemingly as confirmation of the their sense of injustice at their treatment (just read the blog---or this one:
http://mcbrooklyn.blogspot.com/2008/...-hit-road.html
and you'll see)

past this, it's hard to say how much closer to "the ground" one can get without being in brooklyn---you got a better source, seaver?
so i'm skeptical.

nb: more stuff about this.
i haven't looked at all of it---there's a ton.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/refere...ser/index.html

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Multiculturalism isn't 'un-American' its stupid. [...]
Its not about race, its about culture, if you want to retain your own ways of life, stay in your own country, its working great there I'm sure.

Wait, wait, don't tell me: And if you are already here and want to change the ways of life, then you should get out.

Nice.

"Multiculturalism [is] stupid." This sounds kinda funny coming from a Darwinist.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Its not about race, its about culture, if you want to retain your own ways of life, stay in your own country, its working great there I'm sure.

Conform or don't bother coming here, the new America.

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Yes, biases are unavoidable. Local school districts review books in committees and there is not consistency across the board ... city to city, state to state. I think the magnet programs are great for arts, science, etc., but I don't think ethnic cultural studies should be a primary platform for any public school. I don't see anything wrong with private schools having a cultural focus. I'm all for promoting ethnic community relations. Public education should consider focusing on basic skills like reading, writing, arithmetic, and improving graduation rates before venturing into more diversity. Get basic proficiencies up, then add special interest programs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ottopilot

Get basic proficiencies up, then add special interest programs.

So we should close math, science, music, and language magnet schools until all public schools don't suck? That takes amazing opportunities away from diamonds in the rough—kids fortunate enough to have talent but who don't have the money to go to a private school.

BTW, the school in question had reading, writing, and arithmetic. It also had more specialized courses, but you can't graduate from high school without certain classes.

I read this in the morning and was positively seething.
I was disappointed at the time this happened, but to see the shameless details of how and why the principal was hounded and forced out... utterly horrifying.
Roach, I'm glad the matter didn't pass without comment here.

Even given a phenomenally cowardly and xenophobic hatred and fear of Arabs, you would think that most people would appreciate the opportunity to train a cadre of first-rate Arabic speakers also familiar with something of Arab society and culture, insofar as there is such a thing. That above all else, if some part of the Arab world is our enemy, if the Arab world will demand an enormous amount of our attention over the next couple of decades, then it makes sense to have people on hand who understand that enemy and can manage those encounters.

I can tell you all from personal experience that what currently passes for proficiency in the Arabic language in US government, including the intelligence community, is an utter joke. Familiarity with Arab history, politics, and culture is in an even sorrier state. An undergraduate-level understanding of the region's history is what passes for 'expertise'. Even State is short the qualified personnel, but at least State sends its people abroad for long stretches, and isn't hamstrung by draconian security measures that ensure that only white-bread folks who have never set foot outside the US can easily pick up a top clearance. The community could really use people who kind of know what they're talking about.

Only one of the many, many ways in which this whole thing is ass-backwards.

Never mind that Khalil Gibran is a giant among Arab intellectuals, that he is widely beloved even in the United States (John Lennon quoted him in a Beatles song, for god's sake) and that he was, yes, a Christian, the 'good' kind of Arab.

Never mind that Debbie, a career educator, was only linked to these T-shirts... really, T-shirts... in the most tenuous way possible. That the word Intifada referred first to a series of mass protests in the Territories (no suicide bombs back then) in the late 80s that contributed directly to the Oslo process which was the first real stab at peace.

And now Cynthia Mckinney is sympathetic to militant Islamists. Cynthia fucking Mckinney?!?! So anyone and everyone who leans too far left is now a terrorist sympathizer. Wonderful. It absolutely defies parody.

Utterly depressing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

I guess I was too tired to read what I wrote .... I said something to the effect that magnet programs for the arts and sciences were great. The last comment on the 3 "r's" was mostly a commentary on the need for getting everyone else up to speed. I really do agree that culture-based educational programs are good for a number of reasons, just not appropriate to be conducted in public schools. Just an opinion on priorities. I do think the woman in the article was treated poorly, but felt that was covered well enough by earlier posts.

I think this story is about xenophobia and not the school's curriculum. I mean, if you read the story, that's what it's about.

At least otto mentions above that Ms. Almontaser was treated poorly. Yes, she was treated poorly and she has been targeted right out in the open where everyone can see because she is Arab. And no one cares.

hiredgun is right. It is utterly depressing. Both the situation itself and its acceptance.

personally, i was more angry than depressed by the article when i read it--angry and amazed at the organized smear campaign directed both at the school and its principal, angry at the shabby jingoist character of the attacks, at the manipulation of parental animosity directed at the nyc department of education over its non-responsiveness to community needs for adqequate schooling into de facto endorsement of this jingoist nonsense, the ability of vacant, bankrupt rightwing nonsense to get not only press space but a lot of it simply because the money and networks exist--no checking, no compunction, just repetition.

i was amazed that this happened, that it went down as it did.

at this point, you'd think that the fearmongering, the xenophobia-tipping-into-racism (if you accept the american right's conflation of islam and arab-speaking folk, except when it is extended to include iran, but no matter the level of ignorance appears to be such that no difference registers) particular to the post 9/11/2001 populist right would be so transparent and so empty for that that no mobilizations on its basis would be possible.

but you'd be wrong, apparently.
i was wrong about that.
and that, comrades, is pretty grim.

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

Those are some broad strokes.