Free Republic

As parting shots go, it packed quite a punch. But then it had been coming for some time. In an open letter announcing his resignation from Portland State University in Oregon, assistant philosophy professor Peter Boghossian condemned his former employer as a “social justice factory, whose only inputs were race, gender and victimhood and whose only outputs were grievance and division”. What had once been a bastion of free inquiry was gripped by “a culture of offense where students are too afraid to speak openly and honestly”. His broadside echoed right across the United States. […] Today, most US universities...

When a group of three people set about demonstrating the problems with so-called “grievance studies” in academia they did so by creating spoof papers designed to embarrass the reviewers at leading journals. As I described last October when the story broke, they were very successful. Seven of the 20 bogus papers they wrote were accepted for publication by various journals. More would have been accepted if the group’s plan hadn’t come to light before they had time to complete the work. Of the three people involved in the hoax, only one had a university position at the time it was...

It’s not unusual for an uproar to erupt on college campuses when a conservative such as Ben Shapiro wants to make an appearance. But a bitter brouhaha over a Silicon Valley techie? That’s what’s happening at Portland State University after a student group invited former Google engineer James Damore to speak on campus about diversity. Damore had the spotlight shine on him after he got fired over a 10-page Google memo he wrote criticizing the company’s internal gender diversity policies and accusing the tech giant of “alienating conservatives.” {snip} Campus activists have called the students organizing Damore's event "misogynists," "white...

Two weeks in and it’s already ancient news that 120 people, including several Portland State students, were arrested during a demonstration in downtown Portland on Nov. 12. The myriad of ongoing demonstrations have included blocked freeways, a shooting on the Morrison Bridge, disruption caused by violent factions—and subsequent fundraising efforts to repair property damage—and the ongoing drama of post-election rumors of fraud and recount petitions. It is easy to lose sight of those individually affected by current events. Daniel Vega, a senior at PSU studying music composition and completing his Bachelor of Music degree, was among those arrested on Nov....

This week, students at Portland State University decided to take a break from whatever studies they have and make fools of themselves. They staged a “die-in” to protest the fact that police carry guns. That’s right. They want officers unarmed. “So, I do believe I have mentioned the die-in before—what that entails is a lot of us who are abused so to say…we’re going to be laying down in the street outside so [the president] can see us so he knows what the Board of Trustees does to us, which is it kills us,” one protester explained. The video...

These are the sorts of folks I’m talking about when I say that the “hipster fascists” are the enemy of an open sourced society. Of course it is probably fair to say that not one person in this meeting room would identify themselves as a “fascist.” In fact as this was a gathering of American socialists they would likely jump up and down swearing that they weren’t fascists and that in fact they fought fascism and everything fascism stands for. — Well clearly, just watch their open minds at work in the video. It has been my experience that many...

New for the 2012 spring term at Portland State University is a course called “Revolutionary Marxism: Theory and Practice”, where students will learn the fundamentals of Marxism and enacting revolution. The primary textbook will be “The Meaning of Marxism”, by Paul D’Amato...

No, this is not about the Rev. Louis Farrakhan and his march in D.C. Instead, it’s about an article today (15 October) in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer entitled, “ 'Slave syndrome' may still affect black behavior.” The thesis of the professor appears in the early paragraphs: “The troubling images of African Americans displaced by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans' impoverished neighborhoods didn't startle researcher Joy DeGruy-Leary. ‘All Katrina did was reveal what was already there. I wasn't confused, wasn't surprised,’ she said.... “DeGruy-Leary, an assistant professor in Portland State University's Graduate School of Social Work, will discuss her theory of the...