Anthem protest fuels civil conversations ADVERTISING Anthem protest fuels civil conversations There has been plenty of talk this year about social injustice. Whatever side you land on, everyone is acutely aware of the turmoil. We have seen aggressive protests, police
Anthem protest fuels civil conversations
There has been plenty of talk this year about social injustice. Whatever side you land on, everyone is acutely aware of the turmoil.
We have seen aggressive protests, police action and social media campaigns throughout the year. Along the way, the social turmoil became less of a conversation and more of yelling match.
Then, a man sat during the national anthem.
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick decided to protest during the anthem, which caused controversy but gave a new way to peacefully express frustrations.
Showing opposition to social injustice by kneeling, sitting or making a fist during the national anthem is a different type of protest — one that has the momentum for an actual conversation.
The anthem protest is a personal moment in which an individual decides whether to peacefully demonstrate disapproval of social injustice.
We live in a country that allows this expression. This is powerful freedom.
The national anthem provides time for reflection and pride, but you can love your country deeply while not being proud of its actions. People can kneel without shunning patriotism.
But whether Kaepernick and others should kneel isn’t the right conversation. It needs to be about the “why.”
Conversation fuels understanding.
— Fort Worth Star-Telegram
For-profit ITT was bad for US taxpayers
The sudden closing of ITT Technical Institutes throughout the nation shocked students and staff members last week. The shutdown left 35,000 students and 8,000 employees wondering what went wrong.
In fact, the chain of for-profit postsecondary schools had a long history of financial and management problems. As long ago as 2004, during the Bush administration, the federal government was investigating the company’s sites in eight states for possible fraud.
Former students filed many complaints about the company’s recruitment practices, marketing, low quality of instruction and misleading information about costs. Nineteen state governments either investigated or sued ITT.
The event that caused the schools’ demise was an action by the U.S. Department of Education last month. The department announced it would no longer provide federal student loans to new ITT students. It said providing the loans was too risky given the schools’ precarious financial situation. That federal aid was the company’s primary source of revenue.
Some claimed this government action represents an overreach of regulatory enforcement. We disagree. The federal government was protecting taxpayers by monitoring the way student loans are doled out.
In the year 2010, ITT Technical Institutes took in $1.1 billion in federal aid, according to a congressional inquiry. The simple truth is that ITT built its business on the backs of taxpayers, and so close monitoring by government was in order.
ITT, like some other for-profit schools before it, paid more attention to investors and their demands for growth than it paid to the students. That single-minded focus on profit proved to be the company’s downfall.
— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
