Thread: Tancredo Protestor's Grant on the Line at UNC?

Protestor's grant on the line

By Jesse James DeConto, Staff Writer
Published: Sun. May 02, 2009 02:00 AM

CHAPEL HILL -- Student activist Haley Koch will meet with the head of the Morehead-Cain Foundation Monday to discuss the fate of her prestigious scholarship.

Neither Koch nor Morehead-Cain director Chuck Lovelace would say whether Koch has been temporarily denied access to some of her funding, but Lucy Hanes Chatham, chairwoman of the Morehead-Cain Board of Trustees, said that's likely.

"That's nothing more than standard procedure when one of our scholars has been arrested," Chatham said.

Koch faces criminal charges in Tancredo incident. - STAFF PHOTO BY MARK IRA SCHULTZ

Koch was charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct April 23, nine days after she and another young woman disrupted an event sponsored by the student group Youth for Western Civilization. They held up a 12-foot banner that read "No Dialogue with Hate" and forced YWC president Riley Matheson, a fellow senior, to move forward into the aisles to address the audience. YWC opposes "radical multiculturalism," affirmative action and mass immigration.

Charges and hate mail

"The defendant held up a banner and refused to put it down, chanted and sang loudly whereby she did not allow the scheduled lecturer to speak at a school-group-sponsored event," reads Koch's arrest warrant.

The event ended when a protester broke a window and Tom Tancredo, a former Colorado congressman, fled the building. Among hundreds who protested, dozens who pushed their way into a Bingham Hall corridor, several who shouted at the YWC speakers and four who held up banners in front of them, Koch was the only person charged with a crime.

"This investigation is still ongoing, and arrests of other individuals may occur based on that investigation," campus police spokesman Randy Young said.

Koch said she's received hate mail, but, so far, the criminal charge and the jeopardy of her scholarship are the only concrete repercussions of her activism. She declined to comment in detail on either one.

Funded by a private foundation, Morehead-Cain is the most competitive scholarship in the UNC system. It pays for full four-year tuition, fees, housing, meals, books, supplies and travel. It also covers four summer-enrichment programs starting before freshman year. For an out-of-state student such as Koch, the scholarship is worth about $140,000. John Motley Morehead III established the foundation in 1945 and started the scholarship program in 1951. In 2007, Gordon Cain donated $100 million to expand the program.

Exceptional background

Koch is a product of Sidwell Friends, the Quaker school attended by President Barack Obama's daughters Sasha and Malia and former presidential daughter Chelsea Clinton. Koch, of Cabin John, Md., was among 43 freshmen who received the Morehead scholarship in 2005.

Her parents are Susan and Christopher Koch, Emmy and Peabody award-winning filmmakers. Four of their relatives were killed on American Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. A year later, Susan Koch produced an ABC/Nightline special on how families were honoring those who died in the terror attacks.

On the day of her arrest, Haley Koch received the 2009 Undergraduate Excellence Award from the APPLES Service-Learning program for her work organizing United with the Northside Community Now. UNC-NOW works to preserve the identity of the historically black neighborhood north of downtown Chapel Hill. The group also received the 2009 Engaged Scholarship Award from the Carolina Center for Public Service for their work collecting oral histories from the neighborhood.

Most recently, UNC-NOW has made demands on the developers of Greenbridge, a 10-story, eco-designed condo complex under construction at the edge of the neighborhood, saying they should work with the town to provide more benefits such as affordable housing, jobs, training and tax relief to long-time residents.

Chatham would not say whether Koch would lose her scholarship. The chairwoman said the trustees are not scheduled to meet again until Aug. 2. They would have to schedule a special meeting to decide Koch's fate.

"We are still not fully informed of all the facts," she said. "It's very rare that we deal with one of our students who has been arrested."

jessedeconto@newsobserver.com or919-932-876

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1511295.html

Background:
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-154011-protestors.html

The student should not be given any futher grant money particularly if it was provided by the American tax payers.

It is given by a private foundation.

She is definitely guilty of profound disrespect. It is one thing to disagree, but should people be rewarded for threatening others with language and actions. The liberal mind set to behave any way you want and still get the goodies from those who may disagree.

Galatians 6:9

Originally Posted by ELE

The student should not be given any futher grant money particularly if it was provided by the American tax payers.

I believe it's a completely privately funded scholarship ELE.

But either way, it should be pulled.

While her work within the black community is admirable, her methods as an "organizer" are questionable and it seems as if she has spent her educational career thus far undermining morals, values, and ethics while participating in, and encouraging, radical activities.

As I've said before, it's not as if she needs the scholarship......her parents can well afford her education.

It just looks really good on her social resume.

Taking her grant money away might be a little exessive, but these little brown-shirted, brainwashed Nazis have to learn that we have a thing called "free speech" in this country which protects political speech It is unacceptable and rude to disrupt the speech of a guest who was invited to speak on campus. She and her friends need to learn a little thing called "tolerance" and "diversity of thought."

They have every right to protest, but NOT to attempt to disrupt a speech or intimidate the speaker. It is beyond inconsiderate to the other students who were interested in what Tancredo had to say.

Why can't these people listen to the speaker and then challenge them if they disagree instead of trying to shut down all debate?

The other thing is that I'll bet that some of these professors were instigating some of these students; why aren't they being called to task also?

Originally Posted by noyoucannot

Taking her grant money away might be a little exessive, but these little brown-shirted, brainwashed Nazis have to learn that we have a thing called "free speech" in this country which protects political speech It is unacceptable and rude to disrupt the speech of a guest who was invited to speak on campus. She and her friends need to learn a little thing called "tolerance" and "diversity of thought."

They have every right to protest, but NOT to attempt to disrupt a speech or intimidate the speaker. It is beyond inconsiderate to the other students who were interested in what Tancredo had to say.

Why can't these people listen to the speaker and then challenge them if they disagree instead of trying to shut down all debate?

The other thing is that I'll bet that some of these professors were instigating some of these students; why aren't they being called to task also?

I dont think its excessive. Koch should lose all of her grant money. Just think of the money it cost taxpayers and the university to investigate the incident.

Sounds like this little brat should switch her major to civility and manners. I would not give her a dime until then. And why is she getting scholarships, when ma and pa seem to be fairly well off. I remember that Cabin John was a pretty ritzy neighborhood.

Sounds like Haley and this group should be formally charged with assault and a federal offense of "hate crimes assault"

We should initiate a letter, fax, e-mail campaign to the trustees of the scholarship urging them to withdraw the scholarship..anarchist students like Haley who don't know how to be civil, or respect the First Amendment rights of others, including an invited adult speaker who is a former U.S. Congressman,...should never be given funding like this private or public. I'm sure there were more deserving, respectful, students who could've put this sponsorship to better use. Koch didn't need the money...but has now put a black eye on the Morehead Foundation. Let's urge them to w/draw the scholarship...it's the least we can do.