March 23, 2005 by s.z.

Another Young Conservative Being Repressed! Let's review the shocking case of Wells College senior Nicole Krogman, who isn't being allowed to graduate, just because she's conservative. Here's part of the 13 May press release she sent out to local papers and various conservative sites: Wells senior Nicole Krogman is the Co-Chairman of the Wells College Republicans and an editor of the Cornell American, a conservative publication at nearby Cornell University. She is the most high-profile conservative student at Wells. In her final semester at Wells, Krogman undertook a non-credit bearing independent study tutorial with Professor Linda Lohn, Chair of Wells’ American Studies Department. There was minimal communication between Krogman and Lohn during the course of the semester. Suddenly, on April 5th, rather than hearing from Lohn, Krogman received notice from the college’s “Community Court,” a quasi-judicial body composed of students and faculty. She was informed that her tutorial project had to be completed within seven days, failing which she would be held “in contempt of court.” Given the extensive nature of the work involved and the rush of end-of-semester assignments, it was not possible for Krogman to complete the project on such a short deadline.  Thereafter, the Community Court found Krogman in contempt of court, and suspended her for the remainder of the spring semester. [...]. Ironically, Krogman was charged with “contempt” on April 15th, just one day after the “Republican Coming Out Day” that she and others in her college Republican club had organized, a day dedicated to encouraging “closet Republicans” on campus to reveal their political orientation in the face of the college’s prevailing liberal culture. It was also the day that, at the invitation of the Wells Republicans, conservative commentator Star Parker spoke on campus. Coincidence?  Of course not!  It's all part of the college's plot against conservatives!  As Nicole's lawyer said: “This is truly cruel and unusual punishment. We demand that Wells immediately lift the suspension, give Nicole the opportunity to complete course work and finals, and graduate with the rest of her class on May 28th.” So, this young lady was suspended just because she didn't complete a non-credit, independent study tutorial on time -- and she didn't even have a chance to meet the deadline, because the prof never told her about it.  And then the school's Community Court gave her a week to complete the tutorial or be suspended, presumably just to punish her for for organizing "Republican Coming Out Day."  Yes, this truly is cruel and unusual punishment, and so it's prohibited by Constitution.  Free the Well College One! Anyway, after getting the Freepers and some bloggers on her side, Nicole got invited to tell her story on "Hannity and Colmes."  But her story is now a bit different, as demonstrated by this notice sent out by Morton Blackwell of the Leadership Institute (courtesy of mataliandy over at Kos): Once again, leftist professors and college administrators are attacking a conservative student days before graduation. This travesty of justice is occurring at Wells College in upstate New York. Nicole Krogman, wrote an article for Onyx, a campus newspaper at Wells College. Nicole used some of the language from this article in another article she wrote in the Cornell American, where she works as an editor. Nicole told my staff that school officials "suspended" her from the school. They charged her with plagiarism for the absurd reason that she did not cite herself as the author of the article that she wrote for the Cornell American. So, so the suspension isn't just because she didn't compete a tutorial on time, it's because she's accused of plagiarism (but all she did was fail to cite herself when she used language from her Cornell American article in her Onyx piece).  Man, this young woman IS being persecuted! Nicole is a senior at Wells College. She expected to graduate this month. Now she can't. Wells College does not graduate students in the winter. As a result of the attacks by the left, she cannot graduate until next spring. Even worse, because the school forced her out of her classes so late in the semester, she cannot get any portion of her tuition refunded. What malicious people you and I are fighting on campus. Indeed.  Damn those malicious liberals who attack conservative students just for being so righteous and stuff! Anyway, here's the REST of the story. A suspended Wells College senior went on national cable television Thursday and charged that she is being persecuted because of her conservative political views and will not be allowed to graduate next weekend. Appearing on Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" show, Nicole Krogman said that her suspension is rooted in a "ridiculous" allegation of plagiarism concerning a piece she wrote for the Onyx, the campus newspaper, in November 2004. That 21-paragraph article contained one original paragraph. Of the 1,149 words in the piece, 90 were her own. The rest was copied straight from the words of four other authors, who were not credited in print. [...] Krogman, 22, told Fox's Sean Hannity that "the plagiarism charge was actually a charge of me plagiarizing myself." The interview during the show then continued to focus on how she was treated by Wells, not on the charge. "So this is really because of your political beliefs on campus, they went after you. . . . Is there anything else behind the scenes here that I'm not getting here because it seems very political to me," Hannity said. Krogman responded, "Unless I'm not getting it either, it's purely political. The piece that she plagiarized from herself (and four other people) was about how Rathergate proved that the liberal media is biased; it was identical in both the Cornell American and theOnyx.  And the non-credit independent study tutorial that Nicole didn't complete on time was on journalism ethics, and it was the punishment mandated by the student-faculty court for her plagiarism. And she now says that it's not that she was never told of the deadline, but that the deadline was moved up a month.  And when she couldn't learn ethics that quickly, the court found her in contempt, and suspended her for the rest of the year.  Oh, but her lawyer now says that she denies the plagiarism charge. The lawyer said the attribution problems were nothing more than "inelegant footnoting," maintaining she handed in the articles to both publications with a list of sources tacked on the bottom, which weren't published. The editor of the Cornell American, where Nicole is a "production editor," says he can't remember if she submitted a source list or not.  Her lawyer told the Auburn Citizen that she provided him with an original manuscript of the article that included a list of the authors whose words appeared in her column. Finkelstein said he could not verify if the original manuscript provided by Krogman was authentic - the Cornell American editor told him he could not recall if Krogman submitted a source list. But if Krogman did notify editors of the sources she quoted, Finkelstein said, it makes her mistake less egregious. But if she didn't, then it just makes her a bigger, fatter liar.  (Since nobody can verity if the manuscript Nicole gave her lawyer is authentic, and since Nicole isn't asking the editor of the Onyx to verify that she submitted a source list with her manuscript, I don't think even her lawyer could believe this latest lame attempt to save face.)  Oh, and her lawyer claims that she never meant to mislead anybody by saying that she was accused of plagiarizing herself. "I think that was suggested to her and she might have agreed with it," he said  So, it was all Hannity's fault!  (And I guess Morton Blackwell's too.) But hey, to check out Nicole's veracity, let's look at a piece Nicole wrote for the most recent edition of the Cornell American (it's been deleted from the paper's site, but I did manage to find an archived version):. Ze” Said, “Ze” Said By: NICOLE KROGMAN Published on: Saturday, May 07 @ 13:33:28 CDT I don't want to copy the whole piece here, so we'll just look at a few passages, selected more or less at random. The totalitarian nature of Political Correctness is revealed nowhere more clearly than on college campuses, many of which are nothing more than “small ivy covered North Koreas,” where the student or faculty member who dares to cross any of the lines set up by the gender feminist, the homosexual-rights activist, the local black or Hispanic group, or any of the other sainted “victims” groups that PC revolves around, quickly find themselves in judicial trouble. Within the small legal system of the college, they face formal charges and punishment. Okay, "small ivy covered North Koreas" is in quotes, so this may be Nicole's way of indicating that the phrase isn't original with her.  But there is no citation in the piece.  So, I googled that phrase.  Here's what I found in a 1998 address by noted wingnut Bill Lind (I'll bold the parts that are identical to what Nicole wrote): The totalitarian nature of Political Correctness is revealed nowhere more clearly than on college campuses, many of which at this point are small ivy covered North Koreas, where the student or faculty member who dares to cross any of the lines set up by the gender feminist or the homosexual-rights activists, or the local black or Hispanic group, or any of the other sainted "victims" groups that PC revolves around, quickly find themselves in judicial trouble. Within the small legal system of the college, they face formal charges – some star-chamber proceeding – and punishment. So, Nicole stole not just the "ivy-covered North Koreas" from William Lind, but the whole paragraph.  Tsk, tsk.  But maybe that was just a fluke -- let's go on to the next paragraph.: Political Correctness is cultural Marxism. Oops, that's another direct quote from Lind.  The rest of the paragraph paraphrases Lind, and I was going to give Nicole credit for at least putting his uncredited ideas into her own words, until I did a little more googling.  Here's Nicole: Marxism suggests that workers, no matter their actions, are basically “good” compared to the bourgeoisie. In PC, the oppressed, no matter their actions, are the “good” compared to those who have oppressed throughout history. And here's a selection from an article on "Political Correctness" at Everything2 (which seems to be sorta like Wikipedia): Marxism suggests that workers, no matter their actions are basically "good" compared to the bourgeoisie. In PC, the oppressed, no matter their actions, are the "good" compared to those who have oppressed throughout history. (Lind) Oopsie again. Nicole's next pagraph starts,"As Professor Bill Lind states," so she DOES know how to credit and cite her sources (but she apparently just chooses not to). Let's jump down a few paragraphs in Nicole's piece: Why the popularity in Political Correctness? In the Sixties, the concept of victimization for everyone exploded. Adults abused as children suddenly were not responsible for their actions. Racial minorities blamed whites for their destitute and underrepresented state. Homosexuals lobbied to have pro-gay books read to first graders. Now, here's a passage from the same "Everything 2" article: Why the popularity in political correctness? In the Sixties, the concept of victimization for everyone exploded. Adults abused as children suddenly were not responsible for their actions. Racial minorities blamed whites for their destitute and underrepresented state. Homosexuals lobbied to have specifically pro-gay books read to first graders (troubling because most first grade reading consists of tolerance and respect for all, not just one group).   Okay, let's look at one last example from Nicole's column: By using the excuse of not upsetting anyone, the politically correct are demanding that people behave like the fool who would please everyone. All must accept the notions of the politically correct as truth, or else! This is the same mentality that has inspired repression of free speech throughout the ages. Once expression gets placed in a straitjacket of official truth, then the madness that occurs in all totalitarian states is obtained. Now, here's a selection from Philip Atkinson's "Political Correctness": By using the excuse of not upsetting anyone, the politically correct are demanding that people behave like the fool who would please everyone; that everyone must become such a fool! All must accept the notions of the Politically Correct as truth, or else! This is the same mentality that inspired the Inquisition and forced Galileo to recant; the same mentality that inspired the Nazis and obtained the Holocaust. Once expression gets placed in a straitjacket of official truth, then the madness that occurs in all totalitarian states is obtained. . So, every passage of Nicle's that we've looked at has been stolen verbatim from somebody else.  I'm pretty sure that if we bothered to Google the rest of Nicole's piece, we'd find that the proportion of original work is even lower than the 1/10th or so in the Rathergate piece that got her into trouble earlier this year.  And that makes it clear that Nicole SHOULD fail that journalism ethics module, because she doesn't appear to have learned a damn thing from it. However, she does appear to have learned a lesson from the right, which is: "Claim that you're being persecuted because you're a conservative, and not only don't you have to apologize for lying, stealing, and defaming others, but everybody else is supposed to apologize to YOU.  Oh, and Hannity is like the stupidest man in the world, so go on his show and say anything you want, and he'll never figure out that you're a lying, cheating weasel -- because he's one too." 6:02:40 AM

BTW, We Haven't Heard Anything About Twitchy the Rabbit For Several Months Now   It looks like TBogg has abandoned America's Worst Mother™ this week in order to blog about America's Worst Liberal™.  (It even has a sound track!)  Read the whole thing.  Seriously -- read it.  Read it now.  That's how snark should be done. But as a community service, here's the report on the latest "Swamp Fever": Main plotline: Eldest daughter Cachexia develops compassion for animals, and tells Mummy-o that she wants to be a vegetarian.  This, of course, is unacceptable, because a tenet of conservatism is that animals will be bred and slaughtered.  So, Meghan tries to browbeat the kid into being a carnivore. "Are you seriously saying you are never eating meat again?" I begin. "No bacon, which you love, with your pancakes? You're going to England in a few weeks, but no fish and chips?" I feel faintly ridiculous, firing these rhetorical missiles at such a placid target, but I can't seem to stop myself. "You're going to eat beans and rice in Maine while everyone else is enjoying the barbeque?" "Gosh, why is this such a big deal?" "Because — because it's so tiresomely prefabricated. You think it's you who wants to become a vegetarian, but it's the culture," I explain. "It's a fashion, a phase children seem obliged to go through these days. If this were the 1920s," I conclude a little confusingly, "you wouldn't want to be a vegetarian, you'd want to bob your hair." Meghan realizes that today's kids don't appreciate the moral depravity associated with bobbing one's hair, and thus will miss the full weight of her stinging rebuke of vegetarianism.  So, she calls a "Sage Friend" to seek some advice about dealing with pre-teen rebellion against meat (my guess is that the SF is Danielle Crittenden, who has a girl of about 14, and who is also one of the few women more qualified in mothering than Meghan, as witnessed by the fact that she's written anti-feminist books on the subject).  Anyway, the SF apparently tells Meghan to use more subtle forms of intimidation, such as economic sanctions and dental Darwinism, since that's what Meghan does.  I go on, more firmly, "You will need to be responsible for organizing your diet so that you get adequate protein." She nods. I can do that, she is thinking. "And of course," I continue, "you will need to get yourself vitamins so that you get a supply of vitamin B12, which comes from meat. Because as you know," — here I point to my canines — "our bodies aredesigned to eat meat." Molly is now looking unsure and I realize that I have touched her most vulnerable point. "How much do vitamins cost?" I give it just a little pause, then say beneficently: "We can go halvsies on the expense."  The girl is just lucky that Meghan didn't threaten to charge her for her chick pea and lentil rations, or poor Cachexia would be back to selling matches to try to buy food. Anyway, Meghan is able to best the twelve-year-old in the arena of logic and finances, and thereby calmly and tolerantly extinguish any burgeoning traces of liberalism in the child, thus proving that Meghan is a great mother, despite what Google may say. The priceless lesson here being that an ounce of unruffled maternal tolerance is worth a pound of belligerent obstructionism. We are talking omelets and chickpeas, here, after all, not Hitler and the Rhineland. This is terrain I can afford to surrender — and it turns out she doesn't want it, anyway. "I guess I won't be a vegetarian just yet." "Of course," I say, kissing her, "I respect your decision."  And that, ladies, is the right way to control your children:  by being reasonable, understanding, and respectful, as long as they do exactly what you want them to do. Oedipal Moment of the Week, featuring son Puissant: "Why do you look so nice?" Paris interrupts loudly from the way-way back, where children can't hear whether anyone else is talking. Um, let's just move along. Bad Seed Moment of the Week, featuring youngest daughter Damiena: When we get home, there is a moment of total mortification as we're unloading everyone's things from the car. As a beautiful young Asian woman passes our house, Phoebe sings out joyfully, "Hello, Japanese-Indian-Chief Girl!" The woman pauses, with a confused smile. Phoebe beams and waves. It's not learned racism, it's just a childish reaction to all the ethnic food Meghan has been serving the kids.  Yeah, that's the ticket. 3:25:23 AM

On This Date in 2004 ... the Wash Post reported: With their graduation from college over the weekend and the announcement that they will work on their father's reelection campaign, President Bush's twin daughters are leaving the zone of privacy the White House imposed and the press accepted, at least when the two were not getting in trouble with the law. [...] Jenna will eventually move to New York, live in an apartment with friends and do volunteer work related to education, while Barbara will be an intern for a pediatric AIDS program at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, traveling to clinics in Africa and Eastern Europe. And per a spokesman for Laura Bush: Both plan to get jobs or attend graduate school, he said. Each had a summer internship in New York - Barbara at a fashion house, Jenna at a public relations firm. A visit to Africa has inspired Barbara to work with AIDS sufferers, he said, while Jenna is interested in following her mother's career in education. Well, the Butt Dance was pretty educational. Anyway, despite all the crowing about the decrease in unemployment, there still must be some problems with the economy if the even the President's daughters are unable to find jobs after a year of trying. 1:23:44 AM