Free Republic

<p>From his lower school years at St. Albans to his incomplete effort at Vanderbilt law school, Gore was often an underachiever...</p>

Ezra Cornell, a generous man concerned deeply about his country and its culture, when he created his eponymous university in 1868 said, “I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.” Professors at Cornell (my grad school alma mater and partial source of rent) have stretched old Ezra’s words to the limit. How? The “English department will begin offering a new concentration in cultural studies to English majors. The concentration will allow students to study different mediums and forms of culture, including literature, film, the Internet and music in terms of ‘historical, social, and political...

A prominent US climate scientist at the centre of the "climategate" leaked email controversy has been virtually cleared of professional misconduct by an internal university enquiry. Michael Mann, of Penn State University, featured regularly in the more than 1000 emails that were hacked from the University of East Anglia in the UK last November. His emails and comments have since then featured in countless blogs and news articles. Some have claimed the emails reveal that mainstream climate scientists have massaged data in order to demonstrate that climate change is caused by human activities. The scientists in the emails, including Mann,...

Stories appearing on several Ukrainian Web sites claim Israel has brought around some 25,000 Ukrainian children into the country over the past two years in order to harvest their organs. The claim, which was made by a Ukrainian philosophy professor and author at a pseudo-academic conference in Kiev five days ago, is the latest expression of a wave of anti-Semitism in the country. It comes a few months after a Swedish tabloid ran an article alleging that Israel Defense Forces soldiers have killed Palestinian civilians for their organs. Jews, Israel and anti-Semitism have become a major motif of the presidential...

Tenure Deconstructed by: Brittany Fortier, July 10, 2009 A system can truly be considered broken when evaluators of hiring decisions are the ones that need to be evaluated. A panel hosted by the Center for American Progress on June 25, 2009, discussed why the American educational system has struggled in keeping itself accountable to students and parents, while at the same time creating a tenure system that critics claim gives teachers jobs for life. Many critics say that evaluation systems for teachers have been a huge reason for this discrepancy. Morgaen Donaldson, Assistant Professor at the Neag School of Education...

Darwinism as Religion in a Holy War Feb 19, 2009 — It might be expected that media attention on Darwin would be exceptionally high this month because of his bicentennial, but some of it seems downright religious. The adulation he has been receiving is almost embarrassing sometimes. It is only exceeded by the righteous indignation frequently expressed against intelligent design. In any other context, the fighting words of the Darwinians would be described as hate speech. Here are some recent examples: 1. Shrine to Darwin:...

In the wake of Operation Cast Lead, a group of American university professors has for the first time launched a national campaign calling for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel. While Israeli academics have grown used to such news from Great Britain, where anti-Israel groups several times attempted to establish academic boycotts, the formation of the United States movement marks the first time that a national academic boycott movement has come out of America. Israeli professors are not sure yet how big of an impact the one-week-old movement will have, but started discussing the significance of and possible counteractions...

This is the full movie divided in only 3 parts plus a deleted scene bonus video Indoctrinate U is a feature-length documentary film written by, directed by and starring Evan Coyne Maloney, on ideological conformism and political correctness in American higher education. Among other things, the film examines the use of institutional mechanisms such as speech codes, which it claims are used to punish students who express political views that are unpopular within the leftist academia.

(IsraelNN.com) Dr. Uri Davis, who has often termed Israel an "apartheid state" and refused to serve in the IDF, converted to Islam about a week ago and married a Fatah activist in Ramallah. The conversion ceremony involved two oaths in which Davis recognized Allah and the Muslim prophet Mohammed. Davis said he plans to follow the laws of Islam, but not devoutly. The conversion took place in a Moslem religious court in Baka el-Garbiye, an Israeli-Arab town just outside northwestern Samaria (Shomron). Davis's lawyer explained that the Arabs of the Palestinian Authority know him for his great sacrifices on behalf...

"If you can't beat 'em, subvert 'em with subterfuge."--RE Bierce With fatal terrorist attacks on the decline worldwide and al Qaeda apparently in disarray, it would seem a time for optimism in the global war on terrorism. But the war has simply shifted to a different arena. Islamists, or those who believe that Islam is a political and religious system that must dominate all others, are focusing less on the military and more on the ideological. --Cinnamon Stillwell, San Francisco Chronicle If you're an Islamist, it's time for Plan B. Islamists aren't dummies: even as al-Qaida is destroyed on the...

Mocked and belittled Interview: Ben Stein’s new documentary may give macro-evolutionary theory a deserved hard time, and he plans to have fun with it along the way | Megan Basham Bebeto Matthews/AP Though audiences probably know Ben Stein best as the economics teacher from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, the actor had a distinguished career preceding the classic '80s movie—just not in the entertainment industry. Long before ad-libbing the world's most famously boring free-market lecture, Stein was a Yale-trained trial lawyer, a professor at Pepperdine University, an economist, and a speechwriter for presidents Nixon and Ford. Even today, along with his...

Turkey academics defy scarf law The headscarf issue has divided opinion in Turkey A number of Turkish universities have defied a new law allowing women students to wear Islamic headscarves. Local media reported students wearing headscarves being turned away from some premises - although exceptions included the Bosporus University in Istanbul. It follows constitutional amendments passed by a huge majority in parliament and signed into law last week. Opposition parties want the law quashed amid fears that Turkey's strictly secular state could be undermined. The main opposition party has said it will ask the Constitutional Court to quash the law,...

British universities are coming under the spotlight in the country's fight against terrorism, with critics calling them a hotbed of extremism while lecturers say any clampdown threatens their freedom of speech. Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently highlighted universities as one of the key areas where authorities needed to act against extremist influences. However, a row is brewing over how officials can clamp down on radical groups recruiting students for militant causes without infringing on genuine academic debate. The issue of campus extremism came to the fore in the aftermath of the London suicide bombings by four young British Islamists which...

Alger Hiss, Academic Vampire by: Malcolm A. Kline, August 28, 2007 The liberal cadres that defended him for decades have thinned since career diplomat Alger Hiss was convicted of perjuring himself against accusations that he spied for the Soviet Union. In large part, this turnaround stems from mounting evidence of his guilt as can be seen in: • Declassified congressional hearings originally held in executive session; • Federal agency reports once classified that were unsealed when they hit 50 years of age; and • Communist International and KGB files in the Soviet Union and its former satellite nations opened to...

Iran admits detaining US academic Haleh Esfandiari is one of the leading US authorities on Iran Iran's foreign ministry has confirmed that the government has detained a leading Iranian-American academic. Spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said the arrest of Haleh Esfandiari was lawful and she would be treated like other Iranian nationals.Ms Esfandiari, one of Washington's best known Iran experts, was visiting Tehran to see her 93-year-old mother. The incident comes at a time of continuing tension between the United States and Iran. "It is natural if there is any problem, it will be handled by authorities," said the spokesman. Iran...

Academic: Extremism debate is being stifled By Graeme Paton, Education Correspondent Last Updated: 2:13am GMT 16/03/2007 An academic at the centre of a row over censorship last night accused Britain of being the worst country for stifling debate on Muslim extremism. Matthias Küntzel, a German author and political scientist, was due to give a lecture at Leeds University on Islamic anti-Semitism but it was cancelled after complaints from Muslim students. As disclosed by The Daily Telegraph yesterday, a number of protest emails were received, although the university insisted the event was axed because of safety fears. Last night the academic,...

PRAGUE, Czech Republic (UPI) -- Earlier this year, a group of 'small-l' liberals, left-wingers and progressives came together in Britain to produce a document called the Euston Manifesto. It was a statement of principles in support of democracy, freedom of speech and ideas, and firm opposition to terrorism, all forms of totalitarianism and all soft-headed apologies for it. Now it has found an echo in the United States, where a number of leading academics and intellectuals have signed the Euston Manifesto, and issued their own statement on American liberalism that endorses it. The original British document was the work of...

Title Can the internet ever produce a purity of consent? A case study of Rathergate. Introduction On September 8th 2004, memos by the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian purporting to show that a subordinate of his, one George W. Bush, had a less than perfect war record during the Vietnam conflict, were aired by CBS show 60 Minutes II. I believe no academic study on this topic exists. A search of the Proquest dissertations database reveals no existing work. There are several books extant which subjectively cover the episode from various points of view. I will utilise these as...

"I mean, this is a person who, not too many years from now, we may be seeing in front of a war crimes tribunal."Juliet Schor is a professor of sociology at Boston College. She has written a number of books analyzing the American labor market. What I have quoted is an obvious acknowledgement by an extensively trained, well executed professional of academe, providing her insight on the future of Saddam Hussein or Usama bin Laden. However, I would be lying. The person Ms. Schor refers to is United States Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice. Madamn Secretary is slated to receive...

US academic attacks Britain's hidden 'white supremacy' By James Langton (Filed: 30/04/2006) White supremacy is "alive and well in Britain", according to one of America's leading black academics. Speaking before next week's local elections, which could see an unprecedented surge of support for the far-Right British National Party, Prof Cornel West said that white people in Britain have failed to embrace the black community. 'You have a legacy of white supremacy tied to colonial history' In an exclusive interview, the best-selling author, who is a household name on race relations in the United States, said: "Britain is a paradoxical place...