It’s Antifa hunting season at ASU
Anti-fascists beware … $866 million on the table … And welcome to the real world.
The College Republicans United group was back at it on ASU’s campus last Thursday with a new mission: Convince students to report “Antifa” to the FBI.
The group rallied support from a mere four members, most of whom aren’t students, for the event. That’s assuming you don’t count Paul Reevs, a Republican running for David Schweikert’s seat in Congressional District 1, who was the group’s guest of honor.
CRU’s invitation to the gathering bragged about their special guest, while bashing the Young Democratic Socialists of America at ASU and sharing information about Antifa — which President Donald Trump declared a “domestic terrorist organization” last month.
Armed with posters and not much knowledge of Antifa, the group spread out between the Nipple of Knowledge (as the kids call Hayden Library) and the Memorial Union — one of the most highly trafficked areas on campus.
“Our mission is to prevent violence and to let people know that that is not going to be allowed in a civil society,” pro-fascist protester Kevin Decuyper said.
Decuyper, who said he was the chairman of the group despite graduating more than five years ago, has a history as a known extremist and neo-Nazi. In 2019, the New Times published a collection of leaked chats that showed Decuyper and the rest of CRU made racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic comments.
Those comments are not to be confused with another, more recent, scandal of racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic Republican youth texts. In that one, the leaders of the Young Republicans, including the Arizona chapter, called for the rape of a rival Republican activist and one even said, “I love Hitler.”
ASU’s branch of the Young Democratic Socialists of America set up a table right next to CRU. Harold Branch, a member of YDSA, was quick to interrogate Reevs, the congressional candidate, about why he would align himself with CRU when they have a known history of extremism.
“I’m not joining a party. I’m joining a cause. The cause today is to recognize that there’s no place for violent criminals on campus,” Reevs said. “...I’m not here to take a side. I’m not here to get dragged into a conversation on a topic that does not represent what I’m trying to do.”
As the YDSA members stepped up to debate Reevs, and herds of students stood around gawking, the CRU members left their honored guest to fend for himself.
Micajah Jackson, a “proud” participant in Jan. 6, was at the event to support CRU, but later changed the conversation to how smart he thinks Nazis were.
“Their IQ was so much higher than the so-called Neo Nazis in America that it’s a joke. The Nazis of World War II were high-IQ, shaved-faced, professional men with families,” Jackson said.
Jackson graduated from Grand Canyon University and now runs an extremist Twitter account with more than 11,000 followers. Aside from the events he attends with CRU, he has no known connection to the university.
The only current student we were able to identify as part of CRU was Isaiah Alvarado, who studies anthropology and German. Alvarado was one of the event leaders earlier this year when CRU made headlines for asking students to report “their criminal classmates to ICE for deportation.”
ASU President Michael Crow defended the decision to allow the January event, saying it didn’t cross the line of intimidation that would make the university cancel it.
“Our judgment was that communication that they were projecting was borderline, but right at that edge,” Crow said to the State Press at the time.
But for students who witnessed CRU’s most recent “hunt” of fellow students, that’s not good enough.
Devan Clyde, was walking past the campus event last Thursday when he heckled the organizers and said they didn’t understand what Antifa was — people against fascism.
When asked why he thought this event was happening on ASU’s campus, he said he wasn’t surprised.
“ASU says that they have a longstanding tradition of standing up for freedom of speech, I would argue that they tend to … from my observations, prioritize the speech of conservative groups on campus rather than liberal or leftist groups on campus,” Clyde said. “I know they would strongly dispute that, but that’s based on my experience.”
No deal on the table: Days after the University of Arizona president declined to sign a compact with the Trump administration, and news broke that Arizona State University had been talking to Trump officials, ASU officials said they were never formally offered the compact, per the Republic’s Helen Rummel. ASU President Michael Crow said “there’s no reason to contemplate” ASU signing the compact, which he said was no longer a “viable thing,” per the State Press’s Andi Ruiz.
DEI ultimatum: If Arizona doesn’t eliminate DEI policies from teacher training, the Trump administration is going to pull back about $866 million in federal funds. That’s what Arizona Superintendent of Schools Tom Horne told the Board of Education on Monday, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports. But the board members weren’t as gung-ho as Horne. They looked at making small changes, like removing “equitably” from a requirement for teachers to “equitably engage learners.” In the end, they decided to delay making a decision until their December meeting. Trump tried to push schools to get rid of their DEI policies this spring, but a court blocked him, per KJZZ’s Camryn Sanchez.
“[Trump] has got the power to cut that funding and we must avoid an $800 million cut to our budget for our students. I’m not sure that’s sinking in, and I’m upset about it,” Horne said.
Struggling in the classroom: The most recent assessment from the Arizona Department of Education showed most public school students failed the state’s standardized tests, AZFamily’s Kylee Cruz reports. Just 40% passed the English language arts section and 33% passed the math section, which is very close to the results from last year. But it wasn’t uniform across the board. Some districts did better than others. You can check how students in your school district did here.
All aboard the AI train: Arizona is leading when it comes to using artificial intelligence in the classroom, Horne said in a news release. More than 170,000 students are using AI-powered tutoring tools, which Horne championed last year by investing $1.5 million in the Khanmigo tutoring system, as well as the Arizona Digital Educators Library.
Hop aboard the Education Agenda train by clicking this button!
Avoiding the limelight: After being pressured by a Republican-led committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, Northern Arizona University is ending its electrical engineering partnership with Chongqing University in China, Michel Marizco reports for KJZZ. The UA already closed four microcampuses in China after the House committee mentioned them.
On November 4, voters across Arizona will decide whether to pass critical K-12 local school district bonds and overrides and Prop 490 for Coconino Community College.
There’s nothing partisan about these elections.
School bonds and overrides are practical, local tools that help keep class sizes small, build workforce training pipelines, and fund things like STEM labs and dual enrollment.
And they tie directly to Arizona’s long-term education and economic goals. The Education Progress Meter and Achieve60AZ aim for 60% of adults to have a postsecondary credential by 2030. That goal starts in local K-12 classrooms and runs through our community colleges.
Recent polling from Education Forward Arizona shows Arizona voters want the state to do more when it comes to hitting our attainment goal. Passing these local bonds and overrides is a great first step.
To learn more about what’s at stake, read Education Forward Arizona’s recent blog.
Earning $4,000 a month might sound like a lot to a high schooler, but dozens of students at Thatcher High School in Graham County learned how quickly that kind of money can disappear, Tom Bodus reports for the Eastern Arizona Courier.
The students in the Money in Motion program get a backstory and a set income. Then they go from booth to booth, with each one draining the students’ bank accounts for housing, groceries, insurance and other real-world costs.
One student, Hudson Gibson, managed to sock away $300.
Then he uttered the words spoken by millions of people before him:
“Four thousand dollars wasn’t as much as I thought it was going to be,” he said.
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