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Wednesday, July 14, 2004
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A COUPLE OF UPDATES
I A Bastille Day Hate Hoax As Professor Dunn’s trial gets underway in California [see UD, 3/18/04], another staged hate crime, this one just as vile, has taken place in Paris: Just days after claiming to be the victim of an attack that stunned France, a young mother confessed to making up the story, authorities said Tuesday. The woman claimed to have been robbed Friday by a knife-wielding gang that mistook her for a Jew and scrawled swastikas on her body. But police, finding no clues and no witnesses, brought the woman in for questioning Tuesday, police officials said on condition of anonymity. No details were immediately available to explain her motives for claiming to have been attacked. Reports of the attack in a suburban Paris train outraged France, drawing fierce condemnation from politicians and Jewish groups. The woman told police the men were of North African and African origin and that none of some twenty witnesses came to her rescue as the gang robbed her and overturned her stroller causing her infant to tumble out. In the matter of hate crime hoaxes, here’s some of what to look for before the rush to righteous indignation and the elevation of a hoaxer to sainthood, as in the Claremont case: 1. Cutting-edge topicality: The act will be about anti-semitism in France; on American college campuses, it will be about hate speech. 2. Gruesomeness: Particularly hideous details will be offered, as in the Frenchwoman’s claim that her attackers inscribed swastikas on her belly. 3. A history of petty criminal activity: Dunn was a thief; the Frenchwoman had a long record of filing false claims that she’d been attacked. 4. A confused account of the attack: Neither hoaxer was able to maintain a consistent story. II Bad Presidents Many American university presidents earn and spend too much money, and it’s particularly unpleasant to watch them take tax-payer money, or money from corporations with a business interest [see UD , 1/10/04; also, for a recent indication that some universities are getting the idea: "The University of North Carolina Board of Governors will likely make a statement this week opposing the use of private funds to boost salaries for leaders of the system's 16-campuses. 'Unlimited use of private funds creates an inherent conflict of interest,' Brad Wilson said Wednesday. 'It certainly creates the perception of who do you work for? Are you working for a private foundation, or are you working for the people of North Carolina?"]. Eastern Michigan’s president, who seems to have quit his job just as the shit’s hitting the fan (“EMU President Sam Kirkpatrick was missing in action as the audit was released Tuesday. Kirkpatrick recently announced his resignation…The regents are sending him away with a lovely parting gift - a severance deal worth more than half a million bucks of EMU money.”) presided over the construction of what a local paper calls the “presidential palace.” Budgeted at 3.5 million, it came in at 6 million, and though the university at first denied it, some of that money came from student tuition, fees, and taxpayer dollars: “Cash-strapped students and state taxpayers have footed a share of the costs that were charged off to accounts other than the house construction fund.” |