Free Republic

The case of the San Jose/Evergreen Community College firing of June Sheldon is raising some eyebrows among academics, liberal and conservative. Here is the media version : The controversy centers on an incident in June 2007, when Sheldon was asked by a student in a human heredity class about heredity’s impact on “homosexual behavior in males and females.� Among other references, Sheldon noted a German study demonstrating some link between maternal stress and homosexual behavior in males, according to the lawsuit. After a student complained, college officials investigated and dismissed Sheldon, an adjunct professor at the school since January 2004....

SAN JOSE, Calif., July 18, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A former San Jose City College biology professor is suing the college after she was fired for answering a student's question on the relationship between homosexuality and heredity.On June 21, 2007, June Sheldon, an adjunct professor teaching a human heredity course, answered a question about how heredity affects homosexual behavior by citing the class textbook and a well-known German scientist.  She noted that the scientist found a correlation between maternal stress and homosexual behavior in males but that the scientist's views are only one set of theories in the nature-versus-nurture debate...

Kirstie Alley When the formerly svelte actress gained quite a few pounds post-"Cheers," she seemed like an ideal candidate to endorse Jenny Craig. All she had to do was tell women she got back her formerly fabulous figure thanks to Jenny. There was just one problem -- she couldn’t stop gaining weight. So unfortunately for Kirstie, she was replaced by Valerie Bertinelli, who was soon seen on TV fitting into her "skinny jeans" again.

Three paramedics at Newark's University Hospital were fired this week after grainy images taken by a cellphone camera surfaced showing two student interns garbed in white sheets to look like robes of the Ku Klux Klan. Officials at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, which operates the hospital, and its emergency medical services unit, called the episode "ugly and abhorrent," and "not be tolerated at any level." University president William F. Owen, who disclosed details of the incident on Friday, said one of the paramedics offered to resign, but was terminated instead on Monday. Two others were...

Walt Disney World fired a security guard on Monday after he protested the company's decision not to allow people with concealed weapons permits to keep guns in their cars on Disney property. Disney terminated Edwin Sotomayor, 36, of Orlando for violating three Disney employee policies, essentially for failing to cooperate with an internal investigation, said spokeswoman Zoraya Suarez. Sotomayor vowed to continue his fight. At issue is Florida's new law that allows people with concealed weapons permits to keep firearms in their vehicles in employee parking lots. Disney advised its employees late last month that the theme-park resort is exempt...

San Francisco -- Saying enough is enough, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums fired embattled City Administrator Deborah Edgerly on Tuesday, four days after he put her on paid leave amid allegations that she may have interfered in a police investigation involving her nephew. Dellums sent out a letter informing the City Council of his decision and another letter via messenger to Edgerly's home. "Basically he just had enough of the situation," said one City Hall source close to the situation. "He felt that he has no other choice." The last straw was a letter Edgerly sent Monday to the mayor, informing...

WICHITA FALLS, Texas — An Air Force colonel was sentenced to nine years in prison yesterday and kicked out of the military for assaulting a woman, misusing his government travel card, and other crimes at Sheppard Air Force Base. Colonel Samuel Lofton III faced 140 years in prison after being convicted of 34 counts, including indecent assault, larceny, being absent without leave, and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. The 49-year-old former training commander "systematically abused his power, position, and authority to the detriment of the Air Force and to the detriment of those around him," a prosecutor, Captain...

The Columbia University professor who gained widespread attention last fall after a noose was found hanging on her office door was fired on Monday after months of wrangling over charges that she plagiarized the work of two former students and a former colleague. Madonna G. Constantine, a professor of psychology and education with a focus on racial issues at Columbia’s Teachers College, was sanctioned in February, after an 18-month investigation into the plagiarism charge, but allowed to stay in her job and to appeal the ruling that she had violated the university’s academic standards. But over the last five months,...

For eight years Daniel and Sharon Dixon, apartment managers in Lake City, Fla., displayed in the apartment complex's management office a stained glass depiction of flowers with the words "Consider the lilies … Matthew 6:28" written in the lower left corner – an act for which they were suddenly fired from their management jobs and evicted from their apartment. Mathew D. Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom that is representing the Dixons, told WND that neither before nor after the incident were the Dixons charged with any wrongdoing other than protesting the removal...

E.D. Hill and her show, "America's Pulse" has been removed from her time slot at Fox, because of something she said in her news presentation . On June 6th last, on her former program, "America's Pulse," E.D. Hill teased in a segment about body-language about Obama's fist bump with his wife Michelle. Obama supporters and the leftist blogs on the web were in a rage and an uproar about the comments, and George Soros' "Media Matters" began a campaign encouraging people to contact Fox and complaint about what is in their view an unforgivable slight of Obama and Michelle. They...

"A high school wrestling coach in a Michigan city known for its large Arab community says he’s being forced out of his job of 35 years on trumped up allegations he allowed his assistant, a local clergyman, to try converting students to Christianity." "Dearborn Schools' spokesman David Mustonen confirmed that principal Imad Fadlallah decided not to renew Marszalek’s contract but said it has nothing to do with Hancock." “Jerry Marszalek is a non-union employee…If we have a union member, a teacher that’s part of the union, they are given priority to people from the outside when it comes to coaching...

DEARBORN, Mich. --A longtime high school wrestling coach has lost his job amid concerns a former assistant coach tried to convert Muslim students to Christianity. The Detroit News reports 35-year coach Jerry Marszalek's contract with Fordson High School in Dearborn, Mich., was not renewed. The decision was supported by 200 to 300 parents, who packed a Board of Education meeting Tuesday to support the principal's decision.

Controversial talk-show host Mark Madden has been permanently removed from the air by ESPN. The decision was made at the network's corporate headquarters in Bristol, Conn. It comes five days after Madden made an inflammatory statement about Sen. Edward Kennedy. "We've taken Mark off the air pursuant to our contractual rights," said Josh Krulewitz, the network's vice president for public relations. On his radio show Wednesday, Madden said the following about Sen. Kennedy, who days earlier had been diagnosed with brain cancer: "I'm very disappointed to hear Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts is near death because of a brain tumor....

CN8 host Barry Nolan , who publicly complained a few weeks ago about Bill O'Reilly receiving an award from the Boston chapter of National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, has been fired by the Comcast network. "Their take is that I was insubordinate," Nolan told us yesterday. "They wanted me to sit down and shut up." The host of "Backstage With Barry Nolan" had argued that O'Reilly, the volatile Fox News host and former Channel 7 anchor, was unworthy of the Governor's Award. (Past recipients include the likes of Mike Wallace, Ken Burns, and Natalie Jacobson.) "The idea of...

An act of bravery to defend a co-worker has cost a Minnesota gas-station attendant his job. Mark Beverly, an overnight shift supervisor at a SuperAmerica in Roseville, Minn., was fired in March after he jumped on a masked robber who he believed was attacking a fellow employee. SuperAmerica said

The University of Toledo confirmed yesterday that an administrator who wrote a column critical of gay rights for a local publication has been fired. Crystal Dixon, associate vice president for human resources, was terminated on Thursday following about a week on paid administrative leave and a predisciplinary meeting May 5.

The University of Toledo confirmed yesterday that an administrator who wrote a column critical of gay rights for a local publication has been fired. Crystal Dixon, associate vice president for human resources, was terminated on Thursday following about a week on paid administrative leave and a predisciplinary meeting May 5. Ms. Dixon wrote a guest column last month for the Toledo Free Press titled "Gay rights and wrongs: another perspective," expressing her opinion that being gay is a choice that has consequences, according to her religious beliefs.

College Official Fired for Column on Homosexuality By Pete Winn CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer May 12, 2008 (CNSNews.com) - Cybercast News Service has learned that a University of Toledo administrator has lost her job because she wrote a newspaper commentary that questioned whether homosexuality is a civil rights issue. Crystal Dixon, the associate vice president of human resources at the state university, had earlier been put on paid administrative leave for the Apr. 18 column published in the Toledo Free Press, as detailed in a previous CNSNews.com story. "She has been fired," said Brian Rooney, spokesman for the Thomas More...

Fox News, or as I prefer to call it, Faux News, fired an intern for revealing the bias we all have toward the GOP. As MSNBC's Don Abrams said, she apparently did not get the memo that said that on Faux News, "you are supposed to pretend you are fair and balanced." The production assistant, identified as Jennifer Locke, was on assignment with a camera crew to cover the Time 100 Party. Locke: "John McCain, Fox News." McCain: "Fox News, I'm always glad to talk to Fox News." Locke: "I voted for you in the primary." McCain: "Thank you very...

Barack Obama’s campaign has severed ties with a Middle East policy adviser who acknowledged having held talks with Hamas, according to The Times newspaper in London. Adviser Robert Malley said he had been in contact with the Palestinian group, but only through his work for a “conflict resolution think tank,” and not on behalf of the Obama campaign, the newspaper reported.

TVNewser Exclusive: A 24-year-old Fox News Channel production assistant was fired this morning for something she said during the red carpet arrivals at the Time 100 Gala last night. Insiders tell us the assistant, identified as Jennifer Locke, was on assignment with a camera crew to cover the entertainment angle of the event. When Sen. John McCain walked by, the assistant said, "I voted for you in the primary, you're going to win." McCain was overheard saying to her, "You're not supposed to reveal that." Locke apparently continued to explain that she is the daughter of Vietnam veteran. Insiders who...

After two years of record-low ratings, both CBS News executives and people close to Katie Couric say that the "CBS Evening News" anchor is likely to leave the network well before her contract expires in 2011 -- possibly soon after the presidential inauguration early next year.

CBS, Couric Likely to Split By REBECCA DANA April 9, 2008 7:44 p.m. After two years of record-low ratings, both CBS News executives and people close to Katie Couric say that the "CBS Evening News" anchor is likely to leave the network well before her contract expires in 2011 -- possibly soon after the presidential inauguration early next year. Ms. Couric isn't even halfway through her five-year contract with CBS, which began in June 2006 and pays an annual salary of around $15 million. But CBS executives are under pressure to cut costs and improve ratings for the broadcast, which...

What Mr. Penn reportedly did — meet with Colombia's ambassador about the Colombia Free Trade Agreement — doesn't come close to warranting being fired as chief strategist. If Mrs. Clinton is such a committed protectionist, following the logic of losing Mr. Penn, she'd have to get rid of her husband, who championed, and signed into law, the North American Free Trade Agreement that was a predecessor to the Columbia pact. Or if it's not the trade that is the issue but the mere appearance of being on the payroll, or giving advice to, a foreign entity, she'd also have to...

In 1974, 27-year-old Hillary Rodham found herself at the center of a congressional firestorm over the question of whether Richard Nixon had a right to counsel as he faced impeachment proceedings. In my column of Monday, March 31, 2008, I reported the account of Jerry Zeifman, who served at the time as general counsel and chief of staff to the House Judiciary Committee. Zeifman minced no words about Hillary’s behavior when she worked on the House Judiciary staff during the impeachment investigation. After signing her termination papers, Zeifman refused Hillary a letter of recommendation. He told me in an interview...

As Hillary Clinton came under increasing scrutiny for her story about facing sniper fire in Bosnia, one question that arose was whether she has engaged in a pattern of lying. The now-retired general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee, who supervised Hillary when she worked on the Watergate investigation, says Hillary’s history of lies and unethical behavior goes back farther – and goes much deeper – than anyone realizes. Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of...

Dan Calabrese's new column on Hillary Clinton's past may bring the curtain down on her political future. Calabrese interviewed Jerry Zeifman, the man who served as chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate hearings, has tried to tell the story of his former staffer's behaviour for years. Zeifman claims he fired Hillary for unethical behaviour and that she conspired to deny Richard Nixon counsel during the hearings. The now-retired general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee, who supervised Hillary, says her history of lies and unethical behaviour goes back further - and much...

As Hillary Clinton came under increasing scrutiny for her story about facing sniper fire in Bosnia, one question that arose was whether she has engaged in a pattern of lying. The now-retired general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee, who supervised Hillary when she worked on the Watergate investigation, says Hillary’s history of lies and unethical behavior goes back farther – and goes much deeper – than anyone realizes... Zeifman said in an interview last week. “She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of...

As Hillary Clinton came under increasing scrutiny for her story about facing sniper fire in Bosnia, one question that arose was whether she has engaged in a pattern of lying. The now-retired general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee, who supervised Hillary when she worked on the Watergate investigation, says Hillary’s history of lies and unethical behavior goes back farther – and goes much deeper – than anyone realizes. Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of...

As Hillary Clinton came under increasing scrutiny for her story about facing sniper fire in Bosnia, one question that arose was whether she has engaged in a pattern of lying. The now-retired general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee, who supervised Hillary when she worked on the Watergate investigation, says Hillary’s history of lies and unethical behavior goes back farther – and goes much deeper – than anyone realizes. Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of...

As Hillary Clinton came under increasing scrutiny for her story about facing sniper fire in Bosnia, one question that arose was whether she has engaged in a pattern of lying. The now-retired general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee, who supervised Hillary when she worked on the Watergate investigation, says Hillary’s history of lies and unethical behavior goes back farther – and goes much deeper – than anyone realizes. Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of...

Iraqi Police Fired for Failing to Fight Posted on: Monday, 31 March 2008, 12:00 CDT The apparent thousands of Iraqi policemen who refused to fight against Shiite militias have been relieved of duty, the Iraqi interior minister said Monday. The decision by Jawad al-Boulani covers units operating in Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad and the predominately Shiite areas in southern Iraq, including Basra. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered Iraqi forces to crack down on militias affiliated with cleric Moqtada Sadr and other influential Shiite leaders, sparking widespread violence that rippled throughout the country last week. Thousands of Iraqi police officers...

A nurse at a leading independent girls school was sacked after smacking her 10 year old son at home because he swore at her.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Two contract employees for the State Department have been fired and a third disciplined for inappropriately looking at the passport file of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's passport file, a spokesman said Thursday. Spokesman Sean McCormack said the department itself detected the instances of "imprudent curiosity," which occurred separately on Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14. He would not release the names of those who were fired and disciplined. "We believe this was out of imprudent curiosity, so we are taking steps to reassure ourselves that that is, in fact, the case," McCormack said. Bill Burton, a...

<p>DIRTY TRICKS FEAR AFTER STATE DEPT. FIRES TWO FOR UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO BARACK OBAMA'S PERSONAL PASSPORT FILE... MORE... WASHINGTON TIMES SET TO SPLASH THE DEVELOPMENT, NEWSROOM SOURCES TELL DRUDGE REPORT... MORE...</p>

Rebecca Aguilar's 14-year career as a Fox4 reporter has officially ended via a letter from an attorney representing the station. In a telephone interview Wednesday night, Aguilar, 49, said she was checking her mail at mid-afternoon that day when she noticed an envelope under her front door mat. It informed her that Fox4 was exercising an option to drop her at the halfway point of a two-year contract that began on March 6, 2007. "No doorbell, no knock on the door," said Aguilar, who had been on paid suspension since Oct. 16th following her controversial interview with an elderly West...

San Francisco - Think you can get away with using e-mail and the Internet in violation of company policy? Think again. A new survey found that more than a quarter of employers have fired workers for misusing e-mail, and one third have fired workers for misusing the Internet on the job. The study, conducted by the American Management Association (AMA) and The ePolicy Institute, surveyed 304 U.S. companies of all sizes. The vast majority of bosses who fired workers for Internet misuse, 84 percent, said the employee was accessing porn or other inappropriate content. While looking at inappropriate content is...

Escondido, Calif. (AP) -- The North County Times fired an editor for altering an Associated Press story to read that a Los Angeles city councilman strangled a kitten at a news conference about his city's new pet sterilization law. The newspaper published a story Wednesday that read, "'We will, sooner rather than later, become a no-kill city, and this is the greatest step in that direction,' Councilman Tony Cardenas, who co-authored the bill, said as he strangled a kitten at a City Hall news conference."

CNN has fired producer Chez Pazienza after the network brass realized he had been blogging at his own left-wing site and several others over a period of years: In a phone interview this morning, Mr. Pazienza, 38, said he joined CNN as a senior producer in January 2004 and has consistently received positive performance evaluations of his work. He spent his first year at CNN at the network’s headquarters in Atlanta, then moved to New York to work on “CNN Daybreak,” which has since been canceled, then “American Morning,” which is shown Monday through Friday, from 6 to 9 a.m.Mr....

Hesham Islam's 'resume didn't add up,' official says In a stunning turn of events, a high-level Muslim military aide blamed for costing an intelligence contractor his job will step down from his own Pentagon post, WND has learned. Meanwhile, his rival, Maj. Stephen Coughlin, a leading authority on Islamic war doctrine, may stay in the Pentagon, moving from the office of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the office of the secretary of defense. However, sources say a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey is trying to block his new contract. The top Pentagon aide, Egyptian-born Hesham H....

Clinton's campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, left the position today, to be replaced by Clinton's former top White House aide, Maggie Williams. The change formalizes a shift in the campaign's power structure that began to set in after Clinton's win in New Hampshire, I've obtained a copy of Solis Doyle's email to the campaign's staff, sent about 15 minute ago: Over a year ago Hillary launched her campaign for President. Her announcement began a historic effort that has inspired millions and brought hundreds of thousands to their feet all across this nation. I have been proud to manage this campaign,...

LEWISTON, Me. — Hillary Clinton isn’t pulling her punches today, and she’s ripped. Clinton doesn’t think a temporary suspension fits the crime by MSNBC’s David Shuster, who commented this week that the Clinton campaign had “pimped out” 27-year old Chelsea Clinton by having her try to recruit Democratic Party super delegates to support her mother. Sen. Clinton’s letter to Steve Capus, president of NBC News, pretty much says it all: Dear Mr. Capus, Thank you for your call yesterday. I wanted to send you this note to convey the depth of my feeling about David Shuster’s comments. I know that...

"...what’s emerging at the Pentagon is a landscape in which Stephen Coughlin’s insistence on crafting doctrine based not on politically correct assumptions, but on facts, is apparently deemed a bridge too far."

Nine District Employees Fired For Watching Porn District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty announced today that nine city government employees have been fired for viewing pornography on government computers while at work. The investigation revealed that the 9 employees had made over 20,000 hits apiece to pornographic web sites in the year 2007, which breaks down to about 100 pages a day each over the course of a average work year. The fired employees worked for the offices of Property Management, Child and Family Services, Contracts and Procurement, and the Office of the Attorney General. Fenty also said that 32...

Nine D.C. government employees will be fired for viewing pornography on their work computers, D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) said today. Each of those employees clicked on inappropriate images more than 19,000 times in 2007, according to the results of an internal investigation of 10,000 government computers, Fenty said. Thirty two other employees who visited porn sites 2,000 times or more will receive letters of reprimand or suspensions, the mayor said.

Departing L.A. Times editor Jim O'Shea addressed the newsroom this morning and reiterated that he was pushed out and did not quit. He also criticized Tribune's priorities, and said that — like every suit Tribune sent here before him except Publisher David Hiller, incidentally — he came to the conclusion while in L.A. that the best future strategy is to grow the Times not shrink it. From: OShea, James Sent: Monday, January 21, 2008 10:53 AM To: yyeditall Subject: I made these farewell remarks in the newsroom today and I wanted to share them with everyone in case they took...

LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Times fired its top editor after he rejected a management order to cut $4 million from the newsroom budget, 14 months after his predecessor was also ousted over a budget dispute, the newspaper said Sunday. James O'Shea was fired following a confrontation with Publisher David D. Hiller, the Times reported on its Web site. The story didn't say when the confrontation took place. Times spokeswoman Nancy Sullivan said the newspaper would have no comment. O'Shea's departure comes just a month after the Times' parent, Chicago-based Tribune Co., was taken private in an $8.2 billion...

Los Angeles Times editor James O'Shea was fired just 14 months after he assumed the post, over a budgetary disagreement with publisher David Hiller, according to a person familiar with the situation. Mr. O'Shea's exit comes little more than a month after the Times' parent company Tribune Co. was taken private in a $8.2 billion buyout. Chicago real estate magnate Sam Zell won effective control in the buyout and became chairman and CEO of Tribune. The Chicago-based company owns several newspapers, including the LA Times, the Chicago Tribune and Newsday, as well as a chain of TV stations. A Tribune...

Ten days after a Golf Channel anchor was suspended for her use of "lynch" in commentary on Tiger Woods, an editor was fired Friday for illustrating the controversy with a noose on the cover of Golfweek magazine.

Golfweek magazine replaced the editor responsible for illustrating the current cover with a noose and apologized Friday for its depiction of a Golf Channel anchor's use of "lynch" in a comment about Tiger Woods. "We apologize for creating this graphic cover that received extreme negative reaction from consumers, subscribers and advertisers across the country," Turnstile Publishing Co. president William P. Kupper Jr. said. "We were trying to convey the controversial issues with a strong and provocative graphic image. It is now obvious that the overall reaction to our cover deeply offended many people. For that, we are deeply apologetic." Turnstile...