Free Republic

The University of Southern California (USC) has canceled its main graduation ceremony due to apparent security concerns after anti-Israel protesters tried to encamp and were removed by Los Angeles Police Department this week. As Breitbart News reported, anti-Israel protesters had tried to occupy the campus, as demonstrators have done at other universities in an apparently well-coordinated and well-funded campaign. In addition, USC canceled the speech of its valedictorian after she was found to have supported the annihilation of the State of Israel in online posts.

Michael Cohen called former President Trump’s complaints about potentially missing his son’s high school graduation due to his presence at the New York criminal hush money trial “comical.” “I find it not just comical, right but I find it I find it insulting that that’s the big issue,” Cohen said on the MeidasTouch “Political Beatdown” podcast, noting that he had to miss major life events while he was serving time in prison. Trump has taken aim at Judge Juan Merchan in recent days, suggesting that the New York judge might not allow him to attend his son Barron’s high school...

A Muslim University of Southern California (USC) valedictorian has been barred from giving a speech at the school's graduation ceremony following a series of social media posts she allegedly made about Israel. A spokesperson for the college directed Fox News Digital to information posted on the provost office website, which announced that Asna Tabassum will not deliver her speech at the ceremony that draws 65,000 people to the University Park Campus. "While this is disappointing, tradition must give way to safety. This decision is not only necessary to maintain the safety of our campus and students but is consistent with...

New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan has yet to say that former President Donald Trump can attend his son Barron Trump’s high school graduation, refusing to rule on the former president’s request to not attend the trial that specific day for that event. Monday was the start of the criminal trial at the hands of Democrat Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who charged Trump with 34 felonies, accusing him of falsifying business records in relation to payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels. As Breitbart News pointed out, Trump is not being accused of “covering up a sex scandal.”...

A Colorado-based legal group filed a civil rights complaint against the University of California Berkeley (Berkeley) over holding a segregated graduation ceremony in May.The Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF) filed an administrative complaint with the Department of Education Monday, alleging the university violated the Civil Rights Act.In May, Berkeley continued its decades-long tradition of holding a separate “Black Graduation” ceremony for African Americans. In a statement to a local Fox affiliate, the university defended the ceremony as part of the institution’s commitment to “diversity, equity, and inclusion and belonging among all members of our community.”“As such, Berkeley’s Black Graduation serves...

Multiple people were injured in a shooting Tuesday near Virginia Commonwealth University following a high school graduation ceremony. VCU police said the shooting occurred around 5:13 p.m. in the area of Monroe Park, near the campus' Altria Theater after a graduation ceremony for Huguenot High School. Richmond police said seven people were injured, including three with life-threatening injuries. Four other people were treated for injuries other than gunshot wounds.

KELLOGG –– A student at Kellogg High School isn’t being allowed to participate in his graduation ceremony as a result of comments that were made during a recent assembly. The assembly was a way for senior students to impart words of wisdom to the underclassmen of KHS – the statement that was made by 18-year-old Travis Lohr was one that raised a few eyebrows. “Guys are guys and girls are girls,” Lohr said. “There is no in-between.” After the assembly, Lohr was informed that he wasn’t going to be allowed to walk in KHS’s graduation ceremony this Saturday. Lohr is...

The University of California-Berkeley’s African American Studies Department announced it would be hosting its annual "Black Graduation" ceremony for students on May 19 in a virtual format. “The Department of African American Studies plans on hosting our annual Black Graduation ceremony, which is open to all majors and degree programs across the campus,” read the announcement. The separate ceremony for African American students appears to have started as an annual event at the public university in 2013. The graduation ceremony is separate from the main graduation ceremony, which will be held virtually on May 15. Megan Wang, a sophomore at...

Kansas universities may soon dispense with their algebra graduation requirement because too many students fail the courses.NPR Kansas recently reported: “About one in three Kansas students fails college algebra the first time around. Some take it several times before they pass. Others get so frustrated that they drop out altogether. And that cuts into university graduation rates.” NPR added that this prompted the Kansas Board of Regents to consider alternative requirements under what’s called “Math Pathways program.”Regent Wint Winter (yes, that's his name) said the new Pathways program is critical as a way to fight declining enrollment.He stated: “It’s incumbent...

A university in Mexico has initiated proceedings against a recent psychology graduate after a group of professors expressed concerns over his graduation speech defending the family and the sanctity of life, which might cost him his license to practice. The Autonomous University of Baja California received complaints against the student, Christian Cortez Pérez, and has started formal proceedings to ban him from practicing psychology, human rights group ADF International said Friday. As the top of his class at the university’s School of Medicine and Psychology, Pérez earned the right to deliver the commencement address at his graduation ceremony on June...

The mass shooting in Buffalo, New York will dominate the news cycle a bit more. The bad economic news is just too much to ignore. Americans can and do have the ability to be horrified by this tragedy, but also worry about how they’re going to pay the bills. For mothers, the lack of baby formula has become a more pressing concern. Domestic crises will drown out the Left’s call for more gun control and the silly narrative about the existential threat we face from white nationalists. No one cares because they know the threat isn’t real. This was done...

On Tuesday, Georgia’s voters will vote in their state’s primary contests, and on the GOP side, NFL legend Herschel Walker still seems to be a solid favorite in the polls to be the Senate nominee. Predictably, the media has been lining up stories to undermine Walker’s chances for a seat in the upper chamber. And to be fair, Walker has made it fairly easy for them to hit him because of a series of rookie mistakes. The latest target selected by the Associated Press is his long relationship with a group named Patriot Support. Walker has brought up his role...

The priority deadline for Texas students to complete the Free Federal Application for Student Aid (FAFSA) is on January 15. Texas high school students are required to submit that application to graduate... “It was a great struggle filling out the FAFSA,” Martinez said. Millions of students face the same struggle of filling out the FAFSA. Some say that the application is too complicated for some. Congressman Doggett has been working for years to make it simple.

Education has absolutely changed.One component of conversion: the value of being educated.Not many decades past, a high school diploma was considered academic achievement enough.College was reserved for elites and those seeking special skills.But these days, even secretaries have Bachelor’s degrees.From the looks of things, we’re a more educated society.But what if somewhere along the way, school became a suitable place for slackers?Apropos of such a scenario, a research team comprised of folks from a scholastic trio — Brigham Young University, Stanford University, and Purdue University — found that contemporary graduation rates may be bolstered by (Trigger Warning) “grade inflation.”Prior to...

Newsom still hasn't put his bill signing pen down. After more than five years of intense scrutiny and effort, California on Friday became the first state to make ethnic studies a required class for high school graduation to help students understand the past and present struggles and contributions of Black, Asian, Latino, Native/Indigenous Americans and other groups that have experienced racism and marginalization in America. Although critics from across the political spectrum remain, the bill garnered overwhelming support in the Legislature and was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who had vetoed a nearly identical measure last year. At...

The basic path to financial success in this country has been revealed once again by the Census Bureau's annual report on income and poverty, which was released this week. What did it show? People who graduate from college, get a job, get married and have children generally earn more money than those who do not. People who drop out of high school, do not work and have children out of wedlock generally earn less and are more likely to be in poverty. One may have suspected this was the case simply by looking at the society around us. But the...

A school board member gave a graduation speech in which she told a mainly-immigrant class of high schoolers that they were entering a world filled with “racism, extreme versions of individualism and capitalism, [and] white supremacy,” and encouraged them to remember their “jihad” and reject the concepts of objectivity and neutrality. Fairfax County school board member Abrar Omeish gave the keynote address at the commencement for Justice High School in Falls Church, Virginia on June 7. The ceremony began with a ceremony in which JROTC military cadets were the only people at the graduation who wore masks. The class president...

A high school in Michigan has reversed course after initially telling a graduating senior that references to her Christian beliefs were "not appropriate" for her upcoming valedictory speech, her lawyers say. After receiving a demand letter from the First Liberty Institute, officials at Hillsdale High School relented after pressuring student Elizabeth Turner to alter the valedictory speech for her June 6 graduation ceremony. "I’m grateful I will be able to share my faith with my classmates, and I pray that God uses this situation to advance His kingdom," Turner said in a statement Thursday shared by First Liberty Institute, a...

No one can take Jerry Falwell Jr.’s liberty away. Even though Liberty University, where he was president for 13 years, recently sued him and forbid employees from talking to him, Falwell popped up onstage at a student event Thursday night and invited them to his nearby 500-acre farm for “the real Liberty graduation,” several news outlets reported. “I just want to invite all the seniors to my farm on May 8. We’re going to have the real Liberty graduation,” Falwell told the roughly 200 students at the stand-up comedy event at an off-campus house, according to a video seen by...

Curiously described as ‘multicultural’ You may have heard of college graduation ceremonies reserved for blacks, Latinos or gays in these increasingly segregated times. But how about six graduation ceremonies segregated by race, sexuality and income level – at one university? Columbia University is offering virtual ceremonies for Native American, “LGBTQIA+,” Asian, “Latinx,” black, and “First-generation and/or low income” students over the last week of April, described as “Multicultural Graduation Ceremonies.” They cover graduates of Columbia College, Columbia Engineering, General Studies and Barnard College, its sibling women’s college. Students must register by March 21 to get their “multicultural graduation gift,” such...