In a statement obtained by the Independent, Scripps College’s administration defended inviting two Venezuelan diplomats last week to speak about their totalitarian government’s  “grassroots initiatives.” This semester will be the second in a row that Scripps has invited Venezuelan officials to whitewash the country’s economic and human rights woes, with pro-Venezuelan regime speakers and a Venezuelan consul-general speaking last semester as well. Despite the Independent point

Scripps College will be inviting two Venezuelan officials next week to to speak on a three-day speaker series praising “grassroots initiatives” of the country’s totalitarian government. The officials, Venezuelan Consul-Generals Antonio Cordero and Jesús Chucho García, will be speaking to students on “African solidarities,” “coups and imperial wars,” and the country’s vision for “a new society rooted in political participation, communal economies and democracy.” Last semester,

Scripps College is hosting and funding a three-day speakers’ series with a Venezuelan government official to valorize that country’s totalitarian regime and spread awareness of the “truth in today’s Venezuela,” whitewashing the ruling regime’s extensive human rights abuses, the Independent has learned. The series, which ends on Wednesday, features Antonio Cordero, who serves as a Consul General of Nicholas Maduro’s authoritarian government and has been a business director for