April 18, 2007

Doug McIntyre (KABC) sued by LAUSD "reconquista" charter school

The Los Angeles charter school Academia Semillas del Pueblo - funded by the National Council of La Raza and which allegedly teaches a "reconquista" curriculum - is suing KABC-AM radio host Doug McIntyre for slander.

While I haven't seen it, the description makes the lawsuit seem incredibly weak:

"McIntyre implemented a premeditated scheme to bring down the school at all costs because the school educated predominately ... Latino-indigenous children in a non-Western European format," according to the lawsuit.

According to the lawsuit, McIntyre began criticizing several aspects of the school last May, including its funding, curriculum, demographics, administrators and educational statistics, all in order to increase his show's ratings.

McIntyre exploited a combination of anti-immigration sentiment and the nation's fear of Islamic terrorists to "create a racist fury against Latino school children, teachers, administrators and staff at the school," according to the lawsuit.

McIntyre's remarks included, "Is this a reconquista school?," "This school is ranked the lowest of the low in the LAUSD and in the state of California" and "Aztecs butchered and ate Spanish invaders. I wonder if they're teaching that at ASDP," according to the lawsuit.

About the only possible slanderous thing I can see is if there is another school that's even lower in the rankings, but see below.

McIntyre also said Aguilar's job was to "keep his school, his madrasa school, open so they can train the next generation of Aztec revolutionaries," according to the lawsuit.

What exactly is the figurative meaning of "madrasa", and doesn't it apply in this case? Likewise with "revolutionaries".

The radio host also used "code words" aimed at a target audience to rile up listeners and create a backlash against the school and Aguilar, the lawsuit stated.

As a result, the school received many threats of violence, including a bomb threat that caused an evacuation of the school and is currently under investigation by the FBI, the lawsuit stated.

That might be something else, but it's not slander. Of course, there's nothing wrong with creating a "backlash", and I doubt whether McIntyre encouraged his listeners to commit violent acts.

On the other hand, the man who allegedly tried to run down KABC reporter Sandy Wells will have a pretrial hearing next month and could get six years in prison.

In related news, the school's charter was reapproved on March 29:

In a March 13 report on Academia Semillas del Pueblo, the staff cited low test scores, unconventional instruction and potentially conflicting school governance. About two weeks later, facing growing political pressure from former City Councilman Richard Alatorre, former Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg and others, the staff changed course.

They reversed their decision supposedly because they discovered that the school's program requires seven or eight years to show results:

Under the five-year renewal conditions, Semillas must meet benchmarks that for three years would place it at least at the median of comparable schools in terms of state and national standards. Data show Semillas ranks lowest among similar schools.

Posted to Immigration2007a at April 18, 2007 09:59 PM