Free Republic

On April 6-7, 2006, Students for Academic Freedom will host its First National Academic Freedom Conference featuring a debate between Students for Academic Freedom Chairman David Horowitz and University of Colorado-Boulder Professor Ward Churchill. The topic for debate will be: “Can Politics Be Taken Out Of The Classroom, and Should It Be?” The debate will be held Thursday evening on the campus of George Washington University in Washington, DC. Young America’s Foundation and the Center for the Study of Popular Culture are the co-hosts of the debate. Seating for the debate is limited and will be determined by George Washington...

Two prominent Pennsylvania universities, Penn State and Temple, were sued Wednesday by the Alliance Defense Fund on behalf of PSU student Alfred Joseph (A.J.) Fluehr and Temple student Christian M. DeJohn. Both legal complaints were filed at the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia.

That Old Red Menace Has Me in its Spell… In the 1950’s , it was not unusual to see articles in mainstream magazines with titles like : “The Red Menace Must Be Stopped !” Were you to try and publish such an article anywhere today – including the Internet – you would be greeted with rudely worded suggestions you were in dire need of psychiatric care ; because we all know there is no “Red Menace” ! How do we know this ? If we’re under the age of 50, we probably learned it in school. Those of us who...

The liberal bias that permeates American college campuses isn’t news. Repeated polls show convincingly that that faculty members with liberal views or affiliations far outnumber their relatively few conservative colleagues. No problem here, you might say, so long as they keep their political and social biases out of the classroom. But, of course, they do not as many students whose grades have suffered because they vocally challenged an instructor’s biases can tell you. Beyond the challenges posed to students who try to maintain conservative perspectives, problems arise when faculty members and students try to suppress opposing viewpoints. Sadly, this has...

ABOR Bill Referred to Higher Ed Committee in Albany AN ACT to amend the education law, in relation to creating an academic bill of rights The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows: 1 Section 1. The education law is amended by adding a new section 224-b...

Parents of daughters are more likely to be left-wing, whatever the feminists claim FATHERS WILL DO anything for their little princesses. They turn a blind eye as the house becomes a palace of pink fluff. Later on they play a pivotal role in their daughters’ social development — that of chauffeur. Dads will even, we learnt this week, shift political allegiance for their daughters. Andrew Oswald, from Warwick University, and Nattavudh Powdthavee, of the Institute of Education at London University, have discovered that how parents vote is linked to the gender of their children. The more daughters there are in...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: November 17, 2005 Jill Minette, CASE, 202-478-5666 Professor Lawrence Roberge, 413-547-8448 NATIONAL HONORS FOR TOP PROFESSOR IN CONNECTICUT (Washington, DC)-The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education have named Lawrence F. Roberge at Goodwin College the 2005 Connecticut Professor of the Year. Professor Roberge was selected from among nearly 400 top professors in the United States. Professor Roberge was the Chair of the Science Dept and Associate Professor of Science at Goodwin College from 2003 until 2005. During his tenure, he organized the construction of science labs...

Profs get warned of freedoms By MENSAH M. DEAN deanm@phillynews.com Words such as "McCarthyism" and "chill" buzzed through a group of Temple University professors and students who gathered on campus yesterday to discuss a state legislative committee's investigation of political diversity at state-run colleges. The "teach-in," sponsored by the Temple Association of University Professionals, drew an audience overwhelmingly convinced that the committee's very existence is a threat to academic freedom. "I think that there is a concern that people are going to start coming in and say, 'You can do this, but you can't do this.' If we are teaching...

ITHACA, N.Y. - Urie Bronfenbrenner, a Cornell University psychologist who pioneered an interdisciplinary approach to the study of child development and helped create the federal Head Start program, has died. He was 88. Bronfenbrenner, a member of the Cornell faculty since 1948, died at his home Sunday from complications from diabetes, the school announced Monday. The Russian-born Bronfenbrenner was credited with creating the interdisciplinary field of human ecology and was widely regarded as one of the world's leading scholars in developmental psychology and child-rearing. Before Bronfenbrenner, child psychologists studied the child, sociologists examined the family, anthropologists the society, economists the...

The first academic study into the sweaty pursuit of air guitar playing is to use the work of French philosophers to explain why men and women do it differently. Doctoral research has begun under the supervision of Britain's first professor of pop music, who is also overseeing a PhD into the art of "moshing", the vigorous head-shaking dance popular among concert crowds.

In December of 2001, I experienced the second most anxiety-evoking event of my professional career. It came in the form of a stern (but friendly) warning from the UNCW police to avoid all contact with another professor in my department. I was advised not to be caught in the same room with this woman because she was, in the opinion of (numerous) school officials, both delusional and potentially dangerous.

PORTLAND — An early draft of a five-year "diversity plan" for the University of Oregon has drawn a firestorm of criticism from faculty, prompting administrators to distance themselves from the proposal. The draft plan, billed as a "long-term vision for diversity," called for the university to hire up to 40 faculty members by 2012 to teach courses in a "cluster" of diversity-related topics, including race, gender, gay and disability studies. Under the plan, academic departments that hew closely to the university's diversity goals when hiring would be given "priority in the funding of new positions." The plan also would mandate...

In violation of its promises to faculty of academic freedom and due process, DePaul University has suspended Professor Thomas Klocek without a hearing for engaging in a controversial out-of-class debate with students. After Professor Klocek and several pro-Palestinian students engaged in a heated argument over Middle East issues at a student activities fair, students complained to administrators who immediately suspended the professor, denying him the rights normally afforded to professors accused of wrongdoing. Statements from university administrators indicate that the professor was disciplined because of his harsh criticism of the students’ viewpoint. For full details, please read below. Sincerely, David...

The packed room crackled with anticipation, and the man with a career-long penchant for drama and confrontation must have relished this opportunity. The cadence of a ceremonial drumbeat and American Indian chanting heralded his arrival. The introduction given him was fiery, stoking anger for the opposition, real and imagined. And then, cameras flashing, Ward Churchill stepped to the podium, words of defiance ready on his lips, his black-leather-clad security entourage shoulder-to-shoulder on the stage behind him. "Hello, my relatives," Churchill greeted the crowd, using his usual speech opener. It reflects the spirit of Mitakuye Oyasin, a Lakota Indian phrase meaning...

NEW YORK (AP) - Professors have a responsibility to resist "the temptation to use the podium as an ideological platform," Columbia University's president said, days before the anticipated release of a report investigating charges from Jewish students accusing pro-Palestinian professors intimidating them in classes. But Lee Bollinger added Wednesday that it was "preposterous to characterize Columbia as anti-Semitic or as having a hostile climate for Jewish students and faculty." Bollinger made his comments to the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. He did not comment on what the report, expected out next week, could say. Professors...

The Orwellian LeftBy David HorowitzFrontPageMagazine.com | March 21, 2005 A semiotically confused website called Whiskey Bar which is evidently the work of a historically challenged individual with the nom de net of "Billmon" has attempted a heavy-handed satire of the academic freedom for students movement, caricaturing it as an attempt to pull off a Maoist purge of leftwing academics and their doctrines from American university campuses. Other equally at sea leftists, have linked the Billmon agit-prop and spread it across the net. Michael Berube recommends it as a “brilliant analysis” (even though it just a collection of paired quotes with...

Any proceedings begun against the fiery professor would be protracted By Dave Curtin Denver Post Staff Writer With negotiations for a university-funded early retirement buyout of Ward Churchill's contract all but dead and prospects for a privately funded settlement dim, it appears increasingly likely that the incendiary professor will be on campus for the foreseeable future. Short of early retirement, any other options will trigger protracted proceedings that could easily take the 57-year-old professor into his retirement years at age 62. "Ward Churchill likes his job. He's not going anywhere," Churchill's attorney, David Lane, said Monday. CU on Monday confirmed...

I just read the March 3 article about the proposed legislation to curb the sharing of political ideas in universities. According to the story, there is a "perceived" liberal bias on college campuses. "Some" students are retaliated against. Some professors (apparently only left-leaning ones) are "trying to" indoctrinate students. Does the press ever ask for data or examples before printing such vague and unsubstantiated statements? It reminds me of the Salem witch trials and the darker side of the McCarthy era. Will this legislation work for liberals who are fearful of retribution from conservatives? I suppose if students get a...

We did it... We protested churchill. There was a collection of pro-Churchill moonbats that showed up, and we protested them as well.

A recent proposal in the Tennessee General Assembly has caused a great deal of angst on college campuses in our state over the past couple of weeks. The bill (HB0432), proposed by State Rep. Stacey Campfield of Knoxville in the House and Raymond Finney of Maryville in the Senate is known as the “Academic Bill of Rights.” To hear some tell it, you’d think it was an effort to repeal the First Amendment. Professors at this and other institutions strongly oppose it. Some label it a “witch hunt.” It has been editorialized against on this page. Let’s examine it. So...