DeSantis appointee to New College board floats "terminating all contracts for faculty, staff and administration" and rehiring those who "fit in the new financial and business model." He also wants to shakeup leadership & remove Herald-Tribune from meetinghttps://t.co/ttvh3XFBPz
The far-right fascists are setting up an “educational” system that will groom and recruit children into fascism. This will help them continue turning Florida into the first far-right theo-fascist prototype state.
“I move that we remove USA Today and its affiliates from the list of approved media outlets until an apology is received with a commitment from USA Today to adhere to its own policies,”
By “it’s own policies”, he of course means anything but. Because unlike Fox, ‘USA Today’ has no policy on uncritical pandering to Republicans and their talking points.
“I only want professors and staff that will support my radical right-wing ideology and ban any media that does not provide 100% fawning coverage – but I stand for freedom!”
but what about my sincerely held religious beliefs???
“Among them is a proposal to identify “wokeness” as a “set of beliefs” akin to religion. He then wants to identify aspects of wokeness that are “shared values” worth preserving, that are “dogmatic” and should be excluded from curriculum and that are “pledges of fealty” that should be actively fought against.”
He doesn’t quite understand logical follow-though ….
I guess he doesn’t realize that he’s now part of the Florida state government and it is illegal and unconstitutional for him to attempt to punish or suppress speech.
I’m guessing the ultimate goal is to completely close the “New College” and convert it into a government-run seminary. Apparently the separation of church and state is not a thing anymore.
The Christian Nazis have taken over a liberal arts college that the Deathsantis wannabe king hated as it taught respect and compassion for others along with all the other life skills of education. I am so worried that we did not realize how behind the curtain these groups were building up power. Remember the first time he got elected governor Deathsantis barely won, he was almost defeated. But by giving into the hate and discrimination demanded by the minority haters who cannot accept that time has moved on from cavemen days and stoking that hate into action DeathSantis created a large following. He won this last election with a wide margin partly due to the corporate democrats insisting on putting a former republican up against him. Think about it, Democrats don’t want a former republicans who vetoed everything they wanted and the republicans don’t want a republican lite. Those of us in the state knew this would be the result but the national democratic committees claimed they knew better, as they always do and they are always wrong. Notice the first thing this new right wing Christian Nationalist insisted on was opening with a prayer to his god, not anyone else’s god but his Christian god. We are lucky that DeathSantis cannot run again for governor but the state is seriously fucked now as much as other southern states. Yet it was a blue state not this way when I moved here in 1994. Sorry I hurt too much to colorize it. Hugs
A new president, new board chair and new legal counsel all will be up for discussion Tuesday when the New College of Florida board meets, along with the possibility of ending faculty tenure, terminating all employee contracts and rehiring anyone who fits into the school’s “new financial and business model.”
Speir, a Christian school founder appointed by DeSantis to the board, wrote a Substack post over the weekend saying he wants to “Discuss need for new president and possible motion to give Pat Okker title of Interim President.”
The agenda also includes “Election of the Board Chair and Vice Chair” and “General Counsel to Board of Trustees.” Speir appears to be a driving force behind some of these discussions.
Speir and other new board members have criticized the college’s leadership.
Speir clashed with legal counsel David Smolker over his request to open the board meeting with prayer. He said Smolker initially denied the request, but in his latest Substack said that decision was reversed and an opening prayer will be allowed.
Speir writes in his Substack that he wants to “dismiss General Counsel from the Board, NOT the school.” He also makes it clear that he wants to remove board Chair Mary Ruiz.
“My concern is that Chair Ruiz will not resign and/or delay resignation,” he writes. “Thereby halting and/or delaying the necessary clarity that NCF needs as soon as possible.”
New College Professor Amy Reid, director of the school’s gender studies program, urged board members to be more deliberative and not move “rashly” to replace leadership.
“We’ve heard a lot of saber rattling from individuals, but we still haven’t heard from the majority of the board” Reid said. “I encourage the board to find out more about the institution, to really look before they leap when it comes to leadership changes.”
It’s not clear if a majority of board members would back a leadership shakeup at the college.
Mark Bauerlein, one of the board members appointed by DeSantis, told the Herald-Tribune recently that he has “no idea” if he would support Okker’s removal.
“I haven’t seen any records about her, but our phone call the other day was pleasant and informative,” Bauerlein said.
Speir has a long list of motions he plans to make at Tuesday’s board meeting.
Among them is a proposal to identify “wokeness” as a “set of beliefs” akin to religion. He then wants to identify aspects of wokeness that are “shared values” worth preserving, that are “dogmatic” and should be excluded from curriculum and that are “pledges of fealty” that should be actively fought against.
“One such example of a pledge of fealty is the demand that woke pronouns are used,” Speir writes.
Speir also wants to explore ending faculty tenure and “terminating all contracts for faculty, staff and administration and immediately rehiring those faculty, staff and administration who fit in the new financial and business model.” He wants to board to send a letter to “the new counsel” seeking a legal opinion on the feasibility of such a plan.
Another motion Speir plans to introduce would remove some media members from the meeting.
“I move that we remove USA Today and its affiliates from the list of approved media outlets until an apology is received with a commitment from USA Today to adhere to its own policies,” Speir writes, referencing Herald-Tribune parent company Gannett’s flagship newspaper, USA Today.
The Herald-Tribune is part of USA TODAY Network – Florida. Speir is upset about comments made by Herald-Tribune readers.
The Herald-Tribune reached out to Speir for comment Monday morning and has yet to receive a response. When contacted for comment last week, Speir said “I’m still waiting for a formal apology” from the Herald-Tribune and the removal of reader comments.
New College Board of Trustees meeting
The New College of Florida Board of Trustees is meeting from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 31 at Sudakoff Conference Center, 5845 General Dougher Pl Sarasota, FL 34243.
Visit the Herald-Tribune’s website – http://www.heraldtribune.com – for live coverage of the board meeting. A full report on the meeting will be in Thursday’s print newspaper.
I was just reading in the republican interpretation of the don’t say gay laws just the existence of LGBTQ+ characters in books or shows and the acknowledgement that gay people exist is considered “instruction in sexual orientation”. Bill is gay, he dates boys is called instruction in sexual orientation according to the law. Just the mention of a famous person in history being gay is a violation of the don’t say gay laws because the republicans say telling kids that a famous person was gay is instructing them in sexual orientation. How is that reasonable, the teachers are not saying here is how to be gay, here is how to do gay sex, here are the gay bylaws and agenda. It is like saying that the earth is round is instruction in anti-Christian rhetoric. Hugs
Like false election litigation in 2020, the plan is funded by the far-right Thomas More Society.
A newly formed far-right wing group in Michigan is taking a page out of the election-denial playbook with a plan to flood Michigan school boards with false documents akin to the fake electors scheme in 2020, which sought to award made-up electoral votes to Donald Trump and hand him the presidency.
In this case, the goal is to erase all references to LGBTQ+ identity from Michigan public schools.
The scheme, concocted by a new group posing as a state-sponsored education initiative, was first reported by Judd Legum with Popular Information and revolves around a fake “opt-out” form the group plans to distribute to Michigan parents in February.
That paperwork, which organizers have crafted to appear “official”, purports to give parents the option to opt their children out of any instruction, policy, program, event or discussion that references LGBTQ+ identity, from traditional sex education classes and gender-neutral bathrooms to non-heterosexual storylines in novels and proximity to gay Pride flags or rainbow-themed stickers.
The Great Schools Initiative (GSI), founded by three Michiganders in September 2022, seeks to exploit Michigan schools’ sex education class opt-out that gives parents the choice of pulling their kids from traditional sex-ed instruction “without penalty or loss of academic credit.” By law, if parents think their children have not been sufficiently shielded from that instruction, they can embark on an appeals process all the way up to the Michigan Supreme Court.
GSI’s founders hope to fool parents, administrators, school district lawyers, and judges into thinking parents’ complaints based on GSI’s form are the same as those based on the letter and spirit of the actual opt-out policy.
The group’s founders include Nathan Pawl, the CEO of a network security company; attorney Matthew Nelson; and Monica Yatooma, a director at a medical waste company.
GSI is funded by far-right wing advocacy group The Thomas More Society, which itself is financed by a group of mostly secret donors, among them the Leo J Dreiling & Albina Dreiling Charitable Trust, a family foundation that donated $250,000 to The Thomas More Society in 2021.
In a January 19 Zoom meeting and presentation, GSI co-founder Pawl outlined the strategy. The group’s goal was to have “20, 30, 50, or 100 parents per school” start “dropping off the opt-out forms” next month. The uprising will “be too much for them to handle,” and in order to comply with GSI’s opt-out form, which Pawl mistakenly believes school districts in the state would be obligated to do, the only option would be “to transform our schools.”
At a meeting on October 26, held at Mother of God Chaldean Catholic Church in Southfield, MI, The Thomas More Society’s Erick Kaardal said GSI would pursue “asymmetrical lawfare” to overwhelm the public schools.
It’s the same tactic Kaardel and The Thomas More Society tried in 2020 with their support of efforts to overturn the presidential election. Kaardel sued former Vice President Mike Pence, the United States Senate, and dozens of other entities on behalf of a large collection of fringe groups demanding the certified results of the election be thrown out.
State legislatures were encumbered from executing the will of the people by unauthorized state officials, the lawsuit stated, including submitting so-called “alternate slates” of state electors who voted in favor of Donald Trump.
“This wholesale delegation of legislative authority operates contrary to the Constitution by inviting ‘cabal, intrigue and corruption’ rather than operating to prevent the same,” the filing stated without a hint of irony.
Student athletes will be forced to hand over information about their periods (Pexels)
Student athletes in Florida could be forced to turn in information about their menstrual history after an athletics association’s medical panel doubled down on its recommendation.
The move comes after a suggestion that the association’s board adopt a national sports registration form – which makes menstrual information mandatory.
Questions listed on the form include asking if players have had a period, when they first got their period, the date of their most recent one was and the regularity of their cycle during the previous 12 months.
Notably, the main difference between the national form and Florida’s system, as the Palm Beach Post reports, is where the information is stored.
The national form states that the part detailing athletes’ medical history – including their menstrual history – should not be turned into schools but remain with their physician.
However, the FHSAA’s sports medicine committee recommended that all pages of the form be handed over to their schools.
The committee argues that school staff need all the information they can get on their athletes, in case of a medical emergency.
The committee’s recommendation now goes to the FHSAA’s board of directors, which is due to meet at the end of next month.
The questions could pose legal consequences
The questions and the recommendation about where the information will go has come under fire from parents, medical professionals and abortion rights campaigners in recent weeks and months.
Such information could thus be used by courts to convict students if they have an abortion after the 15-week limit.
Parents have also spoken out against the risk of children’s medical information being leaked or stolen in the event of a data breach.
As the Palm Beach Post reported, huge swathes of student athletes’ registration forms have already been moved online and are stored by a third party.
Dr. Michael Haller, a paediatric endocrinologist based in Florida city of Gainesville, said: “I don’t see why [school districts] need access to that type of information. It sure as hell will give me pause to fill it out with my kid.”
These clueless morons don’t seem to understand heterosexuality is a sexual orientation. You cannot have gay without having straight also. “… prohibit books depicting sexual or gender identity …” also means any books that have parents, boys or girls, no Mr. or Mrs., no dating stories even of straight kids because all of these things are sexual or gender identities. What these people really want is nothing about anyone not straight and cis. They want their Leave It To Beaver 1950s style society. Only a society that never really existed is what they wish for. These laws apply to public libraries, not just school ones. They want to erase the entire LGBTQ+ from society in the same way the Russians have done. Simply make them all illegal, make it illegal to talk about them in a positive way, illegal to write about them in a positive way, illegal to show them in any media such as movies, TV, or even theater in a positive way. They are doing this in schools in red republican run states like Florida already. Not even rainbow stickers can be displayed or even rainbow colors on clothing in schools yet I see they have not outlawed the confederate battle flag. Removing these things from schools and society wont stop kids from being born gay or stop kids from having a different gender identity from assigned at birth, but it does make those kids more isolated and at risk of being targeted or bullied. This stuff is a radical attempt to undo 70 years of social advancement for minorities. Hugs
The bill, which would prohibit books depicting sexual or gender identity, proposes up to 30 days in prison for librarians who refuse to remove banned titles.
Amanda Darrow, the director of youth, family and education programs, with books at the Utah Pride Center in Salt Lake City on Dec. 16, 2021.Rick Bowmer / AP
By Associated Press
Books containing “sexually explicit” content — including depictions of sexual or gender identity — would be banned from North Dakota public libraries under legislation that state lawmakers began considering Tuesday.
The GOP-dominated state House Judiciary Committee heard arguments but did not take a vote on the measure, which applies to visual depictions of “sexually explicit” content and proposes up to 30 days imprisonment for librarians who refuse to remove the offending books.
The proposal comes amid a national wave of Republican-backed laws to ban books that feature LGBTQ subject matter — though usually those bills have been limited to school libraries, not public ones.
Supporters of the bill said it would preserve children’s innocence and reduce their exposure to pornography.
But critics said the measure is “steeped in discrimination” and would allow government censorship of material that is not actually obscene.
House Majority Leader Mike Lefor, of Dickinson, introduced the bill and said public libraries currently contain books that have “disturbing and disgusting” content, including ones that describe virginity as a silly label and assert that gender is fluid.
Lefor argued that a child’s exposure to such content has been associated with addiction, poor self esteem, devalued intimacy, increasing divorce rates, unprotected sex among young people and poor well-being — though did he did not offer any evidence to support such claims.
Stark County resident Autumn Richard also spoke in favor of the bill, giving examples of explicit content in the graphic novel “Let’s Talk About It: The Teen’s Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human” and the kids’ comic book “Sex Is a Funny Word” — both available in public libraries.
Richard argued the books might have beneficial knowledge about contraceptives, body image and abusive relationships, but many sections provide information that she said was harmful for minors.
Though supporters of North Dakota’s bill repeatedly called the sexual content “obscene,” opponents said the material in question is not actually considered legally obscene.
“Nearly 50 years ago, the (U.S.) Supreme Court set the high constitutional bar that defines obscenity,” said Cody Schuler, an advocacy manager at the American Civil Liberties Union of North Dakota, who testified against the bill.
Obscenity is a narrow, well-defined category of unprotected speech that excludes any work with serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value, Schuler said. Few, if any, books have been deemed obscene, and the standard for restraining a library’s ability to distribute a book are even more stringent, Schuler added.
The definition of pornography is also subjective, opponents of the bill said.
Library Director Christine Kujawa at Bismarck Veterans Memorial Public Library said the library has a book with two little hamsters on the cover. At the end of the book, the hamsters get married, and they are both male.
“It’s a cute book,” Kujawa said — but it would be considered pornography under the bill because the book includes gender identity.
Facing criminal charges for keeping books on shelves is “something I never thought I would have to consider during my career as a librarian,” Kujawa added.
In addition to banning depictions of “sexual identity” and “gender identity,” the measure specifies 10 other things that library books cannot visually depict, including “sexual intercourse,” “sexual preference” and “sexual perversion,” — though it does not define any of those terms. The proposal does not apply to books that have “serious artistic significance” or “materials used in science courses,” among other exceptions.
The bill would allow prosecutors to charge any person who displays these materials at places that children visit with a class B misdemeanor. The maximum penalty is 30 days of imprisonment and a $1,500 fine.
The wave of attempted book banning and restrictions continues to intensify across the country, the American Library Association reported in September. Numbers for 2022 approached the previous year’s totals, which were the highest in decades. Bills to restrict mature content in school libraries became laws last year in Tennessee, Utah, Missouri, Florida and Oklahoma.
The most targeted books have included Maia Kobabe’s graphic memoir about sexual identity, “Gender Queer,” and Jonathan Evison’s “Lawn Boy,” a coming-of-age novel narrated by a young gay man, according to an April report.
The U.S. Department of Educationinvestigated the removal of LGBTQ-themed booksfrom the library of a Texas school district in December. The investigation followed a complaint by the ACLU and appeared to be the first based on a nationwide movement to ban school library books dealing with sexuality and gender.
Well what a mind altering interview. I know the video is described as a debate but it really was a conversation. At first I was bored and almost shut it off even though I mostly enjoy the channel. Then I noticed something. The call in guest got angrier and ever more abusive getting very insulting yet Vaush never reacted to that and instead tried to keep the conversation going centered on the topic. I loved it. I have tried to talk to right wing bigots and I have not had the same composure that Vaush did. It is a great watch if you want to see how a person on the right starts out trying to show how trans people are bad and confused then moves to the point where the one saying this stuff gets very abusive and then just gets really out classed with information to the point where he has to just admit he doesn’t like those trans and hates those people that accept them. Like I said the first part is boring and forgettable, but fast forward through that if you must and watch the rest. For me it was worth it. Hugs
This is well known and the medical has repeatedly said that affirming the gender identity of the person while assisting with necessary age appropriate treatments including puberty blockers or hormone therapy when needed is the best medical practice. That is something the anti-trans people cannot refute, the majority of medical associations including the AMA and the largest pediatric medical associations believe in supporting trans people transitioning. But at the same time the red state republican leaders who mostly have no medical training are trying hard to ban or make the need medical assistance illegal. Why are they doing this? For political gain mostly, and religious indoctrination for others. This is very much like these same legislators denying abortion / reproductive rights to pregnant people or requiring women to cover their arms and where long skirts in state legislative bodies. It is people acting on an ideology to roll back advances in medical understanding and society to return to a time they feel more comfortable with. It is about their comfort not your needs and their ability to force their ignorance on others against the doctors best medical advice. ** BTW this happened to me in Florida. I was on a great medication for muscle spasms called Soma. The state legislators in an attempt to look tough on opioid addictions made it nearly impossible for pain doctors, and only pain doctors, to prescribe Soma. I spent months trying to get a replacement that worked and none were as good. **Hugs
Researchers tracked 315 trans and non-binary young people in what is reportedly the largest study in the U.S. to date.
Hormone therapy improves the mental health of transgender youth. That’s the takeaway from a new study from The New England Journal of Medicine, released last week.
The study is reportedly the largest in the U.S. to date. Over the course of two years, researchers tracked 315 trans and non-binary young people between the ages of 12 and 20 receiving hormone therapy. According to a summary of the research, “During the study period, appearance congruence (alignment between gender identity and physical appearance), positive affect, and life satisfaction increased, and depression and anxiety symptoms decreased.”
Researchers reported that young people who were assigned female at birth saw greater benefits when taking testosterone than those assigned male at birth who took estrogen. Several factors could be at play here, they speculated, including the speed with which the outward effects of testosterone manifest and greater social stigma faced by transfeminine people compared to transmasculine people.
The authors note that “marked increases in referrals but limited evidence as to long-term outcomes have led to controversies and debate” over providing adolescents with gender-affirming hormones (GAH). Across the U.S., state legislators have introduced bills restricting or outright banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
“Research like this is significant because it provides more longitudinal data,” Dr. Kareen Matouk, a clinical psychologist in the gender identity program at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, told Self magazine. “This helps individuals and their families navigate the health care system with more ease and confidence, and protects access to gender-affirming care that lawmakers are attempting to deny.”
Opponents of gender-affirming care for trans young people frequently argue that puberty blockers and GAH may have harmful or irreversible effects. But Matouk said, “We have some data suggesting that gender-affirming hormone therapy is generally safe and effective under the supervision of an endocrinologist or medical provider who specializes in transgender health care and has experience initiating hormone therapy.”
Gender-affirming care for both adolescents and adults has been endorsed by the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association, and many other professional groups as necessary and frequently lifesaving for transgender individuals.
While the authors of the new study stress that more research into other factors – including access to mental healthcare and the quality of peer relations and family support – is needed, their findings show that “that mental health improves with GAH, whereas withholding treatment may lead to increased gender dysphoria and adversely affect psychological functioning.”
At a time when red state republicans are trying to stop any progress in society since the 1950s with anti- woke laws, stopping the fighting of injustice, and try to remove gay / trans people from the public square, they still keep indoctrination kids by forcing Jesus speakers / promoters on them who lie about gay / trans people to mislead children with their incorrect views. I hate it, everything the right accuses the left of doing is a confession of what the right itself is doing and has done. Hugs
Video shows media personality Woah Vicky lying to kids about LGBTQ people, while urging them to accept Jesus
Woah Vicky, a white girl who uses the N-word, tells fans about Jesus (screenshot via Facebook)
Reading Time: 2MINUTES
Earlier this month, Victoria Rose Waldrip (a.k.a. Woah Vicky, “Atlanta’s new age trap queen”) visited Jonesboro High School in Georgia and preached to the girl’s basketball team. She told them to accept Jesus, promoted her church, told the girls to remain celibate until marriage, and lied about LGBTQ people.
When one girl asked her if being gay was bad, Waldrip said she couldn’t answer the question because she’s not God. She then added there was no such thing as a gay preacher (which is a lie), and said people become gay as a result of getting “touched on” (which is also a lie), and said being gay is like murdering people because they’re both sins (which even most Christians would say is a lie because they don’t think being gay is a sin). And then she praised Jeffrey Dahmer for supposedly discovering God in prison.
You better believe there’s video of it. (The anti-gay stuff begins around the 13:20 mark.)
It raises all kinds of questions for the school: What the hell was she doing there? Who invited her? Why would anyone think this was a good idea?! That’s what @capn_cut_throat and @deconversiontherapy wanted to know when their videos about the matter began picking up steam on TikTok.
Keep in mind that this wasn’t a voluntary event where students were told what they’d hear in advance. In fact, some of the girls later “expressed their outrage” online.
It turns out we do know who’s responsible for this: Frances Miller, a “digital creator” who works as a “character coach” for the team and promotes them on social media. She’s seen in the background of the video. (One source told me that Miller has no official connection with the district.)
Miller bragged about the proselytizing as soon as it happened:
**at the link above to the orginal post there is a facebook thing here. I do not have facebook and due to my security settings they wont show. Hugs **
If, in fact, Miller’s role is unofficial, then her access to students—and how she used that opening to get her friend to push Jesus on them—is especially troubling.
We ask that the District immediately investigate this incident and provide an assurance that outside adults will not be allowed to preach hate and bigotry to students during school-sponsored activities again in the future. If any school employees or administrators were involved, they should be reprimanded and reminded of their obligations as public school employees.
… If the district has no policies that prevent outside adults from delivering hateful religious messages to students as part of school-sponsored activities, one should be adopted.The district should take all actions within its power to ensure that something like this cannot happen again in the future.
It’s possible the school was already taking action here but the nudge can’t hurt.
Can you imagine the outrage if a coach invited a Muslim, or atheist, or Satanist to speak to students about any damn thing? You can’t imagine it, because it would never happen. But when Christianity’s on the menu, everything is just treated as fine and normal even though it shouldn’t. If the administrators aren’t watching out for the children, and the coach of this team isn’t, then who the hell is interested in their well-being? Because it’s definitely not Woah Vicky, whose only goal is gaining clout on social media.
I regret I am so far behind. It is too hard to sit at my desk, every 15 minutes or so I have to get up and walk around, but then after a few minutes have to sit. If I have a task I need to do standing for more than 15 minutes I have to take more medication to stop my back from giving out. I managed to get my MRI I needed this morning, came home ate and went right to bed. I got up at 2:30 as my back was not getting better. I see my pain doctor on the 6th of Feb. Hopefully I can quickly schedule some shots to my spine. I was getting them regularly to keep the pain down but I got hit with a couple very expensive bills from the spine shots and decided to see if I could handle the pain with muscle shots and pills. Turns out that won’t work. I have already had to take more medication than I like to take. If this doesn’t work I will go to the next level of pain medications. In the state of Florida it is hard now to get the drugs that caused such problems which can be managed but they want to force everyone to fentanyl even as the republicans scream about how deadly it is. The clips below are pure republican hate, making it so poor people on snap cannot buy any affordable foods not even can soup. No meats no matter the kind, no canned vegetables and so much more. And the continued attacks by republicans and DeathSantis on the idea of inclusion and anything LGBTQ+. I again today wont be able to catch up but there is always tomorrow I guess. Hugs
Zac Anderson
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Photo: Shutterstock
Photo: Shutterstock
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Scottie's Playtime 