US academics blasted

An influential conservative group has attacked US academics for their response to September 11th. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), founded by Lynne Cheney, wife of the US vice-president, published "Defending Civilization: How Our Universities are Failing America and What Can Be Done About It". It lists 117 comments made by faculty and students.

Number 68, for example, in its entirety, reads: "Professor of communications, New York University: 'There is a lot of skepticism about the administration's policy of going to war.'"

ACTA vice president and general counsel Anne Neal said that "for the most part, public comments in academia were equivocal and often pointing the finger at America rather than the terrorists".

Douglas Bennet, president of prestigious Wesleyan University, was singled out for a letter in which he condemned the terrorist attacks, but also expressed concern that "disparities and injustices" at home and abroad could lead to violence. He also suggested that societies ought to look at the world "through the sensitivities of others".

Teacher's 'too old' case

A British teacher has been awarded £47,000 sterling after an employment tribunal decided she had been made redundant because she was deemed to be too old.

Barbara Staff, 54, from Garstang in Lancashire, was made redundant from her job at Ridge Primary School in August last year when the school shed staff in order to save money.

Governors decided to operate a "first in, first out" policy, but the tribunal decided this was "quite unfair". It said the governors had produced no evidence that the school would benefit from having younger teachers and did not apply their cost saving argument consistently.

Making the longest-serving staff redundant first "discriminated specifically against employees who had provided greater loyalty and length of service", the tribunal said in its written decision.