Williams and Winters Give Students the Run Around

Mark Hebert has the story:

Louisville Teens Get Civics Lesson

A group of Louisville teenagers is getting lesson in civics, the hard way. They're finding plenty of roadblocks as they try to get lawmakers to pass a resolution recommending Kentucky schools provide the study of the Holocaust in their coursework.

The students from St. Francis of Assisi managed to get their resolution through the House but it's been stalled in the Senate Education Committee...

...But their teacher, Fred Whittaker, says the students ran into a brick wall when trying to lobby Senators David Williams and Ken Winters on the value of their bill. According to Whittaker, Williams wouldn't discuss it with them, referring the students to Winters, who is chairman of the Education Committee. Winters referred them to Williams, saying he's the one who makes decisions about which legislation passes, and which legislation doesn't, according to the teacher.

Winters subsequently indicated he would take up a committee substitute next week that included several other major events in world history.

You know... pleasant stuff.

University of Kentucky Debunks Holocaust E-mail Rumor

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Nov. 8, 2007) − The University of Kentucky has announced that a rumor, claiming the school has removed Holocaust material from its curriculum, is not true. The false claim has been circulated via e-mail.

The Judaic Studies Program of the University of Kentucky, in conjunction with the College of Arts and Sciences Department of History, offers a course designated as History 323: The Holocaust. According to an explanation found on the investigative Web site Snopes.com, a message claiming that schools in the United Kingdom would no longer teach about the Holocaust in their history classes began to circulate via e-mail forwards dated back to April 2007.

As the message wound its way across the Internet, someone took the abbreviation for the United Kingdom (UK) to stand for the University of Kentucky, and altered the message to implicate the institution.

This version has been forwarded to several people and understandably raised concern among alumni, students and other friends of the University of Kentucky.

The original message about the United Kingdom is of uncertain veracity, and any statement linking the University of Kentucky with this rumor is completely false."

The academic administration of the University of Kentucky would never permit such a grotesque lapse in its commitment to the principle of academic freedom. Let us bury this rumor. It is a distortion of the realities on and off campus," said UK Assistant Provost Richard B. Greissman.

This from a UK, I mean, University of Kentucky press release.