Education Briefs

Education Briefs

A Hindu law student who is the former president of the University of California at Los Angeles Graduate Student Association (GSA) has transferred to New York University to complete his law degree because of “bullying and harassment from anti-Israel students.” In order to maintain political neutrality, Milan Chatterjee intended to rescind GSA funding for a townhall event if it included pro-Palestinian groups associated with the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. In a letter to UCLA Chancellor Gene Block, Chatterjee calls the UCLA campus “a hostile and unsafe environment for students, Jewish and non-Jewish, who choose not to support the BDS movement, let alone [those who] support the state of Israel.” (Times of Israel, 9-2-16)

Connie Sack wants to see the school records kept on her 16-year-old son by the Weld County School District in Keenesburg, Colorado. She has that right under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). What this family didn’t expect was to be charged $438 for “research” and an additional $129 for “retrieval.” The district claims the charges are in line with the Colorado Open Records Act. But Frank LoMonte of the Student Press Law Center, advocates for students’ First Amendment rights, says, “Neither the FERPA statute nor regulation contemplates any fee for search, retrieval, or redaction, and charging for those ‘services’ goes against the intent of FERPA to make those records freely available.” (WND.com, 7-2-16)

Turkey’s President Erdogan hopes the U.S. will send the Muslim cleric associated with many American charter schools back to Turkey because he believes Imam Fethullah Gülen was involved in the failed coup attempt against him. Gülen’s followers run at least 120 charter schools in America, which are funded by U.S. tax dollars and are run by independent boards often made up solely of Turkish expatriates. (Voice of America, 7-22-16)