San Diego Free Press

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Islamophobes Angry at San Diego School Board Over Anti-Bullying Policies

by

school boardBy Doug Porter

The San Diego Unified School District Board of Trustees meeting this week may see an exercise in bombastic bigotry, thanks to articles published at Breitbart News and other outlets suggesting policies aimed at preventing bullying are actually implementing Sharia law.

An article in the Union-Tribune says the district is hearing complaints from people drawing misinformed conclusions stemming from the lead-in to the article at Breitbart, which strongly suggests the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a terrorist organization.

The local loonies of the right-wing persuasion are mighty worked up and looking to share their fear of the ‘other’ with anybody unfortunate enough to be at the district building on Tuesday evening. Today I’ll make the case for how they got to this particular unhappy place.

Just a Few Facts…

Parents supporting CAIR at School Board meeting. Via Facebook

The local chapter of CAIR spent many months working with school district officials to develop policies dealing with Islamophobia and the bullying of Muslim students. A study of Muslim students enrolled in California public and private schools indicating 55% of those surveyed saying they’d been bullied or discriminated against provided the impetus for local action.   

In July 2016, the SDUSD Board of Trustees voted unanimously to direct staff to draft a plan addressing Islamophobia and bullying of Muslim students. Three weeks ago the Board approved rolling out various measures identified as proactive steps in this direction, to be fully developed by the end of the school year and implemented next fall.

I was at this particular board meeting and was impressed with the measured and orderly way supporters of the plan made their case to the Trustees. As far as I could tell it was an example of collaborative engagement ending in a result pleasing to all sides.

This meeting was about some concerned parents asking for protection for their children.

The Union-Tribune coverage of the meeting included an interview with Stan Anjan, executive director of Family and Community Engagement for SDUSD:

One of the first steps in the plan will be to distribute letters to staff members and parents addressing Islamophobia and identifying resources to learn about the religion and fight discrimination. District calendars will be reviewed to ensure Islam holidays are recognized, which Anjan said is important so schools will schedule campus events that also can be attended by Muslim families…

…The plan also calls for a different approach in disciplining students who bully Muslim students. Rather than detention, the school will use a restorative justice method involving the student who did the bullying speaking with the other student to restore their relationship.

Community groups, parents, stake-holders and others outside the district also will be involved in the plan, Anjan said.

Cue the Outrage

What follows is a classic case of the narrow-minded building a case for bigotry and loathing.

The conservative-but-respectable Washington Times ran an article a day later that was basically a re-write of the Union-Tribune/Los Angeles Times coverage (both papers ran the same story):

Muslim safe spaces, increased lessons on Islam during social studies classes, and other measures will be adopted by San Diego Unified School District to combat bullying.

The Council for American-Islamic Relations and school officials in southern California collaborated on a “holistic” approach to bullying that will likely be implemented this fall. The changes, which include adding Muslim holidays to school calendars, are the result of a study directed by the San Diego school board in July 2016.

The Washington Times article was picked up by Fox News…

…Begetting this spin from Bare Naked Islam the following day:

Headline: San Diego public school district will create ‘safe spaces’ for Muslims while forcing non-Muslim students to learn about Islam

In the San Diego Unified School District, public schools now will have to offer ‘safe spaces’ for Muslim snowflakes and indoctrinate all students with whitewashed (violence and hatred-free) lessons on Islam, provided by designated terrorist group CAIR.

…Leading to this echo at Truth Revolt three days later:

Thanks to an astonishing 4-0 vote by the San Diego Unified School District, all public school students will be forced to endure religious classes about Islam while Muslim students are protected from bullying with designated safe spaces.

…Two days later, the story, complete with YouTube videos of the school board meeting, made it over to Free Republic:

Liberals have spent decades screaming about the separation of church and ‘state’, but now they’ve made a huge exception for Islam.

The San Diego School District will start having school calendars showing Islamic holidays and begin to teach students about Islam in social studies classes and school district will create safe places on campuses for Muslim students as part of a multi-tiered approach to combat ‘Islamophobia’.

The Free Republic commentary included a response from San Diegan Roger Ogden, who runs a Youtube channel called “Stop Obama Now San Diego” and features articles such as “Obama’s Tax on White People” and “Satanism 101 — Obama’s Luciferian Belief System.”

Whether they call themselves Marxist or not, the Board of the San Diego Unified School District is dominated by those who have a cultural Marxist mentality. On April 4, 2017 they voted to blatantly promote Islam in the public schools. These anti-bullying projects are just an excuse to indoctrinate the kids in a pro-Islam, anti-American ideology. This is the entire section of the meeting, in which they discussed this topic and made a decision. (42 minutes)

If anyone wants to help fight this, please contact me.

Here’s Ogden at a Town Hall for Rep. Scott Peters, taking him to task for daring to use the Islamic Center of San Diego for the meeting. He was roundly booed by the audience.

By April 14 the San Diego story made it down to RickWells.us with the headline

No Christianity Allowed In “Religion Of Peace” Promoting School District

The speaker at the school board meeting is Stan Anjan, the executive director of Family and Community Engagement for the San Diego Unified School District. He leaves little to the imagination for those attempting to determine his motives and the threat he poses to regular, everyday Americans.

He says, “I truly believe that if we do this right, San Diego Unified School District will be the leading school district in the nation to come up with a robust and beautiful anti-bullying and anti-Islamophobia program.”

For those who might have been lost in his sanitized diversionary description of what he’s up to, they’re going to mandate students be exposed to Islamic training, with an eye towards acceptance of Islamic beliefs. They also intend to elevate Islam in issues regarding the conflicts with American cultural values and the Constitutional and their Sharia Law.

On Sunday, April 23. Breitbart was on it, headlined:

San Diego School District Pushes Forward CAIR Assisted “Anti-Islamophobia’ Plan

The San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) has been working with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on “anti-Islamophobia” plans, including adding lessons on Islam in social studies classes and adding Muslim “safe spaces” to campuses.

The plan is to be implemented in the fall with the start of the new school year.

CAIR has been declared a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates, and was named by federal prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror-funding operation.

(The Wikipedia entry on CAIR gives the history of the ‘terrorist’ smear that has been pushed by Islamophobes over the years.)

The Showdown

Once you add the social media and email chains (I’m sorry, I just couldn’t go there. I feel dirty enough having visited the above websites), it’s not a surprise these types are worked up.

(Koran is the education reporter for Voice of San Diego)

As is true with the local Islamophobes who’ve been appearing at local city council meetings arguing against ‘Welcoming City’ resolutions directed at refugees, these folks will show up on Tuesday for the SDUSD Trustees meeting. on Tuesday, April 25, 5:00 p.m., in the Eugene Brucker Education Center Auditorium, located at 4100 Normal Street.

Expect hate, fear, and loathing from a bunch of cowards seeking to justify their bigotry. It won’t be pretty. And then they’ll be off to their next hatefest.

Meanwhile, CAIR, along with Alliance San Diego and the ACLU have been staging forums on religious freedom in the San Diego region in recent months. Scary stuff, huh?

Looking for some action? Check out the Weekly Progressive Calendar, published every Friday in this space, featuring Demonstrations, Rallies, Teach-ins, Meet Ups and other opportunities to get your activism on.

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Doug Porter

Doug Porter

Doug Porter was active in the early days of the alternative press in San Diego, contributing to the OB Liberator, the print version of the OB Rag, the San Diego Door, and the San Diego Street Journal. He went on to have a 35-year career in the Hospitality business and decided to go back into raising hell when he retired. He won numerous awards for his columns from the Society of Professional Journalists in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Doug is a cancer survivor (sans vocal chords) and lives in North Park.

Comments

  1. The anti-Islam drum beat has been going full bore for years, I think the first time I actually saw it in print was a New York Congressman named King. It is not only the people we like to disparage out of hand by calling them the “far right” that is doing it. AIPAC has a robust program for defaming Arabs in the U.S. and it has been leaped upon by the far right to bolster their fake news claims like the slaughter in Bowling Green that never happened. The neo-cons also rely on it to sell their war and regime change plans for war in the Middle East so it permeates the entire news spectrum, not just the far right. It is going to lead us into another war in the Middle East. Again based on lies and false information.

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