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Ludlow Superintendent resigns after months of pressure. School Board members join him in vicious public attacks on parents.

SEE: https://www.massresistance.org/docs/gen4/21b/Ludlow-MA-middle-school/Supt-and-Board-attack-parents/index.html;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

An unbelievable display: Using all the leftist talking points to demean and demonize parents during consecutive School Board meetings - after complaints about radical agenda in middle school.

See two video clips below.

Part 10 in a series. (See entire series here.)

August 1, 2021
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The ringleaders against parents (left to right): Superintendent Todd Gazda, Board Chairman Michael Kelliher, "Chip" Harrington.
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Board members Jeffrey Lang, Charles Mullin, Sarah Bowler.

The vitriol that school officials unleash against parents who hold traditional values is truly chilling. But it is extremely common, though rarely displayed in public.

At the May 25, 2021 Ludlow, Mass. School Board meeting, Superintendent Todd Gazda announced his resignation. This followed more than a year of pressure and outrage from parents and members of the local community over a toxic agenda in the middle school. The resignation came less than a week after the Superintendent and Principal fired Bonnie, an outspoken teacher who supported the parents.

At both that School Board meeting and the following meeting two weeks later, Gazda and Board members publicly attacked, demeaned, and demonized the parents, community members, and even a student who had spoken out. Normal meeting procedures were blatantly set aside, allowing for these shocking attacks.

Background: Pushing a toxic agenda on middle school children

The outrages started in late 2019 when lurid pornographic books for teenagers appeared in the school library and classrooms of Baird Middle School in Ludlow, Mass. The books had been brought in by the school librarian, a strange cross-dressing woman.

In late 2020, the situation got much worse. Teachers and guidance counselors at Baird took advantage of the COVID disruption to introduce radical “transgender” ideas to children. They persuaded children as young as 11 that they were “transgender” – and the school staff purposely kept this from the children’s parents.

Bonnie, a Social Studies teacher, was upset at what she saw and raised the alarm in February 2021. Parents and even some teachers were shocked and demanded the books be removed. But the school officials refused to take any action. Then, as the word got out in the community, the pressure led to the librarian’s resignation in early 2021.

MassResistance helped parents inform the larger community through a flyer, and people in Ludlow were livid at the school officials. In May, the Superintendent and Principal retaliated against Bonnie by firing her. They had to concoct phony charges, since she had a spotless 20-year record as a teacher.

School Board disallows direct public comment at meetings

During the COVID shutdowns, most School Boards and other government bodies around the world held their meetings online via Zoom. Members of the public would still be able to speak directly to the school officials during the public comments part of online meetings.

But the Ludlow School Board did not want to hear from angry parents. So instead of using Zoom, they held their Board meetings in their regular meeting room (wearing their masks). But they did not allow the public into the meetings; the Board met before an empty room! As before, the meetings were broadcast on cable-TV and the videos were posted later.

If Ludlow citizens wanted to register comments, they had to email them beforehand. The Superintendent would decide which emails would be read aloud during the meeting. This outrageous restriction – not being able to address their officials in person – only added to the anger of the parents.

Changing meeting procedures to lash out at parents

With the news that the librarian had quit and the Superintendent was about to announce his resignation, the School Board was extremely angry at the parents and wanted to lash back publicly.

So, for their May 25 and June 8 meetings, the School Board decided to deviate even further from normal meeting procedures. Usually, School Boards just listen to the public comments without replying. But now, if there were emailed comments from critics of the middle school situation, the Superintendent and/or Board members would prepare a “rebuttal” beforehand (attacking that person’s remarks) and read it out loud. We have never seen that done before anywhere. It was shameful, childish, and simply vindictive.

At the May 25, 2021 School Board meeting: Superintendent’s resignation and angry attack

VIDEO: Clip from 5/25/21 Ludlow School Board meeting (6 min 12 sec)

Superintendent Todd Gazda started off by formally announcing his resignation, adding that he had accepted a job with a local non-profit organization. (Usually, Superintendents leave to take a job with a bigger school system – and a higher salary. We’ve never seen one leave to work for a non-profit.) With accumulated vacation, his last day would be June 17, he said.

Then, during “citizen participation,” the Board read aloud one email. It was from Alex, a 10th-grade student at Ludlow High School, who (like many parents) was outraged at the abuses of children at the middle school and particularly Bonnie’s firing for exposing it. He pointed out that parental rights were being disregarded.

Alex said that staff members were pushing extreme ideas to children 11-14 years old. “This agenda has been trying to convince them to change who they are, change their sexuality and gender at an age that many kids don’t fully understand either,” he wrote. “The school committee ignores the concerns of the parents. You ignore us. You won’t talk to us.”

He ended: “So I ask, who will finally listen to the parents of this district? When will this be fixed? When can we have a discussion about this? Or will you just continue to ignore the people in this town who should matter the most to this committee?”

Right after Alex’s email was read, the School Board Chairman, Michael Kelleher, blurted out, “Most of that’s just baloney.”

Then Superintendent Gazda read aloud his prepared “rebuttal” to Alex’s letter. It was a shrill, angry rant that largely repeated the LGBT movement’s talking points.

Gazda stated that the issues Alex was complaining about – sexual books, pushing transgenderism on children without telling parents, etc. – are really about “inclusion” and “making schools safe.” These help children to “be free to be themselves.” Rather than stop these programs, he said, “we do not do enough … and we need to do more.”

He made the disingenuous claim that this is “in compliance with the laws and regulations of our state and the guidance of the Department of Education (DOE).” (MassResistance is not aware of any Mass. state law or regulation that requires this, and he grossly misrepresented the DOE “guidance.”)

He stated that such complaints amounted to “intolerance of LGBTQ individuals” and were in fact “thinly veiled behind a camouflage of parental rights” and half-truths, misrepresentations, and false accusations. (In other words, the parents were lying.)

He claimed that the schools are the true “safe place” for students – not their homes with their parents. He said this controversy is about supporting children’s true “identity” (i.e., homosexual or transgender) and that the school supplies “caring adults” where students can discuss “problems they might have.” He said, “For many students school is their only safe place, and that safety evaporates when they leave the confines of our buildings.”

Gazda said that the middle school will absolutely continue to help the children “express who they are” despite parents’ wishes to the contrary.

With that, the Chairman adjourned the meeting. But there was much more to come at the next meeting.

The June 8 School Board meeting: more vile attacks on parents

VIDEO: Clip from 6/8/21 Ludlow School Board meeting (10 min 13 sec)

On June 8, 2021, the Superintendent attended his last School Board meeting.

In the “public comments” section, the Board again read aloud just one email. It was sent by a Ludlow father and mother of middle school children, and was signed by several other Ludlow parents.

The letter stated seven demands that the parents have regarding the middle school:

  1. Stop promotion of transgender and homosexual ideas to middle school children.
  2. Remove all destructive transgender and homosexual materials from the middle school library and classrooms.
  3. Establish a book review committee with parents, which would include library books, school websites. and textbooks.
  4. Stop retribution against teachers who expose these abuses to parents.
  5. Stop the hostility, intimidation, and harassment of parents who complain about these abuses.
  6. Instruct the Superintendent and school staff not to attack, shame, or demean parents and residents in the community because they criticize decisions by the School Board or school staff.
  7. Establish a policy that requires use of students’ given names and actual pronouns. We want all students treated with proper respect and dignity, with no attempt at coercion or manipulation.

These “demands” express normal and obvious sentiments parents hold for their middle school children. But they prompted a nearly hysterical reaction against these parents from the Superintendent and Board members.

School Board Chairman Michael Kelliher started by reading aloud his prepared reply - a nasty hate-filled rant, using numerous time-worn LGBT talking points. First, he repeated the claim that what the school did is supported by “state and federal law,” but he didn’t identify which laws.

He then said that it was just a “small group of vocal parents” who were attacking books in the library and were now opposing “the inclusive policies of the Ludlow Public Schools.”  He said that “the staff are simply doing their jobs” being “welcoming and supporting” to the children.

Kelliher said the Ludlow parents are actually under the spell of “outside groups” including MassResistance and which are “recruiting members” in Ludlow. (Of course, he ignores the fact that the entire LGBT agenda in Ludlow is fueled by outside groups, and earlier this year the American Library Association became very active pushing the sexual agenda in the town’s schools.)

Whenever liberals have no substantive argument, they call the other side “bigots” or “haters.” So it was no surprise that Kelliher called MassResistance a “hate group,” mentioning our opposition to the LGBT agenda and what he called “marriage equality.” His name-calling only reveals his own childish anger.

Kelliher ended by making the ridiculous charge that it is “MassResistance [that] is trying to change people’s identities, not the school staff.” He said that our efforts to protect children constitute “hateful rhetoric” and that we are creating “divisive battles” in Ludlow.

Then the Superintendent read his prepared rebuttal to the parents’ letter. It was mostly a repeat of the absurd points he’d made at the previous meeting. But he added:

Myself [sic] and other members of our Ludlow staff have been called evil, sick, twisted, and deviant. We have been accused of grooming students, implying we are pedophiles – for supporting an inclusive environment in our schools where all students can feel safe and supported.

Harassing phone calls have been made to our personal home phones and cell phones all in a pathetic attempt to intimidate and harass.

Actually, the phone calls were attempts by parents to set up meetings. The school officials had ignored the emails and calls to their offices. However, the terms “evil, sick, twisted, and deviant” seem appropriate in this perverse situation.

Gazda ended by characterizing the parents’ complaints as “prejudice and bigotry.”

Then Board Member James “Chip” Harrington spoke up. While the previous officials made remarks that were hateful and offensive, Harrington’s were just plain stupid:

I am all in favor of giving parents the right to decide how they’re going to raise their children. But if they’re going to reach in and tell other parents how to raise their children because it’s not in line with how they feel, then shame on them. You raise your kid how you want. But don’t start dictating to other parents how they should raise their kids.

This is exactly the opposite of what’s really going on. The parents have no interest in how others raise their kids. They simply want their own children left alone by school personnel. It’s a little frightening that Ludlow trusts someone as dense as Harrington to decide on school policies.

And he didn’t stop there. Harrington ended by saying that the parents’ letter is “inaccurate” because “there already is a process in place” to decide these issues. Yes, that’s technically true. But it’s a phony process where a bogus “committee” of left-wing faculty members is created to make a decision, and it always rules against the parents.

This is what the parents are up against!

Final reflection

You need to watch the two videos above (especially the second one) to appreciate how unbelievably offensive and repulsive these officials are. The three who did not comment were silent because they had nothing to add – not because they disagreed in any way.

Regular people – especially conservatives – make the same mistake across the country. They assume that these kinds of school officials and School Board members are basically like the rest of us, but simply “misguided” and can be reasoned with. Without exception, our experience has been the opposite.

These people are not normal. Normal people do not do repugnant and immoral things that can cause immeasurable emotional and psychological harm to other people’s children. Normal people do not lash out with this kind of unhinged hostility, hate, lies, and anger when challenged on it by constituents. The education system attracts some very, very bad people. We need to understand that and act accordingly.

More to come!

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The Social Media Giants Find A Violent Extremist: Me~So since I watch terrorists, I’ve been watching myself.

BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/08/social-media-giants-find-violent-extremist-me-robert-spencer/;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

As the director of Jihad Watch, I have an ongoing interest in the activities of violent extremists, and have been tracking those activities daily for eighteen years now. But now, in their benevolence, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube have made it easier than ever with their Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT): all I have to do is look in the mirror.

The GIFCT means to wipe out the groups it targets. Tyler O’Neil explains at PJ Media that GIFCT “shares terrorism data among Big Tech companies, enabling them to flag and remove terrorist content,” and is stepping up these operations: “On Monday, GIFCT announced that it significantly expanded the types of extremist content in its database, aiming to crack down on material from white supremacists and far-right militias.”

It’s about time, right? Those white supremacists and far-right militias have been rioting with impunity in Portland, and Seattle, and – oh, wait, that was the noble ideological heirs of the heroes of World War II. But we don’t have to guess who they have in mind: the GIFCT offers a helpful list of the dangerous groups from which it is going to save us.

At the highest level, Level 3, are the groups GIFCT classifies as actual bloodthirsty, grade-A certified dangerous terrorists: Boogaloo Boys, Ku Klux Klan, the National Socialist Network, Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, even the Irish Republican Army. But that’s not all that the intrepid warriors of the GIFCT are going after. Once you’ve reached Level 3, the problem has advanced way too far, anyway. The GIFCT aims to nip terrorism in the bud by also targeting Level 2, “Violent Extremism,” which includes groups that are just below terrorist group status, but moving up the charts with a bullet: Blood & Honour, Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and…Jihad Watch.

Perhaps even more surprising than the inclusion of Jihad Watch on this list is the fact that Antifa is also listed at Level 2. The likelihood of the social media giants moving in on Antifa is about as likely as Nancy Pelosi being Trump’s running mate in 2024, but it does help put things in perspective. Antifa has been openly calling for and applauding violence in cities all over the country, and as far as the counter-terror “experts” at the GIFCT are concerned, they’re on par with an organization that is dedicated to tracking jihad terror activity and elucidating its motivating ideology. Unlike Antifa, neither I nor Jihad Watch has ever called for or approved of any violence or illegal activity of any kind. But another way we differ from Antifa is that establishment media stooges aren’t falling all over themselves likening us to the men (you may remember what those were) who stormed the Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944. The likelihood that Jihad Watch will be targeted for being on the GIFCT’s list, and Antifa given another pass, is about 100%.

On the morning I found out that I was a violent extremist, I discovered that violent extremists sometimes enjoy a bit of yogurt for breakfast, try to fit in a good long walk, and spend a lot of the day typing. It was a bit more sedentary, and definitely filled with less death-defying adventure, than I expected for an official “violent extremist.” With all the time I sit here facing this infernal machine, the GIFCT may think I’m at work on my “manifesto,” for they say they’re going to make sure that “Manifestos from terrorist and violent extremist attackers” are removed from the Internet, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t be intensely scrutinized, for “a wide range of experts on expanding the reach and impact of our hash-sharing database’s taxonomy in order to respond to terrorist content online across the ideological spectrum.”

Hey, great. Let me start you folks off on the right foot. Here’s my Manifesto, GIFCT, straight from one of your designated “violent extremists.” Get your experts on this, and make sure they study it carefully. Ready? Here it is:

You. People. Are. Nuts.

That’s it. You like it? It took me months to get the precise formulation of my “violent extremist” ideas. And just because I have so much respect for your violent extremist-hunting prowess, GIFCT wonks, here’s a bonus. Here’s what I want for America and the world: the freedom of speech. The freedom of conscience. The equality of rights of all people before the law.

Yeah, I know that messes with you Communists’ sugar-plum visions of racial strife, civil war, and the dissolution of America as a unitary nation-state. And that may be the clue to all of this madness. Violent extremists and their enablers want to make sure they have a free hand, and one strategy to get it was delineated in the Marxists’ tested-and-true playbook: accuse your enemy of that which you’re guilty of doing. Could it be that my organization been designated a violent extremist group because some people have a bit of violent extremism planned and want to make sure that anyone who might speak out against them is silenced and cleared away?

Stranger things have happened. Meanwhile, if I disappear from the net, and from the streets, someday soon, you’ll know that the good folks at the GIFCT have done their job. One less violent extremist will be menacing the rest of us. And we will all be able to breathe a sigh of relief over that. Won’t we?

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 23 books including many bestsellers, such as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades)The Truth About Muhammad and The History of Jihad. His latest book is Did Muhammad Exist?: An Inquiry into Islam’s Obscure Origins―Revised and Expanded Edition. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.

 

Georgetown university’s Bridge Initiative: Manufactured ‘Islamophobia’

Jordan Denari Duffner on "Islamophobia"

Jordan Denari Duffner: How loving Islam Makes Her a Better Catholic

Finding Jesus among Muslims: New book by Jordan Denari Duffner

BY ANDREW HARROD

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2021/08/georgetowns-bridge-initiative-manufactured-islamophobia;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Bridge senior research fellow Mobashra Tazamal interviewed Denari Duffner about her recently published book, Islamophobia: What Christians Should Know (and Do) about Anti-Muslim Discrimination. Currently a Georgetown doctoral student in theological and religious studies, she has a long history of erroneous statements concerning Islamic doctrine. Now she worries that Christians “only see kind of negative manifestations of Islam in the media” and “are not aware of all the ways that Muslims are doing good for them” — virtues she never elucidated.

Denari Duffner condemned past New York City police surveillance of Muslim neighborhoods and individuals, including Asad Dandia, who led a “Muslim charity group.” Yet American police have used similar techniques in ethnoreligious communities to find criminal elements, such as the Italian mafia. Foreign police forces also regularly surveil radical mosques.

The New York City program “was basically created with the premise that Muslims are inherently suspect; that Muslims are prone to violence, are seditious,” Denari Duffner said, as if Muslim communities could not be legitimate targets of policy scrutiny. “Some of these programs around the country actually are looking to stir up trouble” with “entrapment, luring Muslims into committing crimes that can then be charged for terrorism,” she claimed. Yet such “sting” operations are again a normal law enforcement tool, no less necessary for catching criminally minded individuals when dealing with jihad terrorism than any other crime.

”‘Islamophobia’ brings the Right and the Left together,” Denari Duffner lamented. Progressives “have made some of the most anti-Muslim comments that I have ever heard,” she elaborated, while failing to acknowledge that Islam sparks controversies apparent to people from diverse backgrounds. “So much of our self-definition as Western people is contingent on having this view of Muslims as the opposite of whatever we see ourselves to be,” she stated, “as progressive and supportive of women’s rights, and democratic and peaceful.”

To exemplify this “Islamophobia” across the political spectrum, Denari Duffner highlighted the collaboration between Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Robert Spencer. Ali, a “former Muslim who gained a huge following in a lot of liberal circles,” is often “talking about the ills of Islam to your NPR audience,” Denari Duffner said.

Denari Duffner further displayed her superficiality when discussing Spencer, an authority on Islam and bestselling author. Using sweeping comments she condemns in others, she claimed Spencer operates “in these neocon circles,” a common euphemism for Jewish intellectuals. Moreover, Spencer has consistently criticized neoconservative democratic regime change strategies in Muslim-majority countries like Iraq.

Spencer was again mentioned in the discussion over what Tazamal called the “Catholic wing of the ‘Islamophobia’ industry,” as the Catholic Denari Duffner had analyzed. Before leaving the Catholic Church, Spencer “for many years was writing specifically for Catholics,” Denari Duffner stated. She also criticized the Turning Point Project of the Catholic William Kilpatrick, an insightful former Boston College professor, which works “to basically freak Catholics out about Islam,” she said.

Denari Duffner tried to downplay centuries of jihadist assaults upon Christian communities that eradicated Christianity from its historic homeland in the Middle East. “We often see ourselves with these rose-colored glasses,” she said, acknowledging that “both sides have harmed one another but have also done tremendous good for the other.”

This pollyannaish view of Islam undergirds Denari Duffner’s broader claim to “actively debunk stereotypical or untrue claims made about Islam.” She asserted that “Muslims are just as indigenous to India as Hindus,” a blatantly ahistorical claim given that Muslim conquerors subjugated India after many centuries of Hindu preeminence. Breezily overlooking troublesome Islamic doctrines like wife-beating, she dismissed that some “Muslim men have a penchant for being oppressive to women” as a view that reduces “Muslims to dehumanized, threatening people.”

Supposedly behind all this “Islamophobia,” as Tazamal quoted ominously from Denari Duffner’s book, are “nefarious forces” that are “propped up by industry and imperialism.” People “warp these terms” like “sharia” or “jihad,” Tazamal asserted without evidence, “to justify violence or discriminatory policies against Muslim communities.” Denari Duffner concurred about an “intentional marginalization of a community so that another community can benefit.”

“Anti-Muslim tropes are tools that governments can use,” Denari Duffner stated, as if jihadist threats are figments of imagination. For Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, “whenever he wanted to try to delegitimize the opposition, they were cast as terrorists,” she stated. But studies have documented the presence of jihadists among Assad’s opposition.

Likewise, “Israel is able to justify its policy of dominance of the Palestinians,” Denari Duffner said, as “Palestinians are the quintessential terrorist Muslims” for Israelis and others. Such sympathy for the Palestinians whitewashes the jihad they and other Muslims have waged against Zionism and Israel. Yet she asserted that Israel gets a “blank check to do whatever they want.”

An uncritical approach to Islam undercuts Denari Duffner’s belief that interactions with Muslims will end “Islamophobia.” “I have had such positive experiences getting to know Muslims as classmates in college, and if everyone could have this experience, then this problem of ‘Islamophobia’ would go away,” she once assumed. Unlike her, however, many others base their worldviews on empirical facts rather than fantasy. Thus, she has come to realize that “‘Islamophobia’ isn’t going to go away if people simply get to know Muslims.”

Denari Duffner combines a willful blindness toward all things Islamic with an ahistorical, highly critical approach to the West in general and Christianity in particular. It is a virtue to see the humanity of others, but it is the job of the scholar to tell the truth regardless of the cost. In finding fault primarily with her own kind while denying inconvenient facts about the “Other,” Denari-Duffner rejects this key academic obligation. Legislators, policymakers, theologians, and others should reject Georgetown’s peddlers of “Islamophobia” for what they are: charlatans undermining the West’s ability to define and defend itself.

Andrew E. Harrod, a Middle East Forum Campus Watch Fellow, freelance researcher, and writer, is a fellow with the Lawfare Project. Follow him on Twitter: @AEHarrod. This article is crossposted from The American Spectator.