Free Republic

DePaul University is rapidly becoming ground zero in the battle to reform academia’s corrupted political culture. For the third time in less than a year the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has publicly rebuked the university for its politically motivated abridgment of free speech, this time for shutting down an anti-affirmative action bake sale and threatening to punish one of the organizers for violation of a newly instituted anti-discrimination policy. The DePaul Conservative Alliance set up a table in the Student Center where they were selling cookies and suggesting differing prices based on race, ethnicity and gender. It...

PITTSBURGH - A high school senior who was transferred to an alternative school as punishment for parodying his principal on the Internet is suing the district, arguing it violated his freedom of speech. Justin Layshock had used his grandmother's computer and the Web site MySpace.com to create a phony profile under the principal's name and photo. The site asks questions, and Justin filled in answers peppered with vulgarities, fat jokes and, to the question "what did you do on your last birthday?" the response: "too drunk to remember," according to the lawsuit filed on Justin's behalf by the American Civil...

University of Florida employees have to pledge that they're having sex with their domestic partners before qualifying for benefits under a new health care plan at the university. The partners of homosexual and heterosexual employees are eligible for coverage under UF's plan, which will take effect in February. The enrollment process began this month, and some employees have expressed concern about an affidavit that requires a pledge of sexual activity. Fielding questions about the pledge at a Faculty Senate meeting Thursday, UF's vice president of human resources said he's heard concerns about the affidavit, though overall feedback about the plan...

A high school research assignment on Internet pornography was canceled after parents in this Cleveland suburb complained. Superintendent Jeff Lampert said that although the teacher's apparent goal _ to discuss the harmful effects of pornography _ was well- intentioned, he agreed with parents that the assignment was inappropriate for 14- and 15-year-old freshmen at Brooklyn High. The assignment asked students to research pornography on the Internet and list eight facts about pornography. Students also were asked to write their personal views of pornography and any experience they had with it. Lampert said he doubted the teacher would face any punishment.

A three-volume treatise by Sa'id ibn Nasser Al-Ghamdi, titled Deviation from the Faith as Reflected in [Arab] Thought and Literature on Modernity, has recently gained publicity in the Arab world. The book, published in December 2003 in Saudi Arabia, is based on Al-Ghamdi's 2000 doctoral dissertation, submitted to the Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University, for which he received his degree summa cum laude. In his treatise, Al-Ghamdi names more than 200 modern Arab intellectuals and authors whom he accuses of heresy - thus making it permissible to kill them. Jordanian-American reformist intellectual and researcher Dr. Shaker Al-Nabulsi wrote an...

Ann Arbor, MI — A high school principal’s decision prohibiting a student from wearing his pro-life shirt in school has been overturned by a federal district court. Judge Elfvin of the Western District of New York signed a permanent injunction ordering Fillmore Central High School located in Fillmore, New York to allow the student to wear his pro-life shirt to school. The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, represented the student. Richard Thompson, Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, stated: “This student courageously took a stand for his views...

RALEIGH (AP) -- Some public universities in North Carolina system impose unconstitutional limits on freedom of speech, according to a report issued Tuesday. The report was issued by the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. "It's a public school system," Greg Lukianoff, interim president of the foundation, said at a news conference in the Legislative Building. "It's bound by the First Amendment." One example cited in the report was a prohibition by Fayetteville State University on vulgar language. Another example was the prohibition on "disrespect for persons" at the University of North...

Scientist compares Moses to Hitler, calls New Testament 'sado-masochistic doctrine'Controversial scientist and evolutionist Richard Dawkins, dubbed "Darwin's Rottweiler," calls religion a "virus" and faith-based education "child abuse" in a two-part series he wrote and appears in that begins airing on the UK's Channel 4, beginning tomorrow evening. Entitled "Root of All Evil?," the series features the atheist Dawkins visiting Lourdes, France, Colorado Springs, Colo., the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and a British religious school, using each of the venues to argue religion subverts reason. In "The God Delusion," the first film in the series, Dawkins targets Catholicism at the pilgrimage...

A U.S.-based Saudi professor and former U.N. fellow says he agrees with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Holocaust is a "myth" and says America eventually will collapse like the Soviet Union. Abdullah Muhammad Sindi, who has taught at four American schools, told Iran's Mehr News Agency Dec. 26, "I agree wholeheartedly with President Ahmadinejad."

Global petition to stop the war in Iraq Date: 5 Jan 2006 GLOBAL CALL FOR NONVIOLENT CIVIL RESISTANCE TO END THE U.S.-LED MILITARY OCCUPATION OF IRAQ Contact: dm@aglobalcall.org Global Call to Action Voluntown, CT, USA Our website: www.aglobalcall.org FROM: Nobel Peace and Literature Laureates Cindy Sheehan and other peace and human-rights activists Religious leaders of various traditions Prisoners of Conscience Former government ministers Poets, authors, journalists A Global Call for Nonviolent Civil Resistance at U.S. and British government installations around the world has been issued by Nobel Peace and Literature Laureates along with Cindy Sheehan and other peace and human-rights activists, religious...

DePaul U Confronts Amerikan "Empire" By Steven Plaut FrontPageMagazine.com | January 3, 2006 Q: How do you know when America has crossed the line into an oppressive, occupational empire? A: When DePaul University begins studying it. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at DePaul and its Dean, one Chuck Suchar (a sociologist), have officially announced a “College Theme Series” entitled “Confronting Empire” for the 2005-6 academic year. This is a DePaul faculty initiative involving the participation of various departments and programs throughout the college. The organizers call themselves the “Empire Committee,” sounding like something out of Star Wars. Naturally,...

A former school official in San Antonio wants to change the name of an elementary school from one with Confederate connotations to one with socialist ones because the former is racist, reports the San Antonio Express-News.

Our local Catholic High School recently announced its intention to eliminate class ranks, and also to stop weighting student GPA's to reflect honors and college credit courses. I've done a lot of research on the Net over the past few days, enough to find out that this is a growing trend across the country. Arguments in favor of dropping class ranks and weights mainly have to do with "making children feel we value all educational choices". Arguments against have to do with the issue of incentive and reward for taking on challenges.

Well, folks, after defending Sacco and Vanzettir for EIGHT decades, historians are finally beginning to admit that they were, in fact, guilty. Moreover, if you take a look at the comments, you will see that historians have known for three decades (at least) that their stories regarding Sacco-Vanzetti story were false. While this trial is always pictured as one where a WASP judge simply bullied two Italian immigrants to the electric chair, Upton Sinclair actually was afraid to release the truth because: 1.) He was afraid he would be killed by the anarchists (not the WASPy Judge;) 2. He was...

UMass teacher blasts colleagues on hoax story Episode warrants reprimand, he says By Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff | December 29, 2005 The head of policy studies at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth wants the university to suspend a student who made up a story about being grilled by federal antiterrorism agents over a library book and to reprimand faculty members who spread the tale. Following the student's admission Friday that it was a hoax, Clyde Barrow, chairman of the policy studies department, said UMass should punish the student and faculty members, in particular two history professors who repeated the...

California Professor: I agree wholeheartedly with President Ahmadinejad. There was no such a thing as the "holocaust" Do you know what America’s young people are being taught in colleges and universities throughout this country? If the statements of Dr. Abdullah Mohamed Sindi are in any way representative of what is being taught then I think many people are in for a big surprise. Dr. Sindi has worked as a professor of political science and international relations at American universities and colleges including the University of California at Irvine, California State University in Pomona, Cerritos Community College, and Fullerton Community College....

NEW BEDFORD -- The UMass Dartmouth student who claimed to have been visited by Homeland Security agents over his request for "The Little Red Book" by Mao Zedong has admitted to making up the entire story. The 22-year-old student tearfully admitted he made the story up to his history professor, Dr. Brian Glyn Williams, and his parents, after being confronted with the inconsistencies in his account. Had the student stuck to his original story, it might never have been proved false. But on Thursday, when the student told his tale in the office of UMass Dartmouth professor Dr. Robert Pontbriand...

To the Editor: "Last week I substituted at a local elementary school in Lebanon County. The lesson plan required me to read the 1882 poem “The Night Before Christmas” by Clement Clarke Moore to two classes of students. While I can appreciate the poem for its literary value, the subject matter is offensive to me, and the reading of this poem to the children imposed values upon me which are against my deeply held religious beliefs. I could not in good conscience present the notion of Santa Claus as a truth to the children, and stated so. No public school...

On Thursday, the last day of the semester, professor Mary Elizabeth Hooker cheerfully greeted her hematology class at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell with homemade baked goods and coffee from Dunkin' Donuts, friends said. That evening she headed to her Cambridge home, unaware that a student, concerned about his failing grade, was following her with a knife in his car, police records state. Nikhil Dhar, 22, knocked on Hooker's door at 6:30 p.m., started shouting at her and dragged her to the ground, beating her and stabbing her numerous times before slashing her neck and ripping off her shirt,...

It rocketed across the Internet a week ago, a startling newspaper report that agents from the US Department of Homeland Security had visited a student at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth at his New Bedford home simply because he had tried to borrow Mao Tse-Tung's ''Little Red Book" for a history seminar on totalitarian goverments. The story, first reported in last Saturday's New Bedford Standard-Times, was picked up by other news organizations, prompted diatribes on left-wing and right-wing blogs, and even turned up in an op-ed piece written by Senator Edward M. Kennedy in the Globe. But yesterday, the...