Brown University’s Choices Program develops history and current issues curricula for K-12 schools in all 50 states. Once upon a time, it taught students “of the historic Jewish ties to the land that is now Israel.” But its recent materials are more critical of the Jewish state—and Brown’s endowed chair of Palestinian studies, Beshara Doumani, was involved in crafting them.
Doumani, our Adam Kredo reports, began contributing to the program in 2015. Brown thanked him at the time for his “invaluable” contributions. The program’s Middle East curriculum materials include new definitions of “colonialism” and “imperialism,” exclude an old section on Israel’s creation, and teach students that Israel’s capital is Tel Aviv, not Jerusalem.
“Brown has dismissed accusations of anti-Semitism in the program’s curriculum materials in the past, arguing that it has a commitment to ‘help educators guide thoughtful consideration of diverse views,'” writes Kredo. Doumani has a different view, arguing during a 2016 panel discussion that academics must reject the “CNN-style ‘this is your story, this is my story, let’s recognize the humanity of each other’ approach because it ignores Israel’s status ‘as a settler colonial project.’”
READ MORE: How a Brown University Professor Helped Drive Anti-Israel Materials Into K-12 Schools
In some cases, Columbia students don’t have to go to class this week thanks to professors who canceled in solidarity with Mahmoud Khalil. That may explain why some of them took to the New York City streets on Tuesday to protest Khalil’s arrest.
Agitators clashed with police after they refused to clear a roadway in front of City Hall. They were arrested. Attendees included Aidan Parisi, the Columbia graduate student who was arrested for storming Hamilton Hall and suspended for organizing a panel full of terror-tied speakers who advocated for violence against Jews.
Other attendees sported terrorist headbands and signs. They acted as part of a nationwide “walkout” in support of Khalil, whose student group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, lauded Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack—or the “Al-Aqsa Flood,” as the group called it—as a “moral, military and political victory.” Participating schools included the City University of New York, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Los Angeles.
READ MORE: Anti-Israel Agitators Arrested in Amid Protests Over Pro-Hamas Activist’s ICE Arrest
The Democratic Party has been in a state of disarray during Donald Trump’s second term. On Monday night, their journalist friends followed suit, unloading on Politico’s “Kamala Harris expert” turned MSNBC cohost Eugene Daniels for his floundering leadership of the White House Correspondents’ Association.
Daniels hosted a virtual meeting of the embattled organization, our Andrew Stiles reports, and faced pointed questions from members for his “failure to respond more aggressively” to Trump’s stripping of the association’s power. He blew off those questions, according to April Ryan, White House correspondent for something called Black Press USA. He also refused to step down as WHCA president.
“Daniels published his final ‘scoop’ at Politico last week about how Harris was seriously considering taking the steps she needs to take in terms of thinking about running for governor of California in 2026,” writes Stiles. “Daniels has commended himself for his ‘tough’ coverage of the Harris campaign, including the time he asked the failed candidate if she thought Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance were guilty of ‘irredeemable racism.'”
Away from the Beacon:
- In a statement calling for the release of Mahmoud Khalil, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said he has made his “criticism of the antisemitic actions at Columbia loudly known.” In real life, he advised Columbia’s leaders that backlash over those actions was “really only among Republicans.”
- Cairo-based Washington Post reporter Heba Farouk Mahfouz once tweeted that while she doesn’t “like Hamas’s social suppression of the Palestinians,” she is “always and forever with the resistance as long as it is against the Zionist entity.” Jeff Bezos, call your office.
- School’s out for spring: Department of Education staffers received a notice on Tuesday “informing them that all department offices … will be closed Wednesday,” according to CBS News. Roughly half of their positions are reportedly expected to be eliminated.
- Jake Sullivan might not have a security clearance but he does have a Harvard Kennedy School professorship on “the Practice of Statecraft and World Order,” the Harvard Crimson reported.
This article was originally published at freebeacon.com
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