Education

Santa Rosa City (Cal.) Schools: Unethical, Illegal, Unconstitutional, Un-American—Now What?

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

The Cornell Rape Ethics Train Wreck just made a nasty stop.

The captain of the Piner High School football team posted the phrase “Free the Cornell Seven” on Instagram.

So what? That post is entirely, completely, protected free speech, and any semi-informed American dolt over the age of 18 should know it. That message does not involve the school or its students in any way. It is pure opinion.

Never mind. Santa Rosa City Schools officials announced last week that the student had been punished. So far, all we know about the punishment is that the player was barred from attending a team dinner. It doesn’t matter if the punishment was a reprimand in the principal’s office. A school can’t do that.

Not punished, however, were the approximately 200 students—nobody bothered to take names or count them— who walked out of class to protest the fact that their school hadn’t sufficiently punished a fellow student for making a statement of opinion that could not be legally, ethically or constitutionally punished. This is bonkers. The conduct of those students must be punished. Not only that, the teachers and administrators responsible for them not comprehending the essentials of free speech, the First Amendment and the Constitution at such an advanced age should be sacked.

The protesters demanded “accountability” for the football team captain. So did many parents, who complained to the school district that the message “makes light of sexual assault and should not be tolerated.” Not be tolerated? The school’s principal’s answer to the parents should have been,

“Mind your own damn business and get out of my face. You need to go back to high school yourself. You don’t know what you are talking about. First, anyone, including a student here, is free to post any opinion on a controversy in New York on his or her personal social media accounts any time they choose. We have to “tolerate it.” Second, there is no evidence that a sexual assault occurred, despite your fellow travelers on the Left seeking to wreck the lives of young men as a show of solidarity with the worst of American feminists.”

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Friday Open Forum!

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

A few notes:

I was moved to visit a site purporting to feature a recent “major study” showing that Americans were getting dumber. As I started to read the report, I noticed that this piece was also on the home page: “Luck Is Everywhere For 3 Zodiac Signs All Week, From Now Until October 25.”

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Speaking of “Is We Getting Dummer?,” AOC recently vomited out this: “Public colleges should be tuition free! They are attacking women’s ability to get an education! They don’t want women to go to college!” “They” are Republicans. Women outnumber men in colleges and law schools by a significant number, and men are being targeted for even existing in colleges. And this idiot is considered a power in the Democratic Party…

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And speaking of those colleges, The Washington Examiner points out that by banning alll frat parties and events for the rest of the year, “Cornell is punishing all the other fraternities and students for the actions of a fraternity that does not exist and hasn’t existed for the entire time Cornell’s freshman and sophomore classes have been at the university”…”based on no evidence that a rape ever occurred, other than the female student’s claim, weeks after the encounter” [and] “is imposing collective punishment on its student population that does nothing to punish the alleged offenders, based on an alleged crime that still doesn’t appear to be a crime at all.” The Examiner adds, “Cornell is making reactive decisions based on social media posts and liberal media pressure, with no interest in any sort of institutional integrity.”

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Well, I am officially nauseous.

Now you take over…

Let’s Cut Through The Media Feeding Frenzy: No, Katie Zacharia Is Not A Lawyer. Yes, That Means She Has To Go.

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

You can read all about the investigations and arguments over terminology many places. The Washington Post’s is a good as any, but its headline is crap. “Katie Zacharia calls herself a lawyer. Legal experts aren’t sure.”

Really? Ethics experts are. She’s a JD, meaning she has a diploma from a law school. That no more allows her to practice law than a diploma from medical school allows a grad to do brain surgery. She hasn’t passed a bar exam in any jurisdiction. She’s not a lawyer. Representing herself as a lawyer is a misleading statement and dishonesty (or stupidity). All by itself it is grounds for a bar association to decide that she lacks the character to practice law.

Trump’s Truth Social post about her selection to replace Karoline Leavitt described Zacharia as “a distinguished Graduate of Pepperdine University, and the Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, an attorney, and a frequent Commentator on outlets, including Fox News and Newsmax.” Wrong. Either Trump was misinformed or he doesn’t know what an attorney is. Technically, an attorney is a lawyer who represents a client, but the distinction between lawyer and attorney has gone the way of the distinction between “implied” and “inferred.” Either way, a JD degree doesn’t allow you to practice law and you aren’t either a lawyer or an attorney until you pass a bar exam and get a license. Fox News has identified Zacharia as a lawyer at least 18 times since March 2025. Same as with Trump: Fox News is misinformed or stupid. She isn’t a lawyer.

Zacharia’s LinkedIn profile says she was “General Counsel” for a nonprofit organization called “Fix California.” If she was, she was practicing law without a license, a bright-line ethics violation as well as illegal. She also claims to have been licensed to practice in China, which is interesting but irrelevant. It would not make her a lawyer in the U.S. any more than being chef in China does

The conclusion here is clear and unavoidable. Zacharia has been misrepresenting herself. It is no less serious than lying on a resumé. Such a gross misrepresentation is a serious ethical breach, and in my view, disqualifies her from getting a law license. She may have the job of White House paid liar, but even that job requires some level of credibility and trustworthiness. She doesn’t have either; she can’t have either.

She’s got to go, and now.

Whoever vetted her needs to go too.

Morons.

Somehow, A “Great Stupid” Rally At Harvard Doesn’t Seem So Incongruous Any More

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Don’t let poor, dumb Cornell take all of the justifiable ridicule and contempt when Harvard, the alleged creme-de-la-creme of the Ivies, has students behaving like this. From The Harvard Crimson:

More than 100 Harvard affiliates gathered in Harvard’s Zimmer Hall Plaza Thursday night to protest sexual violence, calling on the University to strengthen protections for survivors and reform its handling of harassment complaints. The rally was part of a nationwide day of action calling for justice for Jane Doe, a former Cornell University student, and Kendall D. Francis, a Louisiana State University student, who have both alleged sexual assault. Organizers at Harvard also issued six demands, including an independent grievance process for harassment and discrimination complaints, expanded resources for survivors, and the reopening of two diversity offices shuttered in July 2025…

“Jane Doe” is Lucy Craig, who has become one of the most improbable “Believe All Women” icons yet after suing seven male colleagues at Cornell for sexual assault despite massive evidence that she was a willing—well, you know. The only words that spring to mind are in bad taste. Women are disgracing themselves in this Ethics Train Wreck and apparently don’t care. My Leftist social media friends have decided that the Cornell 7 are rapists despite both the school and a district attorney determining that Craig’s claims are not credible; after all, she only sued after she was disinvited from a Halloween Party given by the same fraternity where she made whoopie, as Eddie Canter would say. But Lucy got her revenge: Cornell has cancelled that party and all others at fraternities for the rest of the school year. So there! New York’s woke Democratic governor Kathy Hochul appointed a special prosecutor who had already announced that she had decided the men were guilty despite her assignment of running an “independent” investigation. (Your host is quoted in this story about that...)

The LSU case? I don’t know anything about it, and I suspect the Harvard demonstrators don’t know much about it either, but someone figured out that Lucy’s tale is too thin to base a “nationwide day of action” on even in The Age of the Great Stupid (and before mid-terms).

How does a dubious rape claim at Cornell relate to the need for more “diversity” offices at Harvard? Why don’t these affiliated organizations also demand that the MLB divisional play-offs be expanded from five games to seven? Or that the official language of the U.S. be changed to Swedish?

The rest of the Crimson report is equally risible:

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And THIS Is How Growing Progressives Learn That Cheating Is Just Fine…

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Arielle Curry, the principal of Washington Elementary School in Santa Barbara (she’s the one on the left) rigged the vote count in the student election results to elect two losers, including giving her own daughter the post of sixth-grade president. The principal was foiled by a whistleblower, put on administrative leave, and then, incredibly, allowed to resume her job.

Take that last part in slowly. This is the culture in schools. This is the culture in California.

In a letter to parents, Curry wrote that she ” led deliberations after the student votes were tallied that resulted in overriding the outcome of two positions.” She apologized “for allowing this practice to persist” while acknowledging that “our school’s process for selecting student officers lacks transparency and fairness.” She added, “I am committed to making this right moving forward.”

By resigning? Nothing else will do.That letter is all by itself justification for dismissal. What disgusting weasel rhetoric! Altering vote totals to benefit a family member is “deliberations”? She allowed a practice to persist by engaging in the practice…it wouldn’t have persisted if she didn’t engage in it. The school’s process for selecting student officers lacks transparency and fairness? No, she lacks transparency and fairness, also honesty, respect for students, shame, trustworthiness,accountability, and ethics generally.

There are tangible benefits in being elected a student officer at the gifted and talented education magnet school in Santa Barbara’s Mesa neighborhood. Student government members receive privileges like leaving class to attend meetings, while the president gets the opportunity to deliver the graduation speech at the end of the school year. The student body also helps select school activities, including themed events such as “Crazy Hat Day.” (Do they have a “Sociopath Principal Day”?

Cuury tried to steal these perks from deserving students and bestow them on her choices regardless of the election results. How can the school, the district, and the parents allow Curry to keep her job? What possible justification could they cite? (Don’t say it!)

“District officials confirmed the expected policy was for the actual vote totals to determine the winners” one news source says. Ya think? “The district expects that for student/ASB elections, the candidate with the most votes wins,” assistant superintendent for human resources John Becchio said. Really? Then why do you continue to employ a principal who doesn’t get the “most votes win” thingy?

Curry has worked in the Santa Barbara Unified School District for several years, previously serving as principal of Santa Barbara Junior High and as an assistant principal at Washington and Franklin elementary schools. This is how your young are being aculturated, America. These are the people shaping their conduct and values. Do you care? What are you going to do about it?

Me? I’m heading to the woodchipper…

A Lawyer Whom ABC Gives a National Platform on an Alleged News Program Said This, And You Wonder Why The Public Is Ignorant About The Law?

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Yes, it was on “The View,” but no, the lawyer spewing idiocy wasn’t Sunny Hostin.

For a change.

Yesterday, “The View’s” collection of opinionated female Democrats were discussing the botched execution of Christa Pike. Whoopi Goldberg began by saying, among other things, that what needs to happen now is that Pike’s original victim’s mother should decide what happens to the condemned murderer . “Me personally, I think you should ask the mother what should happen now. I think they should ask her because, you know, they tortured her daughter and there’s a reason she was where she was, but I think it’s, it’s not a question that the state should answer,” Goldberg said, being semi-incoherent because she never made it through high school. You should ask her? They should ask her? They tortured her? Whoopi also has civic literacy of a guppy. Then Ana Navarro (above), who has a law degree and a license to practice, piped up.

“I’m with you. I think the victim’s family needs to lead.”

And how would that work, exactly? Oh, details, details! It just feels right, so “do it.” What does “needs to lead” mean? Can the family be handed the authority to decide how Pike is executed this time? How would that be done? Does any law permit a judge to delegate law enforcement to citizens? Well, no, but the family “has a right” to take over because the state has failed. Is that Ana and Whoopi’s theory? I believe that is called “vigilantism,” which is specifically illegal, but remember this whole program represents the lowest common denominator of not only of civic comprehension, but of attachment to the whole concept of that “Rule of Law” thingy. Process? Nah. Precedent—what’s that?

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Stunningly, a Fair and Perceptive Essay On The Cornell Gang Rape Ethics Train Wreck…In Slate! [Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Knock me over with a feather. I once subscribed to Slate when it was an innovative commentary e-magazine genuinely striving to be independent and non-partisan. Then it went full woke and Trump Deranged, and managed to get on the EA blacklist. Frankly, I didn’t know it was still being published. But Hanna Stotland an independent educational consultant specializing in crisis management authoring her second Slate piece after seven years, delivered a superb analysis.

UPDATE: You can read the whole paywalled article at the archive link provided in the comments below by James Flood. [Thanks, James.] I was tempted to paste the whole thing into this post, but that would be unethical….

Some notable passages from the publicly available version deserve emphasis and should whet your curiosity:

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KABOOM! Cornell Picks Disgraced “Deep State” Ethics Villain Sally Yates To Investigate Cornell Rape Controversy

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

Well, there goes my head.

Apparently there are no genuinely apolitical, unbiased, independent, trustworthy, competent lawyers who have the ability to investigate the accelerating Ethics Train Wreck launched by a booze, pot and ketamine-fueled orgy at a Cornell fraternity. (Previous EA posts on the thing are here and here) Gee, I’m kinda surprised. I would have thought, with all the millions of lawyers in this country, there would be at least a couple without the flaming ethics deficits of Letitia James, the lawfare New York Attorney General appointed Special Prosecutor for the state investigation, and to handle the Cornell investigation…waaait for it…

Sally Yates!

Yes, it’s Sally Yates, the Obama Justice Department appointee who refused to execute President Trump ‘s policies in his first term when she was Acting Attorney General, then after she was fired (she should have been disbarred) joined the Axis Russian Collusion conspiracy. Ethics Alarms had several posts condemning this proudly unethical lawyer, a true Ethics Villain, like…

Key quote (mine):

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A College Degree Is No Longer Worth the Cost or Time In the Assessment of Normal Americans, But Crucial To Indoctrination By The Totalitarian Left…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

The only reason so many polled still think that colleges are essential to education is that their own education was inadequate and their critical thinking faculties are under-developed. Or they are Democrats. Or both.

Substacker Steven Hayward writes,

Nearly every day brings fresh news of another university facing a huge budget deficit and enacting significant cuts to programs and personnel. The latest is the University of Minnesota, which is imposing cuts to fill a $225 million shortfall over the next two years chiefly because of the declining enrollment that everyone knew was coming. The University of Maine is likewise imposing—gasp!—faculty layoffs to close a $19 million budget shortfall.

Yet universities were heedless of the coming financial collapse, and went on building climbing walls, plush dorms, and adding more and more layers of useless and/or mendacious administrators (you gotta put those gender studies majors to work somewhere). (I reported here previously about the travails of Syracuse University, which is cutting whole departments because of falling enrollment and plunging revenue.)

Meanwhile, here is what an Ivy League education produces:

They haven’t even been taught the meaning of “justice.”

Comment of the Day: “The Naked Teacher Principle, Brought To You By “Only Fans” Again and Of Course”

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Cees Van Barneveldt argues in this morning’s Comment of the Day that The Naked Teacher Principle (NFP) “is wholly insufficient for today’s educational environment at public schools.” Beginning with a sentence in the final paragraph in my post, “The Naked Teacher Principle, Brought To You By “Only Fans” Again and Of Course,” it moves into new vistas where no previous EA post on the NFT has gone before.

And here it is…

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...with holding a parent’s trust as a role model and a conveyor of societal values… 

Assume that I were a parent of two teenage sons, and they are both educated at a public school. What reasonable expectations should I have for their education, and their development as young men ready to conquer the next stage of life? I mentioned the word “men” in the previous sentence, as we cannot skip sexual development, and the development of a healthy identity. What good parents want is that their boys grow up to men with character, who are secure in their manhood, who know how to properly interact with others including with the other sex, have healthy friendships, do not grow up to be bullies, are able to form healthy relationships and marriages.

The main responsibility for a healthy sexual and moral development of children lies with the parents. Sending a child to school means that some of activities of raising a child is delegated to a third party; however delegation of that task should leave the ultimate responsibility for moral development with the parents. Delegation requires trust. Trust that the values taught at school do not undermine the values taught by the parents and that are commonly held in the parent’s community. Trust that the schools are transparent to the parents about critical issues pertaining to their children. Trust that the teachers of the school act as proper role models, living out those values. This has implication for which teachers you hire and fire; which the NTP relates to.

The current day public school environment betrays the trust of parents in multiple ways. Schools deliberately undermine existing societal values by aggressively pushing radical social and sexual agenda’s favored by radical minorities by shoving these issues into the faces of very young children. I have mentioned transgenderism in a previous comment. Before the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage (Obergefell) the issue pushed at schools was everything related to homosexuality. This has resulted in a lot of sexual confusion, and a pandemic of children who at a way too young age are put on path of irreversible steps to gender transition. Even worse is that the public schools go to great lengths to hide all this from the parents of the children involved. This type of environments does not generate teenagers who are secure in their sexual identity, who know they are accepted; instead it creates teenagers who are physically and mentally damaged. It creates freaks like Tyler Robinson who was up to his ears in alternative sexualities like furry and transgender, and who proceeded to murder Charlie Kirk.

The current day public school environment betrays the trust of parents by pushing all the DEI and CRT crap on children. “Toxic Masculinity”, “Smash the Patriarchy”, “Men are trash”, “Women are the Future.”A couple of days ago we saw that this junk is aggressively promoted by the teacher unions. The result of this are dispirited and cynical young men who “fail to launch,” and will not leave their parents house until in their thirties, do not date and become INCELs, who resent women, and are open for the racist and antisemitic ideas of Mick Fuentes as a raised middle finger to the indoctrination they got at school.

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