Free Republic

Marcus A. Winters says we should “send more students to college.” He is responding, in part, to my NR piece making the opposite case. My argument is that when 40 percent of college students fail to graduate in six years, and when about a quarter of employed college graduates have jobs that don’t require degrees, it’s obvious we’re pushing too many kids into higher education. Winters essentially (though not explicitly) concedes that now is not the time to ship more kids off to postsecondary institutions. He notes Charles Murray’s documentation of the fact that lots of today’s high-school graduates are...

FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU Arab prof: 'Blowing oneself up' OK in Tel Aviv But asserts suicide bombings against Saudis not legitimate Posted: October 26, 2009 10:16 pm Eastern By Aaron Klein © 2009 WorldNetDaily JERUSALEM – Suicide bombings are OK in Tel Aviv, Israel, but not in Saudi Arabia, declared a Saudi professor speaking on Arab satellite television. "Someone who blows himself up amidst the enemy is different from someone who blows himself up in a safe place. Blowing oneself up in Tel Aviv is not like blowing oneself up in Riyadh," stated Saudi University professor Salman Al-Abdali on Iqra...

Beginning three paragraphs so you can get the idea of the article: The Congressional Budget Office has blown a hole in what could be considered the Republicans only recurring talking point in the health care debate. Placing limits on medical malpractice lawsuits has been the GOP’s primary explanation for rising health care costs for a decade. The effects of malpractice suits, however, appear to be negligible. Last week, the CBO director told Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a package of typical proposals to limit malpractice awards would reduce the national health care cost by about 0.5 percent. The office cites a...

Recent events at the University of Notre Dame are creating a great deal of moral confusion. Ever since the university decided to honor our pro-abortion president at its commencement ceremony earlier this year, it seems the institution is on a direct collision course with its long-standing Catholic identity. URGENT petition to Notre Dame: Please drop the chargesFor example: Notre Dame funded a student trip to the National Equality March in Washington, D.C, held on October 11. The pro-homosexual march demanded same-sex “marriage” and the abolition of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Notre Dame’s Gender Relations Center announces troubling activities...

A recent survey of college professors by the Chronicle of Higher Education found that nearly 90% thought that the students they teach were not very well prepared in reading, doing research and academic writing by their high schools. At the same time, many college admissions officers ask students for 500-word "personal statements," which have become known as "college essays," and many high school English department spend a lot of their writing instruction on this sort of effort. History departments and English departments are assigning fewer and fewer term papers, so it is not surprising that lots of students are arriving...

Conservative warrior David Horowitz was scheduled to speak at St. Louis University this month. But he won’t be. University officials canceled his speech because of its title: “Islamo-Fascism Awareness and Civil Rights.” Horowitz commented: “I have spoken at 400 universities. This is the first time my speech has been censored and stopped by an administration. And they are supposed to be the guardians of intellectual discourse.” Cary Nelson, the president of the American Association of University Professors, said that with this cancellation, St. Louis University “joins the small group of campuses that are universities in name only…. The free exchange...

In full public view a drunken young man urinates over a city centre war memorial, soaking wreaths of poppies laid as a tribute to the dead. It's a shocking scene that will appal any person, even in a country where binge-drinking has become an accepted pastime for so many. In full public view a drunken young man urinates over a city centre war memorial, soaking wreaths of poppies laid as a tribute to the dead. It's a shocking scene that will appal any person, even in a country where binge-drinking has become an accepted pastime for so many.

There are a lot of false urban legends promoted in academia about intelligent design (ID). They often start with myths promoted by misinformed critiques in scientific journals, court rulings, or even talks by activists at scientific conferences. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for this misinformation to then be passed down to college students, who may know very little about ID and lack the resources to correct their professors’ misinformed and misplaced attacks on ID. Not anymore. If you’re a college student, recently gone back to school and expecting to hear a lot of anti-ID views from your professors, we’re pleased to...

The American university is the anti-Disneyland, the saddest place on Earth. Today's colleges can make MSNBC seem fair and balanced and give the term "clinical depression" a sunny and joyful flavor. It's no wonder so many prominent liberal intellectuals are angry, begrudging, and gloomy. They imbibe four to ten years of it during their college studies. And their brethren in the media give them a consistent platform for their gloom. A few years ago, the Washington Post discovered that over 72 percent of college professors classify themselves as liberal. The study showed that the most left-leaning departments are in the...

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — Four men were arrested and a fifth is being sought in connection with the campus gang rape of an 18-year-old female Hofstra University student. The four suspects — only one of whom is a student at the school — were arrested on Long Island, N.Y., on Monday; a fifth is still at large. ... Police say 19-year-old Jesus Ortiz and 21-year-old Rondell Bedward, both of the Bronx, were arraigned on rape charges Monday. The other two, 19-year-old Stalin Felipe, of the Bronx, and 20-year-old Kevin Taveras, of Brentwood, are to be arraigned Tuesday in Hempstead. Police didn't...

William Ayers will appear at Purdue University on September 24th as a panelist about urban schools as part of the first annual Cummings-Perrucci Annual Lecture on Race, Class, and Gender Equality. Ayers will hit the campus in West Lafayette, Indiana, according to a story in today’s Lafayette Journal & Courier under the curious headline “Ex-radical to attend forum at Purdue.” Ex-radical? According to the story, some groups are already organizing protests against Ayers and the university. Political Science professor Harry Targ – who was singled out in David Horowitz’s book as one of America’s most dangerous academics – takes his...

So, I posted up some of those RIP-The US Constitution signs around UW-Milwaukee, and I will see how long they remain up. Also, I asked around campus and showed students the sign. Most thought the statement was controversial. Also, I learned that the UWM Student Association president is a member of Students for a Democratic (Communist) Society. He has been accused of trying to rewrite the UWM student constitution. The conservatives on this campus have got to change this. Link to story

During an economic slowdown, prices usually fall. But there’s just one sector of the economy that’s bizarrely insulated from reality: Academia. Tuition, room and board at Sarah Lawrence College just hit $53,166 per year. That’s like buying a C-Class Mercedes every year — without the car. Other colleges are comparable, with even state school tuition rising to levels some parents find impossible. We figure it’s worth it. Universities offer students not just a degree that’s valued in the marketplace, but a chance to broaden their interests and deepen their souls; to gain a solid grounding in the fundamentals that made...

(IsraelNN.com) A Palestinian Authority university lecturer was the latest PA academic to rewrite history and deny Jewish history in Jerusalem, which was the Jewish capital for a full 1,600 years before Muhammad authored the Muslim Koran. The lecturer denied the Jewish people's connection to the Western Wall of the Jewish Temple.

Parents will be forbidden from receiving and accessing their dependent child's grades at colleges and universities - even when they pay for the entire cost of the child's education. Just pay up and don't ask questions

Bill Clinton: Make college campuses greener August 13, 2009 7:51 PM | No Comments Former President Bill Clinton spoke about the environment today in Chicago, offering his reputation, his folksy wit and his foundation's Rolodex to university and college presidents seeking green technologies to retrofit their campuses. Former President Bill Clinton speaks at the American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment Summit at the Palmer House Hilton today (Tribune / Abel Uribe) Clinton spoke to the American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment, some 250 university presidents and top managers looking to green up their campuses, train students for a...

The Catholic students of Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, Calif., are the "most religious" among students from the nation’s top schools, according to The Princeton Review’s latest college ratings. The students of Bennington College in Bennington, Vt., meanwhile, are the least, revealed the recently published findings. Based on a survey of 122,000 students at 371 of the “best” colleges in the country, the new lists report the top 20 colleges in 62 categories ranging from those related to academics and demographics to those related to politics and the quality of life. Among the most notable are “Most Conservative Students,”...

STATE COLLEGE, Pennsylvania — Penn State University is now the No. 1 U.S. party school. The school known partly for its football tailgate weekends and fraternity and sorority scene snatched the title away from the University of Florida in the 2009 Princeton Review survey of 122,000 students nationwide. Florida, last year's winner, finished second in the annual survey released Monday. It's the first time Penn State has finished first in the dubious category. The school has been on the list the last seven years and ranked third in 2008. The listing covers Penn State's main University Park campus in State...

“Nearly All My Professors Are Democrats. Isn’t That a Problem?” is the title of a wonderful opinion piece at the Christian Science Monitor by University of Oregon journalism student Dan Lawton. Lawton’s investigation into the liberally funded diversity program at the University of Oregon yielded some interesting results: “The University of Oregon (UO), where I study journalism, invested millions annually in a diversity program that explicitly included "political affiliation" as a component. Yet, out of the 111 registered Oregon voters in the departments of journalism, law, political science, economics, and sociology, there were only two registered Republicans.” When Lawton published...

“The full-time residential model of higher education is getting too expensive for a larger share of the American population.” Is it any wonder “more and more students are looking for lower-cost alternatives to attending college?” What does the future hold for higher education? ▪ White students will likely be outnumbered by minority students on college campuses. ▪ People will need to rely on more and more formalized education to advance their careers or change to new ones. ▪ It is estimated that ten years from now, the average cost for a 4 year public college in-state resident will be $31,949.28...

Zaytuna College – America’s first four-year, accredited Islamic college – is set to open in California, and the proposed school is already stirring controversy because of the two men leading the project: Sheikh Hamza Yusuf and Imam Zaid Shakir. While presenting themselves as “moderates” who have condemned terrorism, both men have a history of anti-American and pro-Islamist statements. One has railed against the “false gods” of democracy and the Bill of Rights. The other has called for the United States to be governed by Islamic law and defended Hamas. As Zaytuna readies to open its doors, it is worth examining...

Canada’s York University, celebrating its 50th anniversary, is allowing a pro-Arab group to stage a conference questioning Israel’s right to exist. University president Mamdouh Shoukri, a Muslim and a native of Egypt, defended the event as a matter of “academic freedom.”

As Nicole Marshall posed for photos on the eve of her commencement, someone joked, "Smile -- think of all the loans you took out for this!" She says she chose St. Michael's, a Catholic liberal arts college near Lake Champlain in Colchester, Vt., because it offered the biggest aid package, "but I'm still leaving with quite a bit of loans" -- about $20,000. Her debt is a little lighter than the national average for graduates of private, four-year schools who borrow: nearly $23,800 as of 2007, according to the College Board in New York. But if there's any time that...

Just when it looked like Columbia University might actually be striking an uncharacteristic blow for academic honesty comes word that the institution has caved in to pressure and awarded tenure to one of its most unsavory faculty members. The reportedly lucky recipient is Joseph Massad, associate professor at Columbia's Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Culture -- who has long been notorious for his obnoxious pronouncements on Israel (and Jews generally), as well as his bullying of students who dare to disagree with him. Word of Massad's tenure comes from As'ad AbuKhalil, a California professor who blogs under...

(CNSNews.com) – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will give the commencement speech at Johns Hopkins University on Thursday. That Pelosi, a liberal Democrat, is speaking at the school should come as no surprise as a new report shows that liberals dominate as speakers at the top colleges and universities in America while only five recognizable conservatives have been chosen as commencement speakers this year. One conservative was even dis-invited as a commencement speaker after his invitation to speak became public, according to the Young America’s Foundation (YAF), which released its report on Wednesday. “For the past 16 years--the time period...

Washington D.C., May 18, 2009 / 07:30 am (CNA).- Patricia McGuire, President of Trinity University in Washington D.C., accused pro-lifers protesting Obama's speech at Notre Dame of being "Catholic vigilantes" that are turning back the clock to pre-Vatican II times, when supposedly the Church had no respect for academic freedom. Speaking on Trinity's campus in Northeast Washington, McGuire devoted almost all of her speech to the controversy surrounding the decision of Fr. John Jenkins, President of Notre Dame, to honor President Barack Obama despite having the strongest pro-abortion record of any previous President. "A half-century of progress for Catholic higher...

www.catholicnewsagency.com Conference planned to help students ‘speak the truth’ on natural marriage San Diego, Calif., May 16, 2009 / 04:40 am (CNA).- A student conference on the importance of marriage and its defense is scheduled to take place this August in San Diego. It aims to bring together students and faculty who support natural marriage to help educate and motivate a new generation.The conference, titled “It takes a family to raise a village,” is co-sponsored by the Ruth Institute and the National Organization for Marriage. It will be held at the University of San Diego from August 6 to...

On Sunday, Barack Obama will give the commencement address at Notre Dame. He is also going to receive an honorary doctorate of laws. The Rev. John Jenkins, Notre Dame’s president and one of the first friends I made at the university, will present it to him. Three hundred thousand Catholics have signed petitions criticizing the university. Over $8 million in donations has been withheld in protest. Local bishop John D’Arcy is boycotting the commencement. Scores of other bishops have spoken out against honoring Obama, because the president has (in Bishop D’Arcy’s words) “reaffirmed, and has now placed in public policy,...

In an earlier post, one of my readers remained unconvinced that American Universities and Colleges have gone down the same path as much of Corporate America and, therefore, deserve the same scorn and nannyism from the Obama administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress - if one is to be consistent. But don't hold your breath. Most academics share the same statist philosophy as their soul mates in the Federal government and, thus, get a pass. . .

She first made national headlines when a hangman's noose was found dangling from her Columbia University office door. Now, Madonna Constantine, the controversial former Teachers College professor fired last year for plagiarism, is resurrecting the image with a $200 million lawsuit that charges her former employer with an "academic lynching." The strongly worded, 92-page claim -- which veers into spy-time territory with its allegations of coverups, evidence destruction and conspiratorial "schemes" -- was filed in Manhattan Supreme Court yesterday. A spokesman for Teachers College said the case was "totally without merit, and we intend to defend against it vigorously." Constantine's...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Kevin Roose managed to blend in during his single semester at Liberty University, attending lectures on the myth of evolution and the sin of homosexuality, and joining fellow students on a mission trip to evangelize partyers on spring break. Roose had transferred to the Virginia campus from Brown University in Providence, a famously liberal member of the Ivy League. His Liberty classmates knew about the switch, but he kept something more important hidden: He planned to write a book about his experience at the school founded by fundamentalist preacher Jerry Falwell. Each conversation about salvation or hand-wringing...

Georgetown is honoring Vice President Biden tomorrow. Biden is a Catholic that supports abortion rights. Washington DC - April 21, 2009 - Georgetown is honoring Vice President Joe Biden tomorrow at a Symposium Celebrating the 15th Anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Biden will receive the Legal Momentum Hero Award. Geoergetown’s decision to honor Biden, on the heels its acquiescence to the White House’s request to cover the IHS symbol at Gaston Hall last week when President Obama spoke, combined with the current imbroligio over President Obama’s scheduled commencement speech and honorary degree at Notre Dame, is...

" All the Church’s activities stem from her awareness that she is the bearer of a message which has its origin in God himself: in his goodness and wisdom, God chose to reveal himself and to make known the hidden purpose of his will. God’s desire to make himself known, and the innate desire of all human beings to know the truth, provide the context for human inquiry into the meaning of life. This unique encounter is sustained within our Christian community: the one who seeks the truth becomes the one who lives by faith. "...A university or school’s Catholic...

DES MOINES, Iowa – A mystery is unfolding in the world of college fundraising: During the past few weeks, at least nine universities have received gifts totaling more than $45 million, and the schools had to promise not to try to find out the giver's identity. One school went so far as to check with the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security just to make sure a $1.5 million gift didn't come from illegal sources.

BLACKSBURG -- They were: The apple of a parent's eye. A collector of friends. Brilliant. Warm. They dreamed. Volunteered. Had smiles that made others smile. They were 32 people who Virginia Tech paused yesterday to remember and to honor, on the second anniversary of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. Under a cloudless sky, 3,000 gathered: families, friends, faculty -- the community of Virginia Tech -- to reflect on those who died.

University President Dan Mote defended his decision to overrule the University Senate and reinstate a prayer at commencement, saying the university needs to be building, rather than abandoning, traditions. "There needs to be a strong force to walk away from tradition," Mote said, explaining his stance publicly for the first time. "I didn't feel the strength." For the first time since assuming the presidency in 1998, Mote went against a senate decision, citing what he said was unconvincing support throughout the campus. The university's most powerful legislative and advisory body had recommended eliminating the two-minute invocation at graduation in a...

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 14, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Amid a continuing firestorm of scandal caused by the University of Notre Dame's invitation of President Obama to speak and receive an honorary degree at graduation, Georgetown University will be hosting the President at 11:30 a.m. today for a speech on the economy, according to yesterday's White House press release.  The speech will take place in Gaston Hall, although only those with a ticket or RSVP may attend. Pro-life advocates decrying the President's virulently pro-abortion record are planning to gather at the entrance to Georgetown University at 37th and O Street to protest...

I hear it again and again, even from some pro-business conservatives: Hey, I have no sympathy for AIG and the automakers and the banks. When you take government money, you can expect the government to tell you what to do. Besides, some of these companies are wasteful, charge too much, and their salaries are too high. Well, if that's so, then why doesn't the government intervene to run our universities, which consume huge amounts of government money? Why don't President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress dictate marching orders to university presidents? Why not fire the bad ones? Why aren't...

Dramatic daylight terror raids on a university may have been linked to a plot to blow up a shopping centre or nightclub, police fear. Students at Liverpool John Moores University watched in shock yesterday as two men were hauled outside and forced to the ground by armed police.  Witnesses said the duo  -  students at the university's Business School  -  were wearing combat trousers and hiking jackets, and claimed there were rumours of 'a bomb' on the premises.  (edit) The raid was one of a series carried out simultaneously across the North-West in which 12 suspects believed to be...

How can we explain continued public support for Barack Obama's extremist spending plans, even though it is painfully obvious that his much-touted "remaking America" means mortgaging the financial future of young people with trillions of dollars in debt? Are the American people really willing to let the government be our nanny, manage our economy, federalize our schools, and decide which businesses can keep their doors open, what health care will be permitted, who will get new jobs and how extravagant will be the foreign handouts as Obama "rejoins the world community"? One answer to these questions may be what has...

DETROIT — School officials at Eastern Michigan University (EMU) dismissed a student from the school’s counseling program for not affirming homosexual behavior as morally acceptable. The school ousted Julea Ward from the program because she would not agree prior to a counseling session to affirm a client’s homosexual behavior and would not retract her stance in subsequent disciplinary proceedings. EMU requires students in its program to affirm or validate homosexual behavior within the context of a counseling relationship and prohibits students from advising clients that they can change their homosexual behavior. Ward has never addressed homosexual behavior in any form...

KUTZTOWN(Pennsylvania), March 31 - Kutztown University President Dr. F. Javier Cevallos announced today the institution will discontinue its varsity men's soccer and men's swimming programs, effective immediately. The decision is expected to save the university up to $150,000 long term. "The current economic situation has forced us to make some difficult decisions," Cevallos said. "Our first priority is always to protect the core academic component of the campus. I believe this decision allows us to honor that priority while maintaining our athletic integrity and competitiveness. This move is ultimately a proactive attempt to reduce costs in the current economy based...

AU and ACLU Say Funds for Religious Univ. Unconstitutional By Americans United - 2 Hours Ago The Supreme Court of Kentucky should strike down a $10 million state appropriation for a university affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Americans United has filed a friend-of-the-court brief along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky challenging tax funding of the University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg, Ky. “The Kentucky Constitution is clear on this matter,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “Tax money may not be used...

NASHVILLE, March 30 (UPI) -- Members of a youth group with followers on seven U.S. college campuses say their organization is focused on protecting Western civilization. Trevor Williams and Devin Saucier said they founded a Vanderbilt University chapter of the Youth for Western Culture in order to protect the Western world from corrupting influences and not to promote racism as some of the group's critics suggest, The (Nashville) Tennessean said Monday. "We're not racists," Saucier, a Vanderbilt sophomore like Williams, said.

Khaled Abu Toameh, that hard-charging, death-defying, muck-raking Palestinian journalist who ordinarily covers the territories for the Jerusalem Post has done it again. Khaled is famous among people who study the Mideast for covering events there in the real Old School tradition of "without fear or favor" and this time, in a blog post for the Hudson Institute think tank, he's turned his unflinching eye on U.S. campuses, which he has just seen close up during a long speaking tour. Given the long, tedious history of loony, ferociously anti-American, anti-capitalist, brutal-dictator-loving, Double-Think promulgating professors on American campuses, what he found is...

March 24, 2009 On Campus: The Pro-Palestinians' Real Agenda During a recent visit to several university campuses in the U.S., I discovered that there is more sympathy for Hamas there than there is in Ramallah. Listening to some students and professors on these campuses, for a moment I thought I was sitting opposite a Hamas spokesman or a would-be-suicide bomber. I was told, for instance, that Israel has no right to exist, that Israel’s “apartheid system” is worse than the one that existed in South Africa and that Operation Cast Lead was launched only because Hamas was beginning to show...

“Stryker” Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 112th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, and Iraqi policemen clear one of many fields surrounding the Baghdad University College of Agriculture in Abu Ghraib, March 21. Photo by Staff Sgt. Mark Burrell. BAGHDAD — On the first day of spring, Baghdad University College of Agriculture in Abu Ghraib needed some cleaning. Instead of brooms and dustpans, Iraqi Police and U.S. Soldiers used detection dogs, shovels and mine detectors to sweep for unexploded ordnance, improvised explosive devices and weapons caches March 21. In preparation for University Day, April 5, troops from...

NEW YORK: Four Indian students, including three girls, were killed and another was injured when an off-duty and apparently drunk policewoman crashed her car into their vehicle on a highway in Missouri. The five, all hailing from Andhra Pradesh and studying for their MS degrees in information technology in Eastern Illinois University, were returning home on a Honda Accord when the policewoman's SUV, speeding on the wrong lane, hit them head-on in Des Peres, authorities said. Four of the students — Anusha Anumolu (23), Satya S Chinta (25), Anita Lakshmi (23) and Priya Muppvarapu (23) — died on the spot...

http://www.lookingattheleft.com/2009/03/americans-are-not-little-eichmanns/ As Ward Churchill's lawsuit against the University of Colorado ends its second week, followers of Churchill gear up for a rally of support. El Marco takes a look at Churchill's supporters, and at the followers of Adolf Eichmann who attacked America on 9/11. Yes, there is a huge, unreported, Adolf Eichmann connection to Islamic terror groups.

Our institutes of "higher" learning are all about being inclusive. They are stridently for freedom of speech and stand 100% behind the concept of open political debate. Well, unless you're a Christian, that is. Christians, you see, are the only group that our fetid colleges and universities have agreed to discriminate against. Last week, another example of that well known "tolerance" our schools are so concerned with promulgating was seen in Pomona College in Claremont, California. There two Christian, pro-life students were banned from the Pamona campus. Their crime? Video taping a question-and-answer session with a Planned Parenthood representative invited...