BRICKBATS.

• Author: Oliver, Charles
• Position: Historic neighborhood and assistive technology for the disabled - London, England police may no longer arrest subjects if the public will not help - Plan to return a confederate statue at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

A couple in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood wanted to add a garage with a ramp and elevator to their home for their daughter, who uses a wheelchair. But some neighbors opposed it, saying it's not in keeping with the historic nature of the neighborhood. "I understand that the people who purchased the house have a child that requires special needs," Steve Weiss, president of the Old Town Triangle Association, wrote in a letter to his alderman. "I don't mean to be heartless or uncaring but this is not the neighborhood for that."

Leaders of London's police union have warned they may tell officers to stop arresting subjects who resist--unless the public starts pitching in. The remarks came after several officers were injured in violent confrontations while nearby civilians filmed the incidents but did not intervene. "We don't come to work to get assaulted, and if we're not going to be backed up in what we're doing then what is the point?" said Ken Marsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation.

About 80 teaching assistants at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill say they will not turn in final grades until the school abandons plans to return the statue of a Confederate soldier to campus. Silent Sam stood on the school's grounds for more than a century until protesters toppled it in August.

The state of Kansas is pulling hundreds of license plates containing the letters JAP after a complaint that this is an ethnic slur. Keith Kawamoto, who lives in Culver City, California, made the objection after seeing a Kansas car with one of those plates near his home.

Derek Pyne, an associate professor of economics at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia, Canada, says he was effectively banned from campus because of a paper he wrote. The topic was acadmic journals with low...