Erica J Myers

Journalism Student Devising Plan To Make World Better

Anahid Ali, an American University student in the Interactive Journalism program, is trying to make the world better one place at a time.

Anahid Ali is a cheerful student at American University, located in Washington, DC. Her studies revolve around the Interactive Journalism masters program at AU, but journalism wasn’t always her education focus.

Growing up in Baghdad, Ali dispels some misunderstandings of being a woman in the Middle East. She attended an all-female secondary school, the equivalent of high school in most areas of the United States. “Living in the city was different than living in the suburb areas,” says Ali. Living in the city meant that there was little opposition to her going to school because ‘to everyone, in the city, education was a big deal whether you were male or female.’

Ali’s upbeat personality and warm smile makes it easy for strangers to see why a communications-based study would come easily to her. However, she admits that even though she studied science in high school, English was her favorite subject.

With a degree in translation, Ali worked at the US Embassy in Baghdad, until it was proven unsafe for her, leaving her job and coming to the United States in 2007.

Ali says that she would like to use her degree from American University to unite communities in the Middle East, by providing an Internet outlet for the youth and community leaders to interact towards change.

Book Ban Assignment

LOCAL SCHOOL BOARD PLANS VOTE AGAINST BOOK BAN

Parent association petitions city school board to remove ‘filth’; school board plans to protect First Amendment right.

Today the city school board plans to extinguish a fiery petition presented by the group, Concerned Parents Association.  CPA members petitioned the board two weeks ago, asking for public schools to remove a list of several books. Clara Warniky, head of CPA, said, “Some of these book print downright filth.”

The list includes some classics, such as “Manchild in the Promised Land” by Claude Brown; “Laughing Boy” by Oliver La Farge; “The Fixer” by Bernard Malamud; “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain; “Portnoy’s Complaint” by Philip Roth; and “Down These Mean Streets” by Piri Thomas.

It would be a crime to keep it from our children.

Five of the seven city school board members agree with a statement released today concerning their decision about the list of proposed banned books. In the announcement, the board states, “ We agree that some of these books are realistic.”  However, this realism the city school board refers to includes the periodic references in opinions and language for the author. With respect to the petitioners and supporters, the school board cites a federal court  decision, stating that a library is ‘a storehouse of knowledge’ and ‘an important privilege created by the state for the benefit of the students in the school.’ In addition, banning books would violate the First Amendment, freedom of speech, if the school board do away with books presently on library shelves.

Reba Carvel, a teacher at Colony Elementary, says that she would continue her fifth-grade students reading “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”.  “This is great literature. It would be a crime to keep it from our children,” says Carvel.

One of the five members issuing the statement, Mimi Lieber, asks, “Yet, what good is served by censoring these books?” Lieber also addresses some of the association’s concerns, “I’d agree that small children have no business reading Manchild.”

Warniky says, “Our group will continue to fight to ban this filth from our schools.” Warniky contends that she will take up the task to fight the city school board.  “I intend to make sure not one of them is re-elected,” says Warniky.