Rob
Sherman Advocacy
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Rob
Sherman Advocacy
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"Fighting injustice, one victory at a time."
An administrator at the University of Illinois at Chicago is using the school's web site inappropriately to promote god belief. Rob Sherman Advocacy has challenged the practice after receiving a complaint from a reader of Liberal News & Commentary. The Assistant to the Chancellor at UIC has responded to our complaint by stating that a policy review is in order and that a solution to the problem should be derived within a week.
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The University of Illinois operates several campus locations within the state. Their main facility is the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The cities of Urbana and Champaign are about 150 miles south of Chicago and 35 miles west of Indiana. Urbana is at the junction of US Highways 45 and 150. Champaign is at the junction of Interstates 57 and 74. The U of I is a Big Ten university and is widely regarded as being one of the top universities in the nation.
In the 1960's, a new, additional campus of the U of I was built at Chicago, just southwest of downtown. During the past 40 years, UIC has developed an outstanding reputation for excellence. This campus is at the junction of the John F. Kennedy Expressway (Interstate 90/94 north of the junction), the Dwight D. Eisenhower Expressway (Interstate 290 west of the junction) and the Dan Ryan Expressway (I-90/94 south of the junction). Dan Ryan was the President of the Cook County Board from 1954 to 1961. According to Chicago history expert Ken Little, Dan Ryan was the major force behind the creation of the expressway through the South Side of Chicago, so officials named the expressway for him.
Each year, UIC presents a high school fair to introduce families of seventh and eighth grade students to the best public and private high schools in the area. The UIC administrator who conducts the fair is a religious fanatic by the name of Deborah C. Umrani.
UIC administrators and other personnel have UIC dot EDU e-mail addresses. Most use their last name as the main component of their e-mail address. UIC Chancellor Sylvia Manning, for example, uses manning@uic.edu as her e-mail address. On the other hand, Miss Umrani uses the phrase, "God is all" as her UIC dot EDU handle.
Government officials should use religiously neutral handles for official-business e-mail addresses. When I logged onto the internet for the first time, way back in the Twentieth Century, I chose as my e-mail address Atheist Rob at AOL dot com. That sort of handle was fine for personal mail, since it reflected solely on me, but it would have been entirely inappropriate to use it as an e-mail address if I were using it in association with a role with a government agency or as a representative of a business that is supposed to cater to all customers equally.
Miss Umrani has chosen to use her official-business government e-mail address, godisall@uic.edu, as a mechanism for engaging in advocacy on an issue that is unrelated to her job. What's worse, the subject for which she is engaging in advocacy is a subject about which government officials are expected to remain neutral when acting in their official capacity. Her job with the government is to promote urban educational research and development, not god belief.
Umrani's conduct is particularly egregious because her role with government is to deal with children. Government must be especially careful to be impartial regarding theology when dealing with children because children are more likely than adults to be intimidated out of partaking in a government service when the government official displays hostility against the child's theological perspective.
On Monday, Rob Sherman Advocacy contacted the office of the UIC Chancellor to request that the administration review the appropriateness of administrators engaging in theological advocacy when engaged in official business, particularly when that official business involves dealing with children. A high-ranking administrator in the Chancellor's office promised a very timely response of about one week, which is quite swift when dealing with Big Bureaucracy.
I'll let you know how they respond. Meanwhile, this is a really good time for you to show your support for my efforts to keep the theological playing field level when dealing with government and when government is dealing with children. Please show your support by sending a check to Rob Sherman Advocacy today.
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