Danny Trejo

UMass officials address Harambe ‘microaggression’

UMass officials address Harambe ‘microaggression’

Evan Lips

AMHERST — After an internal dormitory email sent by several resident assistants ordering students to refrain from making jokes about the gorilla Harambe made its way online, sparking a flood of media coverage and criticism, University of Massachusetts officials announced that the school does endorse such policies.

"As an institution that values free speech and exchange of ideas, UMass-Amherst has not taken any steps to ban jokes or references about Harambe the gorilla," university spokesman Ed Blaguszewski said in a prepared statement provided to the New Boston Post. "The email sent by two well-intentioned undergraduate student resident assistants was a cautionary attempt to advise new students on their floor that the Harambe reference could be considered offensive to the campus's Harambee community, a residential program focused on African and African-American history and culture, and that all students should be treated with respect and civility."

2016: Populism revisited and the Cross of Gold speech
Commentary

2016: Populism revisited and the Cross of Gold speech

Robert Bradley

You have to go back to the 1896 presidential race between William Jennings Bryan and William McKinley to find an historical parallel to the contest in 2016 between the three finalists: Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Unfortunately, the great majority of American citizens know virtually nothing about President McKinley, who was an excellent president and a man of substance and integrity. If they do know anything about McKinley, most likely it is that he was assassinated in 1901 and that, upon his death, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt became the youngest president ever at the age of 42.

William Jennings Bryan is now remembered primarily for his role in the play and movie about evolution, Inherit the Wind. In it, Bryan was wrongly portrayed as a bumbling fundamentalist prosecutor in the Scopes Monkey Trial who lost the case and his reputation battling the renowned defense lawyer, Clarence Darrow. Most people do not know that Bryan was a Democratic congressman from Nebraska who ran for president three times – in 1896, 1900 and 1908, and later served as Secretary of State in the administration of President Woodrow Wilson.

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