Free Republic

Despite its international reputation for hacking up victims with machetes – sometimes brazenly leaving the bloodied, mangled corpses in the open – the street gang MS-13 slipped into Mendota relatively unnoticed.

I moved to California from New York City in 1976. The founder of what was then America's largest Jewish retreat center, the Brandeis Institute (not affiliated with the university), Dr. Shlomo Bardin, asked me to work as his assistant. He was 75 years-old; I was 25. One weekend the next year, he announced to the membership he wanted me to succeed him. To everyone's shock, he died that very week. It was then renamed the Brandeis-Bardin Institute. The institute was located in Simi Valley, California, then more a small town than even a small city. It had all of...

... When it comes to race, Ms. Mac Donald’s views are more conventionally conservative. She argues that minorities could overcome economic and educational disparities by embracing “bourgeois values.” She opposes all forms of affirmative action, and believes admissions and hiring should be based solely on aptitude tests and objective measures of performance. She even opposes the University of California’s guaranteed-admissions plan, which admits the top 9% of students from every California high school, regardless of the school’s overall performance. The mechanism is a covert way to reintroduce race into admissions, she says, in violation of Proposition 209, which prohibits race...

By the time a homeowner discovers a termite infestation, chances are that the destructive pests have already caused serious structural damage. So it is with “campus diversity officers,” a category of academic bureaucrat that didn’t even exist until fairly recently. Within a short period, diversity apparatchiks have taken root on most college campuses, and in many cases expanded into sprawling bureaucracies with multimillion-dollar budgets. Diversity departments have become a common campus amenity, like gourmet dorm food, climbing walls, and lazy rivers. Unlike lavish recreational facilities for students, which turn college campuses into an expensive Club U, administrative bureaucracies breed inertia....

Between July and September, the county identified nine cases of flea-borne typhus associated with downtown Los Angeles, and six of those cases were in people experiencing homelessness, according to the county. There are (now) 57 cases of flea-borne typhus in LA County, a health department spokesperson says. Typhus fever has reached "epidemic levels" in Pasadena and an outbreak has hit downtown LA. On Friday, one city in the county -- Pasadena -- reported epidemic levels of typhus fever. This year, 20 Pasadena residents have been confirmed to have typhus fever, up from the expected one to five cases per year,...

DOWNERS GROVE, IL - The Illinois Tollway, in partnership with Blick Art Materials and MB Real Estate (MBRE), is inviting high school art students to participate in the 2019 Tollway Map Cover Art Contest for a shot to land on the cover art of the official 2019 Illinois Tollway Map. Recognizing the Illinois Tollway's commitment to diversity, the theme for the 2019 contest calls on student artists to submit artwork that illustrates the importance of diversity and inclusion. Areas of focus for the 2019 Tollway Map Cover Art Contest may include, but are not limited to, the following themes: Diversity...

When Daniel Payne, a white junior at the University of Mississippi, saw that a major benefactor of the journalism school he attends had posted racially insensitive comments on social media, he immediately thought “it was going to be really, really bad.” The post on Facebook was written by Ed Meek, 77, a Mississippi graduate and media entrepreneur. In his post, Mr. Meek complained of deteriorating property values around the university campus and declining enrollment. He attached a photo of two young black students wearing party dresses, suggesting that they — or people who looked like them — were responsible for...

...is among parents protesting a West Hollywood school's lack of action over a student with a 'history of violence'..... ...The actor said that just this year so far, the second grader has 'brandished scissors' and 'beaten up and bloodied' 10 kids, while two classrooms had to be evacuated as a result of the student's actions. The bully allegedly previously tried to use a beanbag to suffocate another student.... ...A spokesperson from the Los Angeles Unified School District told DailyMail.com that the protest occurred across the street from the school and that the superintendent from the West Regional District spoke with...

In 1903, during America’s darkest period of hate, W. E. B. Du Bois heartbreakingly affirmed his intellectual affinity with Western civilization. “I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas,” Du Bois wrote in “The Souls of Black Folk.” “I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension.” Half a century earlier, Frederick Douglass had paid tribute to the 18th-century British orators whom, at age 12, he had discovered in a collection of political speeches. “Every opportunity...

On November 7, 2006, Michigan voters passed Proposition 2, a measure that banned the use of racial preferences throughout state government and state universities. The next day, University of Michigan president Mary Sue Coleman issued a defiant statement. In it she pledged to fight in the courts against the voters’ decision to have a color-blind state, declaring, “I will not stand by while the heart and soul of this great university is threatened. We are Michigan and we are diversity.” Really? It’s the “heart and soul” of a great university to prefer some people over others on account of race?...

A new academic year is upon us and, already, the world of Higher Education is being true to form.For example, the University of Maryland-College Park created a new “diversity” group intended to carve out a “safe space” for those white students who are interested in sharing their reflections on their encounters with “racial and ethnic minorities.” The school assigned to the group quite the catchy label: “White Awake.”According to Campus Reform, a watchdog site, this “support group” will assist white students who “sometimes feel uncomfortable and confused before, during, or after interactions with racial and ethnic minorities.”According to the...

A traffic warden is living in fear of reprisal after being savagely beaten "for doing his job." Charlie Weston was left lying helplessly on the floor as a group of men repeatedly stamped on his head after he approached a car to give it a ticket. The 21-year-old admits he feels "lucky to be alive" after the ordeal which happened in Birmingham and left his face splattered with blood. He had been inspecting cars in the road for 10 minutes when the incident unfolded. Charlie was kicked in the throat and had his head stamped on before his attackers allegedly...

The Florida gubernatorial race is being portrayed as a Trump vs Sanders proxy fight with a far left Bernie bro running for the Dems and a Trump-supported congressman for the Republicans. So it is necessary for the media to find what they can to destroy the latter. The Washington Post has certainly got the goods on the GOP's Ron DeSantis - because he made the mistake of attending a conference whose speakers included ...um, me: At the same conference, conservative author Mark Steyn praised Trump as the first politician to talk about immigration policy from the perspective of people already...

Our diversity is our greatest strength. After playing clips of Democratic politicians reciting that truth of modern liberalism, Tucker Carlson asked, "How, precisely, is diversity our strength? Since you've made this our new national motto, please be specific." Reaction to Carlson's question, with some declaring him a racist for having raised it, suggests that what we are dealing with here is not a demonstrable truth but a creed not subject to debate. Yet the question remains valid: Where is the scientific, historic or empirical evidence that the greater the racial, ethnic, cultural and religious diversity of a nation, the stronger...

Dear Senior US Military Leaders: You were born in the 1950’s and 1960’s and came of age in a US military wounded internally and psychologically from the effects of the Vietnam War, a war in which US military forces fought bravely and competently, but were betrayed by the country that sent them to Southeast Asia. Your mentors were all Vietnam veterans, who crawled out of the ashes and vowed to rebuild the military, in what was for many of them, a near holy crusade, a ‘hot blue flame’ that burned inside them every day on active duty. You had a...

Former Minneapolis cop's behavior before shooting death of Australian woman raised concerns, court filings say. (Full title). ... The former Minneapolis police officer charged in the shooting death of Justine Ruszczyk Damond once put a gun to a driver’s head during a traffic stop and sometimes ignored calls, according to court filings indicating that psychiatrists and training officers voiced concerns about his fitness for duty. The revelations surfaced after defense attorneys filed a motion Wednesday seeking to dismiss murder and manslaughter charges against Mohamed Noor, who is accused of shooting Damond in July 2017 after she dialed 911 to report...

The lies from Fort Benning just keep on comin’… In 2015, former Secretary of Defense Ash and Trash Carter desperately needed some proof; real or fraudulent, that women could hack it in the combat arms. The $36 million dollar, Marine Corps study couldn’t do that. It clearly showed in minute detail how all female and coed units were slaughtered by all male units in simulated combat. Enter Captain Griest and First Lieutenant Haver, who, along with several other females, were attending Ranger School down at Fort Benning, Georgia. The word quickly went out. There would be one or two Lady...

A Hispanic principal is systematically booting white, Jewish and older teachers from his Midtown high school, current and former staffers allege in lawsuits. “I think he hates us,’’ Peter Cohn, a former teacher at the HS of Art and Design, said of the school’s principal, Manuel Ureña. A Manhattan federal suit filed by teacher Todd Young claims Ureña, who is of Dominican heritage, initiated a mass faculty replacement at the school after being appointed principal in 2016. Young’s suit accuses Ureña of trumping up disciplinary and performance complaints against teachers to clear them out. “Since Principal Ureña has arrived at...

The study, published in the journal Leadership, suggests that the Republicans viewed Trump as strongly representing what they stand for creating party unity and success in the election. Hillary Clinton may have lost out to Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential elections because the Democrats were too willing to welcome others with differing views into their party, a study has found. The study, published in the journal Leadership, suggests that the Republicans viewed Trump as strongly representing what they stand for creating party unity and success in the election. However, Democrats' greater inclusiveness and willingness to integrate members of...

More companies are adopting a diversity and inclusion policy. This time the parent company of DC Entertainment, Warner Bros., and HBO, will employ a diversity and inclusion policy for people of color, LGBTQIA+, and other “marginalized” individuals. According to ICV2, the site is reporting that WarnerMedia will utilize the new diversity and inclusion policy for upcoming projects when it comes to hiring, creating stories, and giving a voice to “under-represented” groups. In the press statement it reads… ”[W]e all must ensure there is greater inclusion of women, people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, those with disabilities and other underrepresented groups...