Jason Mattera, (Brooklyn Badboy, YAF spokesman and professional coward) gets rejected and blames it on a black woman:
Liberal administrators at the University of St. Thomas, a Catholic university and private college in Minnesota, censored the appearance of prominent pro-life and black speaker Star Parker. On April 21, 2008, Star—the best-selling author of numerous books—was slated to speak on campus about the devastating impact abortion has on minority communities. UST Vice President of Student Affairs Jane Canney nixed the idea entirely, citing “concerns” that the lecture was being underwritten by Young America’s Foundation.
[...]
Jane Canney told Katie and her sister, Amie Kieffer, a senior at St. Thomas and editor of the St. Thomas Standard, “As long as I am a vice president at St. Thomas, the Young America’s Foundation will not be allowed on campus.” Canney didn’t return the Foundation’s phone calls seeking comment. The Student Life Committee, on which Jane Canney resides, denied the Students for Human Life and the St. Thomas Standard a room on campus for Star Parker’s lecture. The young conservatives only needed a room and advertising space to host Parker, as Young America’s Foundation and Conservative Student News Inc. were covering all other costs.
Canney’s hostility toward Young America’s Foundation originated when the Foundation sponsored Ann Coulter at St. Thomas two years ago—an event attracting more than 750 students. Canney claimed she felt “uncomfortable” and “disturbed” while listening to Coulter, adding that she will never allow another Foundation-sponsored speaker on campus again.
So really, Jane Canney didn't really "censor" Star Parker apperance, she just doesn't want the university to have anything to do with organizations like the Young America's Foundation, the Klan, or NAMBLA.
Sounds reasonable to me.
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Hurray for Jane Canney!
It should be noted that St. Thomas University has welcomed Ann Coulter on several occasions, AND they’ve also pulled the plug on Bishop Desmond Tutu. Their dealings with outside speakers has been a little, shall we say, schizophrenic, since they are considered one of the more liberal Catholic colleges in the firmament.
#1- It is a private college. They can have whomever they want as speakers. Freedom of speach & censorship is not an issue.
#2- It is NOT a liberal college. It is a private Catholic college. The putz only called it liberal because it rejected the YAF.
ps: A friend of mine used to teach a nursing course for the college. Since she mentions the word abortion, she had to teach the course off-campus. Liberal, yeah riiight.
You know you’re the Typhoid Mary of political movements when a hardcore catholic college with a staunch anti-abortion ethic doesn’t want to see you or your troupe of “Pole Dancers for Life” anywhere near the campus.
Since his calendar must be pretty wide open at this point, why doesn’t Mr. Mattera pay a visit to his local army recruiting office? They offer some wonderful opportunities over in the colonies to live out Mr. Mattera’s obvious passion for life… (kevlar vest not guaranteed. must be 18 or older to apply. a life in the army is not for everybody. requires critical thinking skills, quick decision making and courage. loss of limbs possible)
I eagerly await young American Jason’s attempt to get around the ban by renaming his organization Jason Mattera’s for America.
Thats Star Spangled Coward to you, bub.
Agreed. St. Thomas is very much a conservative college and has become less flexible in it’s views over the last few years. I also have a friend who worked for UST but retired early due to increasingly rigid top-down management of the staff.
It’s nice that one staffer has decided to take a stand here, but it is most likely an independent decision and will not carry on to the next person who holds the position. UST has a history of dealing with policy and staff in clumsy and arbitrary ways (i.e. the staffer who was fired for supporting Tutu’s appearance on campus).
Educationally, STU is noted for providing ‘the best business degree that money can buy’.
St. Thomas is not liberal, even for a Catholic university. St. Thomas is liberal like “the media” is liberal
Always love your work, Dennis!
Maybe he should go back to pushing “Whites Only” scholarships and claiming that “Hispanic” is not a race.
Among the above cited proofs, let’s not forget that St. Thomas also disciplined two professors who shared a room while on a school-related trip because they were not married to each other.
Over the past couple of decades St. Thomas has truly become a bastion of rightwing political hate, to the point where on-campus hate crimes became a problem until UST administrators were forced to crack down in the face of negative publicity.
Another UST ‘greatest hit’ was the coronation spectacle staged when Rachel Paulose became a U.S. Attorney. Wikipedia:
Paulose’s investiture was held before 300 people in the atrium of the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis, MN on Friday, March 9, 2007. Subsequently, Minneapolis television station KSTP ran a piece likening it to a “coronation”, showing a program that referred to a “processional” and included a U.S. Marine color guard, professional photographer and choir, which was shown singing. Raju D. Kunjummen, Th.M., Paulose’s uncle and Associate Professor at Michigan Theological Seminary, offered the invocation.
Swearing-in ceremonies for U.S. Attorneys are normally modest affairs held at the appropriate federal courthouse.[11]
Paulose has dismissed the criticism, saying the program KSTP based its report on was inaccurate and had been discarded long before the ceremony, although the color guard and choir were indeed present. She also added that the cost to taxpayers was minimal since the school donated the use of their atrium (which they normally rent for $1,500) for the investiture ceremony at her request, she paid for everything and the total government cost of the ceremony was only $225,[11] less than half the $500 she was budgeted.[12] Representatives of government watchdog groups said the donation was inappropriate and that the money spent didn’t include the cost to taxpayers of event planning by Paulose’s employees.[11]
In addition the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported that it was unusual that “the former U.S. attorney for Minnesota, Thomas Heffelfinger, was not invited” to the ceremony, Paulose’s spokesperson, Jeanne Cooney,said “It was a public event. Anybody who wanted to go could have gone.”[13] The article speculates that Heffelfinger, a moderate Republican, could have been a candidate for a purge list, had he not stepped aside to make way for a more conservative candidate.
So how old do you have to get before they ease you out as “Spokesman” for the _Young_ America’s Foundation? I’m sure there must be another seat on the wingnut welfare gravy train for formerly young Jason.
Oh well, that explains this malapropism:
Or am I wrongly assuming that the writer is a St Thomas student or grad?
tejanarusa; I never attended UST. I first heard that line from a friend who teaches at another university.
PaminBB; On a ‘youth is a state of mind’ basis, wouldn’t all members of the YAF have to be considered formerly-young?
Just a couple of clarifications - I have a friend who works on St. Thomas’ staff who can vouch for St. Thomas’ previous status as a relatively liberal Catholic college. I haven’t lived in St. Paul for some time, and I haven’t seen St. Thomas’ devolution.
That’s quite an unholy plural marriage - business, Catholicism and movement “conservatism”. I wonder if my friend has updated her resume.
Is it me, or does Our Man Not In Iraq look as though he might be Ruprect the Monkey Boy’s nephew?
“…Star—the best-selling author of numerous books…”
Nothing tops this for sheer comedy specatcle.
There is something really wrong with Mattera. I mean in the head wrong. I expect one morning to see his picture being hauled away after sitting under a bridge gnawing on a human bone.
Ruprecht’s all about love…
If I ever see him in my local post office, I’m getting the h*ll out!
The haircut suggests that an IROC Z-28 idles nearby.