Following my exposé this past spring of two Labor Studies professors at the University of Missouri who were using their positions to recruit students to the Communist Party and encourage the use of industrial sabotage, several universities have attempted to crack down on the recording of professors by students.

There are, no doubt, professors all over the country who are engaging in equally egregious teaching practices as Don Giljum (who reportedly resigned) and Judy Ancel (who’s now enjoying life as a Kansas City Occupier; she addresses #OccupyKC in the video below from 3:44 to 3:54 – hat tip to KansasWatchdog).

My guess is that enough professors complained to prompt faculty associations at both the University of Missouri and Washington University in Saint Louis (my alma mater) to pass resolutions calling for a ban on recordings in the classroom without the written permission of the instructor.

Unsurprisingly, students at both universities found these bans unnecessary and overreaching. (more…)

One party rule in both St. Louis city and county has atrophied the heartland of America. That one party, the Democrat Party, has built a machine lubricated with crony capitalism that bends justice to further its own political ends. We’ve witnessed the effects of this machine on the national stage a couple of times. In one instance we watched as justice was delayed for Kenneth Gladney only to eventually be denied as the Rev. Elston McCowan and Perry Molens were exonerated of assaulting Gladney. In another instance, the University of Missouri St. Louis’s (UMSL) course in Labor Studies seemed to advocate violence as a tactic in union negotiations yet no charges are brought when one of the professors is alleged to have assault someone. Those two cases are emblematic of the crony politics that reaches from St. Louis to Missouri’s capitol in Jefferson City and even to Washington, DC.

St. Louis has a long history of voting irregularities including dead people and pets casting ballots. While the situation has improved, there are still concerns about vote fraud. More worrisome is the collusion between Secretary of State Robin Carnahan’s (D-MO) office and ACORN:

A staffmember of the Missouri Secretary of State was directly contacted by ACORN to secretly coordinate a press strategy for the suing of the state of Missouri.

This email thread is the clearest proof that Robin Carnahan was not only aware of, but her staff colluded with Project Vote to sue the state of Missouri, without harming Robin Carnahan.

That suit would provide $500,000 to the left-wing lawyers at ACORN and Project Vote (sister organizations) from the state of Missouri.

Robin’s brother, Tom, does not hold public office, but he did receive $107 million dollars from the stimulus bill to build wind farms:

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As expected, I won few friends within the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) and University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) administrations by exposing the communist indoctrination that occurred in their respective classrooms.

In response to a threatening letter I received from UMSL demanding that I meet with them for questioning, I submitted a Sunshine Law records request to the University of Missouri system. The emails below constitute UMSL’s reply.

UMSL fix ii

Large portions were redacted under the questionable pretense that they contained privileged communications between UMSL and its attorney.

What I learned from the visible portions was quite disturbing: numerous high-level university officials conspired in an attempt to punish me.

When this strategy proved unsuccessful, they engaged in a smear campaign against me, partly relying on inaccurate liberal blogs as “evidence.” Because senior UMSL administrators refused to take responsibility for their blatant failure of oversight in their labor studies classes, they resorted to maligning the student who spoke out about the unprofessional behavior of his professors. (more…)

Phil Christofanelli, the student who leaked videos of a radical “Introduction to Labor Studies” course at University of Missouri-St.Louis (UMSL) and University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC), has obtained internal emails that reveal UMSL’s attempts to mislead the public and target the whistleblower.

Christofanelli, who had cross-registered in the UMSL course and has since graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, will release the emails later today on BigGovernment.com.

UMSL and UMKC were plunged into crisis on April 25, 2011, when BigGovernment.com published an article about violent union tactics being taught in the course (see related posts below). The post included a video of highlights from the course, as prepared and provided by Insurgent Visuals.

UMSL Chancellor Tom George and UMSL Provost Glen Cope defended the course–which included instructions on how to carry out industrial sabotage and personal intimidation; in-class recruitment by the Communist Party; and pro-union propaganda. George and Cope claimed to have watched all 30-plus hours of course video.

Internal emails reveal, however, that Cope had not even begun to view the videos when she prodded UMKC Vice Provost and Chief Information Office Mary Lou Hines Fritts for the name of the student responsible for “ripping” the videos. “Since the semester is nearly over, we need to act quickly,” Cope wrote to Hines Fritts on May 4.

Hines Fritts could not provide Cope with any direct evidence. However, she and her staff quickly singled out Christofanelli for his political views. She sent Cope a list of links about Christofanelli, highlighting his leadership of the Washington University Young Americans for Liberty, as well as his conservative opinions. (more…)

Hitler represents of one of the most atrocious periods in the history of the entire world.  His twelve year reign had a profound impact on the lives of many.  Throughout the years of 1933 and 1945, Hitler invaded ten countries , including Poland, where one side of my stepfather’s family lived until 1940, when they were forcefully removed and put into concentration camps.  The first husband of his mother was a Polish officer, and shortly after Hitler and Stalin signed the Nazi Soviet Non-Aggression pact, he and other Polish officers were taken from their families, brought into the Katyn Forest, and summarily executed – simply for being Polish officers.

Under the Nazi regime, it is estimated that as many as between 11 million and 17 million civilians were killed – nearly 6 million of those exterminated solely for being Jewish.  It’s been only 78 years since Hitler and the Nazi regime’s rise to power, and their reign remains an open wound  – in the context of history, this is still a very recent occurrence.  Survivors of this period are still with us today, as are first and second generation family members , many of whom are right here in the United States.

That’s why on May 18^{th ,} when I saw a post in the Guardian titled Andrew Breitbart’s ‘Electronic Brownshirts’, my hair stood on end.  Who could write such a title?  The author turned out to be none other than Amy Goodman, who hosts the famously popular daily progressive news program “Democracy Now“, and is also frequently referred to as a respected “progressive journalist“, investigative reporter and peace advocate.  It was a post in defense of the controversial labor studies course that was the recent focus of a BigGovernment expose.

As someone who writes and conducts research for Andrew Breitbart, I could not immediately move past that title.  Here, it brought back conversations I’d had with family members about this period in history, people who lived through that time.  And reading the title back, it just seemed so repulsive, so disrespectful – as though I too was just smeared as a “Brownshirt”.  Granted, I have no connection to the story about the labor studies course, but if Andrew is associated as a Brownshirt, we’re all associated as Brownshirts. At least, that’s how the title alone read.

Why would someone like Goodman, who is supposedly respected in her profession, go to such extremes to draw a modern day comparison to such horrors ––she is obviously intelligent enough to know that her actions and words demean the experiences lived by real victims and remaining survivors.

As I trudged through her post, I realized that the headline was not just selected by Ms. Goodman, but that the phrase “electronic brownshirts” was actually muttered by Judy Ancel, director of the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s institute for labor studies.

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My name is Philip Christofanelli. I was a student in the University of Missouri’s “Introduction to Labor Studies” course.  The class was taught simultaneously by Professor Don Giljum of University of Missouri-Saint Louis (UMSL) and Professor Judy Ancel of University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) through the use of a live video feed that linked the two classrooms. The class met every other Saturday for seven hours, including breaks. All of the classes were recorded and put on the class website.

Class slide by Prof. Judy Ancel instructing students on how to "re-frame" messages for "State Battles" against right-to-work legislation in Missouri and elsewhere

Since that time, an organization known as Insurgent Visuals has released videos of the class, which have gained considerable media attention.  To be clear, I am not Insurgent Visuals, nor am I associated with them.  I did not edit any videos or put them online. I did, however, download the original videos off of the class website and give them out in their entirety to a number of my friends in order to obtain other opinions on the propriety of what occurred in the class, and of the steps I should take moving forward.

In this post, I will try to describe, with careful attention to context and accuracy, what occurred in these public classrooms over the course of the semester.  I believe that any reasonable person who takes the time to read this post in full will come to the same conclusion that I did: Professors Giljum and Ancel used a public university class to promote their own radical political opinions and organizations, and to train students and union members in negotiating tactics that are apparently illegal, and profoundly unethical.  Their behavior was highly unprofessional and inappropriate, and the University of Missouri should simply admit that fact and take steps to ensure that classes are not taught in that way ever again.

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The University of Missouri-Saint Louis (UMSL) has released the following statement about its review of lecture videos from the “Introduction to Labor Studies” course taught at UMSL and at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC). Today, BigGovernment.com will publish the first-hand account of a student who participated in the UMSL course and who has, in the face of threats and intimidation, come forward to describe in full what went on in the classroom.

Dear Colleagues,

We have finally completed viewing the videos originating at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) from the UMSL course Introduction to Labor Studies. The excerpts that were made public showing the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) instructor Don Giljum and students as well as the UMKC instructor and students were definitely taken out of context, with their meaning highly distorted through splicing and editing from different times within a class period and across multiple class periods.

As stated previously, our campus supports academic freedom, civility, diversity, open discourse and the pursuit of knowledge. We support the academic freedom of faculty, staff and students at UMSL. Contrary to some reports, Don Giljum has not been fired from the campus faculty, and in fact, is completing the course; he remains eligible to teach at UMSL. We sincerely regret the distress to him and others that has been caused by the unauthorized copying, editing and distribution of the course videos.

During the past two weeks, we have received communications over a wide spectrum of viewpoints, and we appreciate people letting us know what they think. We have learned more about video and Internet technologies that can be beneficial or detrimental to positive, civil discourse, and security issues related to the use of such media. We shall explore ways to improve security in the use of electronic media for instruction, research and other activities.

Sincerely,
Tom George
Chancellor
Professor of Chemistry and Physics

Glen Cope
Provost
Professor of Political Science and Public Policy Administration

From The Washington Times:

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka addressed Communication Workers of America (CWA) union members on a conference call Tuesday evening and relayed his concern about the current battle across the United States over union collective bargaining power, immigration, and education among other issues:

“See, the fact is the fight for workers’ rights and immigrant rights are cut out of the same cloth, because the politicians and their CEO backers are targeting all of us… all working people. They’re targeting immigrants. They’re targeting our collective bargaining rights. They’re targeting professors…trying to silence them if they dare teach something right or a progressive value. They’re going after the poor, trying to take away their voting rights by passing legislation that would say you have to have a driver’s license in order to be able to vote, like the old poll taxes did to us. They’re targeting every progressive group out there to promote their corporate backed political agenda and to continue a power grab.”

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Earlier this week I went to University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) to try and get the Chancellor to comment on the controversial videos that had come from Professor Judy Ancel and Don Giljum’s Labor Studies class. I visited Wood’s Hall and spoke to several high-ranking University officials on camera. Never once was I told I was trespassing, or that I could not film.

Because of that positive experience at Wood’s Hall, I felt comfortable returning to UMSL on Saturday, April 30th, in an attempt to interview Don Giljum, arriving at UMSL at approximately 2:15 pm. The class was scheduled to take a break at 2:30. I found Giljum’s classroom, waited outside quietly and not approaching the door so as not to disrupt the class.  I had waited several minutes when Giljum (I recognized him from the videos) and another man exited the classroom, walking by me as they proceeded down a hall.  I stayed put as I realized Giljum would have to return to his classroom at some point.

Giljum and the other man parted ways and he started to head back to his classroom.

I asked, ”Are You Don Giljum?” as he approached. ”Yes,” he responded, coming towards me. A press pass hanging around my neck was cleary visible. He walked up to me and stood in front of my camera with his back to the classroom door. I asked “When was the last time you committed industrial sabotage, or threatened the use of industrial sabotage to gain leverage in a Union negotiation?” “Never, said Giljum, “that was all taken out of context.”

He asked me my name and I told him. He then asked me who I was with. I told him SharpElbows.Net. “Are you the one who did the internet hatchet job on me?” he asked.  “I didn’t see any hatchet job, just your words on video” I said. That’s when Giljum appeared to lose it!

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Ameren provides energy to millions of citizens in Illinois and Missouri. Given its past dealings with union official and labor activist Don Giljum, the company released an official statement earlier this week in response to videos on BigGovernment.com in which Giljum can be seen and heard telling students about organized labor’s tactics of sabotage, fear and intimidation.

Here’s a typical example, in which Giljum describes how to make labor negotiations “personal”–and note that at several points, his co-lecturer, Judy Ancel, laughs or interjects with approval:

Giljum: …we had to make him [the CEO] feel the concern and the anxiety that he was gonna have to live with. So we, you know, made all kinds of overtones about sabotaging the equipment, OK? We downloaded a lot of articles off of the Internet and laid them around the plant about, [Ancel: laughs] you know, this equipment being sabotaged and that equipment. That’s all they were–nobody was doing anything.

Ancel: You never said anything, did you?

Giljum: No, no. We just downloaded the articles and laid them out there, OK, for people to read. They–”Hey, look at this article I found,” you know. It wasn’t us, it was members that would do that. We had a group of guys that would always end up at the same shopping center, at the same church, as the CEO would on Sundays and that, in the evenings, OK? Wouldn’t say nothing, just kind of bumped into the guy and said, “Hey, how you doing,” that’s it. “How’s negotiations going? Heard they’re not going too well,” and then walk off, OK. [It] got to a point where, you know, the guy became very paranoid, very concerned, when he would walk out into the plant he would wear a flak jacket [Ancel: laughs], OK, and a helmet with a face guard on it, because he was afraid of being shot at…

In the original class footage, Giljum goes on to state that no one had actually threatened the CEO verbally (and doesn’t specify which company was the target), but indicates that he was clearly happy to have gained bargaining power through such methods. He advises students to do likewise, and “get a few guys to do a few things.” Ancel thanks him for his contribution without contesting his advice.

Here is the statement from Ameren.

We are appalled by the comments of the former business manager of a union representing our workers and employees of other companies and by the actions he describes in his lecture. If we ever had any evidence of sabotage at any of our facilities, we would have immediately notified law enforcement officials. We do not know of any such sabotage but would immediately turn over to law enforcement anyone who threatens our operations in any way. We have a policy of protecting anyone reporting information about sabotage or other illegal actions and encourage anyone to come forward with information about this. We have full confidence in our employees and have in place extensive security training programs and procedures aimed at protecting our facilities, our employees and the public.

The latest development in University of Missouri-St. Louis union/labor course fall-out via Labor Notes. Earlier Big Government reports here, here and here.

The attorney for the Missouri AFL-CIO, Ron Gladney, called Giljum’s international union and asked officials there to pressure him to resign from his local and international positions, which they did.

Giljum resigned, despite the fact that he had announced back in January he would be retiring May 1—just days away.

According to Giljum, Gladney argued that the incident might cause Missouri Republicans to take up a right-to-work bill, which they have till [sic] now avoided.

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Big Government was forwarded the following statement in an email:

I am Judy Ancel, director of the Institute for Labor Studies at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. While my university prepares its response, I feel compelled to answer the attacks by Andrew Breitbart on my character. I am speaking as an individual and certainly not for UMKC. I am speaking out of my strong lifelong commitment to educating working people to better understand the world they live in. Labor education is a vital part of anyone’s education. All Americans, especially our youth, need to understand the contributions working people have made and make in building our communities and nation. Labor education gives them the skills and vision to make a better world.

My students and I are outraged at Mr. Breitbart’s invasion of our classroom and his attempts to intimidate us and my colleagues at the university. Mr. Breitbart’s chop shop manufactured videos from 30 hours of classroom recordings that were posted for the course, “Labor, Politics, and Society,” on the university’s Blackboard system. Presumably these were delivered to him by a student, in possible violation of the University Standards of Conduct and the Federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. These videos were recorded for the use of students enrolled in this course, and for them only. Breitbart disassembled the material, and reassembled it; arranging them to give the appearance that instructors of the class advocate violence. This is in fact the opposite of the position both instructors took in class. Any examination of labor’s past would be incomplete without discussion of violence, (which for the most part was directed at workers) and analysis of its roots. At no time did my co-instructor, Don Giljum, nor I advocate violence.

There’s no doubt that Breitbart’s attacks are politically motivated, part of a broad agenda to weaken unions and the public sector as well as public education. His fabrications have been exposed numerous times in the mainstream media. Yet he and his echo chamber at Fox News continue to cause great harm to educators and other public servants.

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