Free Republic

When I first heard about Columbia University’s “segregated graduations,” I immediately thought it was just one more example of the woke segregation too often championed by proponents of Marxist critical race theory. After all, black students at New York University recently demanded segregated housing — although the university didn’t agree. Separate graduations for different identity groups seems horrifyingly plausible these days. On further investigation, however, I found that the story wasn’t quite the outrage I thought it was. Columbia University had simply used unclear language that left the wrong impression about its graduation events. Fox News reported that Columbia University’s...

Vice-President Mike Pence was scheduled to speak at a commencement address at Wisconsin Lutheran College in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Saturday. Thursday those plans were canceled when Pence was dropped as the speaker after “careful consideration of the escalating events in Kenosha.”Wisconsin Lutheran College is an independent private Christian college. It’s a small school with a student population of just over 1200. The commencement isn’t on campus, it is at Franklin Field in Franklin. A substitute speaker, Rev. Mark Jeske of St. Marcus Lutheran Church, has been named. The excuse given for the disinviting Pence is the violent chaos in...

United States Military Academy West Point, New York 10:48 A.M. EDT  THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you, General, and hello cadets.  On behalf of our entire nation, let me say congratulations to the incredible West Point Class of 2020.  Congratulations.  Everyone have a good time, enjoy yourselves, because we are here to celebrate your achievements, and great achievements they are.  Let us also recognize your remarkable Superintendent, General Darryl Williams, for his outstanding stewardship.  General, thank you very much.  Great job.  Thank you.  (Applause.)Few words in the English language and few places in history have commanded as much awe and admiration...

WICHITA, Kan. -- Donors are pushing Kansas' higher education board to fire Wichita State University's president after he canceled a virtual speech by Ivanka Trump for its technical school's graduation. The Kansas Board of Regents scheduled a special meeting Wednesday to discuss what it called “personnel matters.” Its staff did not say more, but the meeting comes only two days after a former board member from Wichita said the regents should ask for President Jay Golden's resignation. Golden canceled Trump's speech after students and faculty protested. Students staged an impromptu rally Wednesday to support him. Steve Clark, the former regent...

The 2020 graduating class faces challenges unlike any class before it. Uncertainty looms at every turn: job prospects, social interactions, and many other aspects of “normal life” once taken for granted. So what lessons can be learned from this unparalleled situation? Dennis Prager offers three.

In 2020 many memes pay homage to the high school and college seniors who were supposed to have a commencement and walk up in robes and square hats to receive diplomas. That is how civilized societies reward teenagers and young adults for wrapping up four years of general education. But the coronavirus changes everything, in the way money behaves in the Cyndi Lauper song “Money Changes Everything.” I wish I could be like the millions of people who can turn out a fulsome praise to make everyone feel warm and fuzzy. Instead, I’d like to pay honor to the class...

CLERMONT COUNTY, Ohio (FOX19) - A local drive-in movie theater is helping high-school seniors have a memorable moment despite limitations imposed due to the coronavirus. Starlite Drive-In in Amelia could have as many as 20 graduations in the next couple of months, according to the venue’s owners. "I saw all these kids, even kids that worked at the drive-in, aren't going to have a graduation this year and I thought that maybe some schools were having that same problem and this would be a good solution," said Jeff Groner, who owns the theater with his parents. According to Groner, the...

In the 1990s, only 40 percent of students who entered a four-year state college graduated within the next six years. In the 2000s, that six-year graduation rate increased—to 50 percent. But during that timeframe more poorly prepared students also entered college, so one would expect a drop in graduation rates, not the opposite.So why did the opposite happen? A new study from Brown University, reported recently in The Atlantic, examines that question and concludes the most likely reason is that colleges have lowered their standards even further.While student achievement over this timeframe decreased, as measured by math test scores,...

President Donald Trump will deliver the Air Force Academy’s graduation speech on May 30, the White House confirmed Thursday. Trump bumped expected speaker Vice President Mike Pence from the podium for the ceremony in Falcon Stadium, where about 1,000 seniors will pin on the rank of 2nd lieutenant. It will be Trump’s first stop in Colorado Springs since his visit during the 2016 presidential campaign. **SNIP** Trump’s remarks haven’t been written, but addressing his push for a separate Space Force is a safe bet. Colorado Springs is home to the bulk of the military’s space troops and is in the...

Pearls of wisdom for the speechmakers of graduation season, 2019… Congratulations, Commencement Speakers! Today is your day! After a lifetime of devotion to your respective careers – as journalists, entrepreneurs, inventors, CEOs, ward heelers, or rent seekers – you have finally reached that pinnacle of achievement reserved for only 4600 people each year: you have been selected to give a commencement speech at one of America’s institutions of higher learning. You have finally made it. As you feverishly scribble your notes over the days to come, preparing for that moment of success, that twenty or thirty, or Heaven forbid, forty-minute...

‘Tis the season of commencement addresses. You know, those lengthy, vapid, and self-important speeches that conclude the collegiate experience. The vast majority of graduation speakers are leftists and Democrats, predictably extolling diversity, globalism, identity politics, gender empowerment and – of course – climate change. Most graduates hungover and bored, absorb the platitudes. After the speech, a degree in hand, the indoctrination is complete. I won’t attempt to give you my own commencement address here (you’ll have to watch Sunday’s “Fox & Friends” when I give the first-ever “Fox & Friends” Commencement Address – tune in!). Instead, I simply want to...

Hillary is scheduled to speak at a high school graduation Saturday May 25th Lock her up!!!!! Saturday, May 25, 2019 at 1 PM Hot Springs Convention Center 134 Convention Blvd, Hot Springs, Arkansas 71901 An opportunity to let Hillary Clinton know how Arkansans feel about her getting away from an FBI investigation (time is subject to change awaiting further press release) facebook event you can RSVP, like, share, & comment on Lock Her Up!__________________________________ Citizens For the American Agenda Planning Meeting Tuesday at 6 PM – 7 PM Garland County Library 1427 Malvern Ave. Hot Springs, AR 71901 Please join...

MARSHALL, Mich. — A high school principal in southern Michigan has apologized to two graduates whom he had chastised for wearing their Marine dress uniforms during commencement. Marshall High School Principal Scott Hutchins apologized Monday for his comments regarding the two students' decision not to wear their caps and gowns on June 3, the Battle Creek Enquirer reported. School officials had told the two students ahead of commencement that exceptions wouldn't be made to a policy requiring graduates to wear a cap and gown, Superintendent Randy Davis said. Hutchins pulled aside Pfc. Willie Couch and Pfc. Samuel Hackworth at the...

President Trump traveled from the White House to Annapolis, Maryland Friday morning to give the commenement address for the 2018 U.S. Naval Academy graduating class. "You are now leaders in the most powerful and righteous force on the face of the planet: the United States military," President Trump said to a stadium filled with 30,000 people. "Each of you will make your own mark on the Navy, the Marine Corps, the military, and the history of our great nation...There is no hill our Marines our can’t take and there is no stronghold the SEALs can’t breach. There is no...

GREENVILLE, S.C. – A $1,030 fine for cheering at a graduation ceremony? An administrator at a South Carolina school warned students and parents about the possibility, according to the Greenville News. The newspaper reported that a slide shown at a school assembly said the following: Since graduation is a dignified and solemn occasion, graduating seniors and their guests should behave appropriately. Please ask your guests not to call out, cheer, whistle, or applaud during the reading of names and presentation of diplomas. The citation for family members yelling out is $1,030.

Well, that’s exactly what happened in Malibu at Pepperdine University’s graduation yesterday when a group of Pelicans decided that maybe some of the students weren’t quite ready to graduate and decided to attack them and let their opinion be heard! But thankfully, the graduation security detail (it’s California) couldn’t find the pelican family on the guest list and promptly surrounded them before realizing they had no idea how to actually kick them out… See, this is why I’m glad that it’s hot enough in Tennessee to where we have the common sense to have most of our graduations indoors, away...

Fewer high school seniors in the District are expected to receive a diploma in June than the year before, a sharp reversal for a school system that had celebrated a 20-point increase in its graduate rate since 2011. Data released Thursday by D.C. Public Schools show that 42 percent of seniors attending traditional public schools are on track to graduate, while 19 percent are considered “moderately off-track,” meaning they could still earn enough credits to earn a diploma. The likely drop in the graduation rate is the latest fallout from an investigation that cast doubt on the validity of diplomas...

Beginning in 2020, Chicago high-school seniors will have to prove that they have a government-approved post-graduation plan in order to earn their diplomas. Yep. Rather than allow its young people the freedom to approach their futures creatively, Chicago will force its students to choose from one of just five government-approved options: College attendance (note: verbal vows of attendance are not enough, students will need to present actual acceptance letters), a gap-year program, military service, a trade apprenticeship, or a job. According to Reason, the official description of the demand claims that the city is trying to raise $1 million...

FULL TITLE: Teen Kicked out Graduation for Only Pants He Can Afford. Three Minutes Until Start, Sees Stranger Outside Leroy Solis Jr. walked across the stage at the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio, Texas to receive his high school diploma. He looked like many of the young men graduating from MacArthur High School that day. He wore a blue cap and gown along with dress pants, a dress shirt, and a tie. Solis Jr. did not stand out from the crowd of graduates. However, the reason he was actually able to walk across the stage during graduation stands out as...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Looking out over a sea of people in Harvard Yard last week, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive and one of Harvard’s most famous dropouts, told this year’s graduating class that it was living in an unstable time, when the defining struggle was “against the forces of authoritarianism, isolationism and nationalism.” Two days earlier, another end-of-year ceremony had taken place, just a short walk away on a field outside the law school library. It was Harvard’s first commencement for black graduate students, and many of the speakers talked about a different, more personal kind of struggle, the struggle...