Government officials throughout our country are in deep need of some education on the First Amendment. And the latest ones are currently serving in the Town of Gilbert right here in Arizona.
Last week, AZ Free News released an investigative report on Gilbert’s Office of Digital Government (ODG) and its Orwellian monitoring of employees’ online speech. For over a decade, the ODG, which is made up of approximately a dozen employees, has been working to ensure that Gilbert’s 30 official digital accounts—along with the personal online posts of all Town of Gilbert employees—align with a progressive, liberal agenda. And how much do you think this is costing taxpayers in Gilbert? Over $1.1 million each year in salary alone, with Chief Digital Officer Dana Berchman making over $200,000 annually.
When asked about the allegations in the investigative report, the town responded that it “will not tolerate divisive, offensive or culturally insensitive posts from employees purporting to represent the Town.” That’s interesting. Who decides what’s divisive, offensive, or culturally insensitive? The employees within the ODG? Dana Berchman herself?
Arizona State University’s (ASU) former information technology (IT) manager was indicted for embezzling over $124,000 from the institution over the course of over four years.
According to the auditor general, ASU leadership was partially at fault for the embezzlement.
Carlos Urrea, ASU’s former University Technology Officer (UTO) manager, allegedly embezzled the money through unauthorized personal purchases using his ASU purchase card. (The UTO is now the Enterprise Technology Office). ASU reported their findings on Urrea to the auditor general for further investigation.
In a report published last Friday, the auditor general found that Urrea used his purchase card to make over 800 personal purchases amounting to over $124,000. Urrea then attempted to conceal the purchases using over 700 forged receipts and falsified the business purpose descriptions to make them appear as if they were for valid ASU purposes.
According to the auditor general report, an ASU audit in December 2021 revealed discrepancies between Urrea’s receipts and the issuing bank’s line-item details of the purchases. Urrea reportedly refused to comply repeatedly with further auditory efforts by the university. At the time, ASU found over $95,000 of unauthorized personal purchases made by Urrea.
Upon further investigation by the auditor general, the amount Urrea allegedly embezzled grew by over $28,000.
Among those unauthorized purchases were gift cards, including $11,000 in Costco Shop cards; electronics and accessories, including 10 smart watches; household items and furniture, including two Christmas trees; appliances, including a washer and dryer; gaming products, including 12 gaming consoles; fitness and recreation items, including a treadmill and a rowing machine; and warranties.
The auditor general reported that Urrea admitted to using the ASU purchase card for personal purchases. Urrea told the auditor general team that he used ASU’s Adobe Acrobat Editor software to alter his personal purchase receipts in PDF format.
Urrea also reportedly called his actions “very dumb,” and characterized the purchases as his means of providing for his family.
According to the State Presssalary database for ASU, Urrea made $45,000 in 2016, $75,000 in 2017, $77,250 in 2018, $92,700 in 2019, $100,116 in 2020, and $106,000 in 2021.
According to the auditor general, ASU revealed that its executive administration officials allowed Urrea to bypass appropriate university policies and procedures for purchase cards so that Urrea could either provide immediate IT-related equipment or maintain his support for senior leadership. As a result, Urrea was exempted from engaging in the procurement process, obtaining prior purchase approval, submitting detailed business purpose descriptions for purchases, submitting receipts on time, and bypassing restricted spending protocols when receipts were submitted late.
“Mr. Urrea was able to make and conceal his personal p-card purchases because management allowed him to: use his p-card instead of procurement process on the pretext of providing immediate support to senior leadership, make p-card purchases without seeking prior approval, submit vague business purposes, [and] submit p-card receipts 2-3 months late without restricting his p-card spending to $1 in accordance with policy,” stated the report.
The auditor general noted that ASU modified its purchase card policy by requiring executive administration adherence where possible, or requiring the business team — not individuals — to make purchases where not possible.
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office passed on the auditor general’s findings to the Maricopa County Superior Court Grand Jury. The latter indicted Urrea on 14 felony counts of theft, misuse of public monies, fraudulent schemes, and forgery.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
An Arizona State University (ASU) law school professor deleted a viral tweet detailing a racially-motivated verbal attack against Muslims after it was publicly exposed as a fake.
ASU professor Khaled Beydoun shared a picture in which an individual allegedly called another a “dirty Arab” and told them to go back to the Middle East. Beydoun alleged that an Instagram follower sent him the picture of the exchange (archived here). Khaled’s alleged follower purportedly responded that he was unable to return to the Middle East because the U.S. “gave Israel $14 billion last week to destroy it (Gaza).”
However, users on X (formerly known as Twitter) added a Community Note pointing out that the alleged racial attack message was in blue; on Instagram, that means the complainant sent the racial attack message to himself or herself.
“Blue on Instagram means that the message was sent from his own phone,” said the fact-check note. “Khaled presumably sent the racist message to himself.”
Jen Wright, Arizona’s former assistant attorney general, also debunked Beydoun’s post, and criticized ASU for hiring a supporter of a designated foreign terrorist organization, Hamas, to teach courses advocating for Islam.
“Manufacturing bigotry for clicks is not a very inspiring image for @ASUCollegeofLaw,” said Wright. “Why does @ASUCollegeofLaw have a Hamas propagandist who fakes victimhood and lies about the war in the Middle East teaching Islamaphobia [sic] & about Race & the Law?”
Why does @ASUCollegeOfLaw have a Hamas propagandist who fakes victimhood and lies about the war in the Middle East teaching Islamaphobia & about Race & the Law?@asu has a wannabe Jessie Smollet on staff ginning up racial tensions. 🤦🏻♀️
Beydoun teaches two courses at ASU, both with an apparent progressive social justice slant: “Race and the Law,” and “Islamophobia and the Law.” ASU hired Beydoun in June.
Beydoun responded to the debunking of his post by emphasizing that he received the image from another individual, and claimed that those who fact-checked him were “bigots.” Beydoun didn’t apologize for the false claim.
“But people don’t read sadly,” said Beydoun. “If was [sic] flagged by bigots who didn’t read the caption then removed. Done deal, bigger fish to fry.”
Wright pointed out that Beydoun, with his massive platform (nearly 295,000 followers on Twitter and over 1.4 million followers on Instagram), was undertaking actions to exacerbate divisions.
“@ASU prof deletes post after using his platform to spread fabricated hate to gin up hysteria,” said Wright. “As someone teaching Islamaphobia [sic] @ASUCollegeofLaw, he must know that manufactured hate begets more hate, increasing tensions. Why add fuel to a powder keg on the verge of explosion?”
.@ASU prof deletes post after using his platform to spread fabricated hate to gin up hysteria.
As someone teaching Islamaphobia @ @ASUCollegeOfLaw, he must know that manufactured hate begets more hate, increasing tensions.
Wright pointed out that Beydoun also deleted another false post which used pictures from the war in Syria to accuse the Israel government of war crimes. Wright questioned Beydoun’s academic worth based on his consistent issuance of false information.
“[Beydoun] should know to fact check so he doesn’t make false & defamatory claims,” said Wright. “If he doesn’t fact check his posts, does he fact check his curriculum?”
Looks like he deleted the other post that used pictures from Syria in 2017 to lodge false accusations against @IsraeliPM alleging @IDF WAR CRIMES.
Beydoun’s latest book, “The New Crusades: Islamophobia and the Global War on Muslims,” included a foreword written by Kimberlé Crenshaw; she is credited for popularizing Critical Race Theory (CRT). In her foreword, Crenshaw noted that Beydoun was one of her Critical Race Studies students in 2001.
Last week, Beydoun also claimed that another one of his followers had ordered his book but had received a book on Israel instead.
Beydoun announced that all sale royalties would go to Gaza, governed by Hamas.
Following Hamas’ initial terrorist attack on Israel, Beydoun posted a quote from Malcolm X alluding that Hamas was the true victim and Israel was the true oppressor.
“Be careful. Ethnic cleaning [sic] becomes possible and permissible when you paint an entire people as terrorists,” said Beydoun. “‘If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people being oppressed, and loving those doing the oppressing.’ – Malcolm X.”
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
An Arizona State University (ASU) professor is urging Phoenix pastors to warn their congregations against universities.
ASU professor Owen Anderson wrote on his Substack and in an opinion piece for the Arizona Daily Independent that the standard at universities, including ASU, is to oppose Christianity:
Pastors, the radical philosophies that are normalized in many ASU classes are direct attacks on Christian belief. They teach that Christianity is merely a system of social control. Christian missionaries are called bigots who used force to impose Christian beliefs on otherwise peaceful societies. And Jesus, if he was anything, is merely a moral teacher who taught people to be nice to their neighbors by paying taxes to a centralized government for welfare safety nets. These things are taught as the truth of the matter under radical gender, race, and class philosophies. This is the lens through which all the rest of the course material is viewed.
Anderson, who teaches philosophy and religious studies, has been outspoken on a number of other issues in recent months, namely concerning the alleged free speech issues at ASU.
The professor went on to ask why Christian students should have to “suffer through classes” without speaking against criticisms of their faith for fear of reprisal by their professors. Anderson encouraged Christian families to actively counter what’s being taught at institutions like ASU and to attend other higher education institutions instead.
“We can let professors and administrators know that we will not send students into classes or universities where their Christian faith is attacked and belittled,” said Anderson. “We can let them know that we will no longer hold our noses and put up with radical philosophies controlling the curriculum.”
Later, Anderson posted on X (formerly Twitter) that neither faculty members or university administrators care about Christians.
“The faculty care so little about Evangelicals that one of them can insult Evangelicals and not one faculty member will say anything and no administrator will understand why it matters,” said Anderson.
“The faculty care so little about Evangelicals that one of them can insult Evangelicals and not one faculty member will say anything and no administrator will understand why it matters.”
Anderson appeared on “The Seth Leibsohn Show” on Wednesday to discuss his claims. He said that he began his Substack to document the allegedly radical state of ASU.
“In your day to day classroom — in the kind of classroom that teaches decolonizing, anti-racism, infinite genders — that’s the philosophy that I think pastors will be interested to know about and need to know about,” said Anderson.
Earlier this month, Anderson reported on an ASU employee training course that requires employees to accept progressive ideologies on sexual orientation and gender. The training course informs employees that there are more than two genders, and that opposition to certain sexual orientations was impermissible.
Anderson said that the employee training directly countered Christian beliefs, and questioned whether Christians would face repercussions for opposing those stances made by ASU.
“Can Christians work at ASU without facing discrimination? Will Christian employees be forced to agree that there are infinite genders?” asked Anderson.
Students have reported incidents of the Christian faith being mocked by professors at the institution over the years. An incident of a professor mocking creationism in an introductory biology class went viral in 2014.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Arizona State University (ASU) President Michael Crow sided with the professor who attacked two men questioning him about his involvement in drag story hours, casting them as “bullies.”
In a statement on Saturday, Crow accused the two men working with Turning Point USA (TPUSA), a right-wing activist organization, of following, harassing, pushing, and injuring David Boyles, an English professor and the founder of Drag Story Hour Arizona. Crow claimed that the TPUSA men were lying in wait for Boyles to attack him.
“It is astounding to me that individuals from Turning Point USA would wait for an ASU instructor to come out of his class to follow him, harass him and ultimately shove him to the ground, bloodying his face,” said Crow. “This is the kind of outrageous conduct that you would expect to see from bullies in a high school cafeteria.”
Crow also claimed that the TPUSA men “ran away” from the scene before police arrived.
Crow’s claims conflict with the video evidence produced by both TPUSA and ASU law enforcement, the latter which the president included in his statement and said he reviewed multiple times.
In the surveillance footage, Boyles lunges and grabs at the TPUSA individual holding his camera. The other TPUSA individual, Frontlines reporter Kalen D’Almeida, pushes Boyles away from his peer in response. After Boyles stands up, Boyles and the TPUSA men walk in the same direction off camera. Nobody ran in the footage provided, and all left the scene of the incident together at an unhurried pace.
Crow denounced TPUSA as a whole, declaring that endeavors like the Boyles interview and the organization’s Professor Watchlist were “antisemitic, anti-LGBTQ+, and misogynistic” exploitations to generate fundraising and social media engagement.
A separate video of the incident from TPUSA showed that the two men approached Boyles, with one remaining silent while filming and the other asking questions. The question that appeared to have Boyles lunge for the camera regarded sodomizing minor males.
“Also, I was taking a look at your Substack, and it seems like you really, really hate Americans? Like you just are disgusted by Americans in this country,” said D’Almeida. “And it’s funny because, you would like to see a different America exist where little boys are sodomized by people like you, right?”
ASU President Crow was quick to issue a statement defending this professor, who clearly hit first. Physical violence is never ok.
Death to Israel rallies on campus this week received no response from the administration. https://t.co/ANvQvN778q
Boyles’ beliefs were detailed on his Substack, now hidden behind a paywall.
In an Instagram post, Boyles claimed that the men “shouted” at him and accused them of terrorism.
“One filmed on his phone while the other shouted horrible and incendiary things at me, repeating standard right-wing nonsense about Drag Story Hour and also accusing me personally of pedophilia and hating America,” wrote Boyles. “[I feel] angry, violated, embarrassed and despairing at the fact that we have come to normalize this kind of harassment and violence.”
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
