Author Archive

A professor at Cal State Northridge has been revealed as the editor of a website that caters to men who travel to Thailand as “sex tourists” seeking prostitutes.

Kenneth Ng, a tenured associate professor of Economics, is himself a frequent sex tourist. He defends his site as constitutionally protected speech, but a former Justice Department expert on sex trafficking and child abuse says that federal law prohibits “enticing or coercing” individuals to travel internationally in search of prostitutes.

Ng started the “Big Baby Kenny” site after he was banned from blogging at a Thai website for encouraging men to seek sex from the “emotionally vulnerable girls” who congregated at a particular Buddhist shrine. (In that same blogpost, which he has posted on his site, he notes that “bruised up girls mired in abusive relationships” are among those who go to the shrine, if that’s your “personal preference.”)

CSU Northridge administrators say that there is nothing they can do about the situation without “evidence that [the site] infringes upon the work he does at the university itself.”

Inside Higher Ed, where most of the above info comes from, has a thorough rundown of the story.

Berkeley’s student government, the Associated Students of the University of California, is meeting tonight for what should be the final consideration of a resolution calling on the university to divest its holdings in two corporations that supply the Israeli military.

ASUC first passed the resolution last month, but it was vetoed by the association’s president. An attempt to override that veto failed in an all-night meeting last week, a meeting which ended with a further two hours’ debate on a motion to reconsider that decision.

Last week’s meeting was moved twice to accommodate the large numbers of students and others who wished to comment on the resolution. Reports on Twitter suggest that tonight’s meeting may be being held in closed session to speed debate.

I’ll be following this story as it develops, and bringing you more as I get it.

Late night update | At about midnight California time the Daily Cal student newspaper reported that the closed-session rumors were true — the ASUC senate voted without opposition to go into closed session to consider the veto override at 8:40 PM.

It is now 2:30 AM in California, and there has been no further word about the senate’s deliberations on the Daily Cal site. Similarly, Twitter — which saw frequent updates from the senate discussions throughout last week’s deliberations under the #UCBdivest hashtag — has been essentially silent on the subject since tonight’s meeting began.

Questions have been raised about the legitimacy of the closed session debate under the ASUC constitution, raising the possibility that tonight’s decision, whatever it may be, could be challenged yet again.

Thursday morning update | It’s not at all clear what happened at last night’s meeting — the Daily Cal hasn’t updated their story since midnight, Google News and Google Blog searches turn up nothing, and if anyone’s talking on Twitter, I can’t find it. But the website of the organization Jewish Voice for Peace is reporting that supporters of divestment will bring their resolution forward yet again next Wednesday, April 28.

Looks like they’re headed to round four.

Sunday update | The Daily Cal and the Berkeley Daily Planet have both published stories on Wednesday night’s meeting, and though some details are still fuzzy, the basic outlines of the situation are clear.

Supporters of divestment moved on Wednesday to suspend the rules to allow a new version of their resolution to be considered next week, in an attempt to address opponents’ criticisms, but their motion failed to receive the necessary two-thirds margin. Senators plan to take up the original bill one last time on April 28, at ASUC’s final meeting of the semester.

Students at the University of Puerto Rico staged massive protests this morning, at the start of a planned 48-hour student strike. The students are opposing budget cuts and program changes.

English-language news on the situation is scarce so far, but a brief Associated Press story reports that the university’s Rio Piedras campus has been closed “indefinitely” after clashes between protesters and security guards allegedly left nineteen guards injured.

There’s a Facebook page in solidarity with the occupation, and the website Emancipating Education for All is posting info as they get it. The Twitter feed for the protests is #ParoUPR, and some background on the strike can be found here.

I’ll be posting updates as I get them.

Evening update | It’s midnight in Puerto Rico, and the latest reports on the Facebook solidarity page say that SWAT teams who had earlier appeared to be readying to break up the occupation have been “pulled back.” Media reports (thanks, Google Translate!) suggest that both sides are hunkering down for the night.

Early morning update | Reports from Twitter here and here suggest that the night passed peacefully on campus. Rough translations:

@MST_PR: 6:03 am, fairly quiet inside and outside the Rio Piedras Campus, but the militancy of the students is high.

@eldifusor: It’s about 5:30 am and all is calm. Students in their tents, the university guards making rounds.

May 17 update | My coverage of the situation in Puerto Rico is ongoing — click here and scroll down to see the latest news.

The recently-dismissed president of the Duke chapter of the College Republicans made national news yesterday when he claimed that his ouster was the result of fellow Duke Republicans learning that he is gay.

Justin Robinette was impeached last Wednesday, just three weeks after he was re-elected as the group’s president, and just days after several members of the group learned of his sexual orientation. He says that members of the group called him “disgusting” and a “faggot,” and that their anti-gay bias led to his dismissal.

Last night the Duke student government’s judiciary took up the case, and this morning, after a ten-hour meeting in which they heard testimony from nearly two dozen people, they rejected his claims in a three-to-one vote.

In its ruling, the committee’s majority found that the College Republicans impeached Robinette because of “dissatisfaction with [his] leadership” of the organization, and that there was “no strong evidence” that that dissatisfaction stemmed from his sexual orientation.

The committee declared that the impeachment process had begun “long before” Robinette’s orientation became generally known, and that any discriminatory comments directed at him were made by individuals who were not acting in an organizational capacity at the time.

In dissent, justice Carissa Mueller wrote that Robinette’s sexual orientation “played a role” in the impeachment proceedings, both as an impetus for them and in influencing the way in which the impeachment was conducted.

The student government president at California’s Chico State University was stabbed late Saturday night in what police are calling a bias crime.

Joseph Igbineweka, a Nigerian immigrant, was accosted on his way home from a party by two men yelling racial slurs. One of the two is said to have attacked Igbineweka with a knife, causing injuries to his arms, torso, and neck.

Igbineweka, a 23-year-old political science major, immigrated to the United States eight years ago. He is said to be recovering from his wounds, and spoke to a local reporter earlier today.

This is the second apparent bias incident to hit the Chico State student government this month. Just a week ago, campaign signs for a candidate of Middle Eastern descent were defaced, one with the word “Arab.”

Update | Several hundred students rallied in support of Igbineweka on Friday.

Note | The original version of this post identified a local community college student as having been named by police as a perpetrator in the stabbing. That student has since been released without charges.