redstate.com As we reported previously, a recent California Faculty Association “antiracism” training went off the rails, with the representatives laughing about the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, blaming it on the United States as “another example of how the US ‘creates’ enemies so that they can conduct war.”
Union representatives also took the opportunity to hammer home their message to the 29,000 members to vote no on the recall of Gavin Newsom. At the end of the second day of the “training” Kim Geron, a political science professor at Cal State East Bay and Vice President of CALFAC from 2007-2017, “plugged the recall election, and threatened how voter suppression would occur if it did not go the way it was supposed to go,” according to an attendee who provided video of some of that exchange to RedState.
After plugging the recall, Geron talked about “voter suppression laws” supposedly being passed in other states:
“If you overlay the census and what it is showing and at the same time a lot of efforts to suppress voters in many states – I mean, I think the majority of the states there are voter suppression laws being introduced or already — or already passed, and unfortunately only a federal law could, in a sense, supersede those, short of changing who is in power in those states. So it’s a huge challenge. It’s a generational challenge to address those concerns both in California but also thinking about other states where it’s even more challenging.
Next, Geron pointed out the Zoom background Audrena Redmond (who led the two-day training) was using, which said “NO ON RECALL Campaign” and featured the CFA logo. At least one other representative had that Zoom background featured for the entire duration of the training. Geron, who is the lead faculty member for the Public Affairs and Administration Option for the Political Science major, claimed that the only way Republicans can get power is to suppress voting rights.
And not to be too political, but I am a political scientist. If you look behind Audrena’s head, there is a message there, and you know, I guarantee you, voting rights will be suppressed if somebody’s recalled. It’s on other people’s agenda in every other state where the other party is in power because that’s the only way that they can keep power. I mean, that’s just, unfortunately, part of this conversation we’re having here today is dealing with that reality, too. It’s about power. So – and political power, in particular, to control voting, is huge. So thank you for raising that. And there’s different ways as individuals or as groups, we can be supportive and let our legislators know but also let people know in other states that we support their efforts because it is supremely challenging right now.
Hmmm, I wonder how students who don’t agree with Geron’s political “science” fare in the political science department at CSU-East Bay?
It’s no secret that CALFAC as a union opposes the recall; their Twitter account is filled with exhortations for members to turn in their ballots as soon as they receive them and vote no. But in this instance they’re using staff development time, time in which the members are on the clock, to propagate false narratives about what will happen to voting rights in California if Gavin Newsom is recalled (as if the Democrat supermajority would allow actual election integrity laws to pass) and pimp a political position many of their members might not agree with. We know this happens every day, but it doesn’t lessen the obligation to bring sunshine to all of it.
