University Students Stage Protests Against Arizona Bill

Arizona's controversial immigration bill continues to reverberate throughout the country.  At this time, at least ten other states have similar bills, or plans for one, in the works.  Protests are spread across the nation with huge demonstrations expected on Saturday, May Day, with rallies expected in more than 70 cities.  (Wonder if those protesters will be as vilified as the Tea Party crowd has been...).

Protests are cropping up on American campuses as well.  Students at Yale University protested the bill last week.  Blogger Nathan Rothstein's sister was part of the protest and he writes about the mock raid and protest here.  The Yale Daily News also wrote about it, saying:

Yesterday, members of MEChA, Jews for Justice and Fierce Advocates, along with other concerned Yale students, staged a mock raid in the Commons dining hall during peak traffic to raise awareness of the urgent seriousness of the issue. At 12:30, we released our “ICE agents,” who hounded unsuspecting students and demanded to see proof of residency. When students failed to procure the proper documents, we handed them an informative citation that explained that, if this were Arizona, they could have been detained.

At 12:45, our leading Sheriff stood on top of a chair and shouted into a megaphone, “This is a raid!” Immediately, our agents rushed to the “undocumented students” we had planted throughout the dining hall, handcuffed them, and pushed them to their knees in the center of the dining hall. One by one, we stood and explained our demonstration through a megaphone held up to our lips. We informed the community of the passage of S.B. 1070 and the subsequent multi-agency raid on our communities in Arizona. Finished, we walked handcuffed and surrounded by ICE agents down Commons’ main aisle to disappear through Morse’s closing walls.

 At another Ivy League university, Cornell, students are staging their protests in crowded lecture halls.  The Cornell Daily Sun reports:

Donning signs reading “Mexican-lookng,” “Sub-human” and “Alien,” members of El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano  de Aztlán protested Arizona’s recently-passed immigration reform bill in an ILROB 1220: Introduction to Organizational Behavior class this Wednesday.

The class witnessed an example of what could occur in Arizona any day due to Senate Bill 1070, according to Natalie Ramirez ’11, co-chair of El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán. 

The demonstration included faux immigration and customs enforcement agents coming through the lecture hall demanding papers of students who didn't "look American." 

The “officers” picked out the demonstrators wearing the cardboard signs and forced them to kneel on the ground in front of the rest of the class before leading them out of the lecture hall. 

Ramirez said the demonstration in Introduction to Organizational Behavior followed another in a quantum physics lecture on Wednesday. 

Protesters are planning on staging more demonstrations and concentrating on crowded lecture halls for maximum exposure.

This afternoon two lawsuits were filed against the bill:

Two lawsuits were filed Thursday attacking the measure. The National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders filed suit in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, alleging the measure is illegal because it usurps federal immigration enforcement authority and because of concerns that the law contributes to racial profiling.  The group said on its website that it represents 20,000 churches in 34 states.

An attorney representing a Tucson police officer filed suit in U.S. District Court in Tucson to block the law.

In a Gallup poll, Americans favor the Arizona law 51% to 39% while Obama calls attempts by other states to copy the Arizona law "misguided efforts."  Because, you know, nobody can do it as well as he can.  

I suppose we can expect the fallout to continue but the fact remains that Arizona is doing what the federal government failed to do and if their efforts are misguided it's nobody's fault but the Feds.  

Students at Cornell and Yale might get the chance to put their money where their mouth is now that Mayor Bloomberg has invited Arizona illegals to New York; maybe some will filter over to their campuses.  He said, "if Arizona happens to be the only state to adopt the policy, the bill could actually be good for New York 'because people will come here. We make sure that we protect everybody.'"   

And the cycle continues.

Editor of HuffPo's Health Unit Mocks Death of Cornell Student

Friday, September 11, 2009, a 20 year old student at Cornell University, Warren Schor, pictured left, died of complications from the swine flu. IvyGate Blog chose the tragedy as an occasion for mockery and silliness.

IvyGate is a blog that purports itself to be a "news and gossip blog that covers the Ivy League" and is written by current and former students. In the past they've covered stories such as the Princeton class president who set a squirrel on fire and more recently, mocking the distribution at Harvard of a pamphlet instructing students not to defecate in the shower.

When Warren Schor died last week, IvyGate published this article, originally under the byline of Molly Fitzpatrick, now under the byline of Adam Clark Estes. The article mocks Schor's death and the administration attempts to encourage students to stay healthy by practicing good hygiene. So intent was IvyGate on its mission of mockery that they couldn't even get the dead student's name right in the original article, first identifying him as "William" Schor, until offended commenters called out the error.

The comments following the article are unanimously offended by the post; one even points out the mysterious change in authorship: "You change the name of the author of the post but yet you keep the disrespectful and inconsiderate tone of it. At the very least get rid of that tasteless photo. Ivy Gate Media should be ashamed. Shame on you."

So why the change of byline? Was Fitzpatrick embarrassed and having second thoughts about her poor taste? Was she pressed to pull the article? Why did blog editor Adam Clark Estes take ownership of the post?

In addition to his responsibilities as editor of IvyGate, Estes is also Associate Editor of Huffington Post Investigative Fund, described by Arianna Huffington this way: "This nonprofit Fund will produce a wide-range of investigative journalism created by both staff reporters and freelance writers." The site considers itself a "watchdog" of sorts, reporting on fraud, abuse, and waste in government.

In June, Estes announced the formation of the Investigative Fund's Health Unit whose purpose is to track the progress of ObamaCare. So why is a Huffington Post editor and one in charge of the Health Unit, mocking the death of a young man with H1N1?

Following the death of Schor, Cornell University officials suspended most social activities for a week in an attempt to quell the H1N1 outbreak on campus and protect the students, a move which Estes saw fit to poke fun of: "[The] Inter-Fraternity Council had instated a weeklong [sic] moratorium on social events to help prevent the spread of the disease. But, due to a flood of flu-related visits, Gannett also has stopped scheduling routine appointments, so they may just be canceling frat parties to avoid the standard Sunday morning rush for Plan B. After the jump—a lesson in hygiene and how your Atari will kill you. "

Estes (or Fitzpatrick) then wrote, in response to administration officials asking students to wash their hands, "you should never take it for granted that a frat house will have soap."

And if the mocking tone and the botched initial identification of Schor were not enough, IvyGate saw fit to illustrate the piece with a photo of a pig and the word "Crap!" over it. Tasteless.

It is unfortunate that Estes and Fitzpatrick, and I'm assigning responsibility to both, chose to mock the death of Warren Schor. The young man has a family that is grieving and a close network of friends. As editor of IvyGate, Estes assumes the responsibility for this post whether he wrote it or not; the change of byline was probably unnecessary.

IvyGate has reached a new low in insensitivity and should respond to the requests of its readers, as well as a common sense of decency, apologize to the family, and pull the post.

Update: Linked by The Daley Gator! And Carol's Closet! Also Backyard Conservative, thanks! Also Legal Insurrection! Welcome Michelle Malkin readers!

Update 2: Now a Memeorandum thread.

Update 3: This morning, IvyGate posted an update to their story. They took down the picture of the pig and replaced it with a "more somber picture" and modified some of the language. I'll let you decide if you think it's an apology of if one is needed:

UPDATE: Some have questioned whether it's appropriate to have jokes in the same post that acknowledges a death. No element of this post mocks the deceased or those grieving—in fact, any humor is directed at the administration and their lack of response that precluded the student's death. However, since we wrote most the post before the death, then updated it afterwards, the tone may now be off. It's our policy never to take down posts, but as a concession we've added a more somber picture and adjusted some language.

From the comments following the post, it's not enough for some.