Free Republic

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos' effort to ensure due process in cases alleging sexual assault on university campuses sparked immediate criticism from presidential candidate former Vice-President Joe Biden. The Secretary's action seeks to both strengthen Title IX protections for survivors of sexual misconduct and to restore due process in campus proceedings. "We want to have a system where students can have confidence that justice will prevail," DeVos said. "This includes justice for victims and for those wrongfully accused. For a long time, many universities discouraged women from coming forward to lodge complaints. In more recent years, many universities have implemented...

This will teach those Islamophobes that Islam is a religion of peace: a professor is facing death threats for suggesting otherwise. Nicholas Damask, Ph.D., has taught political science at Scottsdale Community College in Arizona for 24 years. But now he is facing a barrage of threats, and his family, including his 9-year-old grandson and 85-year-old parents, is in hiding, while College officials are demanding that he apologize – all for the crime of speaking the truth about the motivating ideology behind the threat of Islamic jihad worldwide. Damask, who has an MA in International Relations from American University in Washington,...

...Reflections on the anniversary of the closure of King’s College and the flight of its dean… On May 10, 1775, Dr. Myles Cooper was on top of the world. As President of King’s College in New York City for the previous dozen years, he was in the inner circle of British leadership in New York, responsible for the education of many of the finest students in the Americas, spokesman for loyalist thought in an age of rebellion. But by the morning of May 11, driven out of the college in the dead of night by an angry mob, he was...

When I accepted an administrative position at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, friends warned me that I would not fit in as a conservative. I dismissed their concerns as hyperbole, an instance of believing universities are more politicized than they actually are. After eight long months, however, I had to admit that they were right. The political atmosphere in the college bureaucracy does not tolerate political disagreement and is overwhelmingly left-leaning. Administrators keep large universities running and help students access the extra services for which they pay. University staff handle finances, work in human resources, or, in...

...Mark Shaffer’s suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeks reimbursement for tuition, room and board, and other fees he paid at GW, where a semester typically costs more than $25,000...The suit said Shaffer’s daughter, and other students affected by the campus closure, have been deprived of in-person office hours with professors, involvement in student clubs and access to laboratory equipment, an experience which they “did not bargain for.” The suit also accuses the university of engaging in breach of contract, unjust enrichment and conversion, or unlawfully keeping tuition, despite the shift to online classes.

Judge ruled that “risk of injury to persons” and “individual privacy rights and interests” prevailed over what the Gibsons alleged was collusion between the college and Cleveland media to “dox” Allyn D. Gibson...As part of that campaign seeking to impugn the Gibsons post-trial, Oberlin College sought to unseal the confidential Facebook records of Allyn D. Gibson, the store clerk whose stop of a black Oberlin College student for shoplifting sparked the protests, accusations of racial profiling, business cut-off, and eventually, lawsuit and jury trial. The student, along with two other students, later pleaded guilty to offenses related to the shoplifting.

Ohio University laid off three professors from the gender and race studies departments this week in response to financial burdens imposed by the Chinese virus pandemic. Ohio University also fired 140 unionized employees who worked in the university’s custodial, groundskeeping, and maintenance departments...The university has already been criticized for its decision to lay off faculty from the gender and race studies departments. Ohio University political science professor Kirstine Taylor wrote in a viral tweet that she was “heart-sick” over the university’s decision...

By now, most people who’ve attended a wealthy college—or those who tuned into the Democratic presidential debates—have likely heard or seen the word “Latinx.” The anglicized Spanish term is the latest attempt of gender activists to impose their perverse ideology on the rest of the culture—and on Spanish speakers in particular. What is so significant about adding the letter “x” to the word “Latino?” To activists, it solves a confounding problem: There is no “gender-neutral” way to refer to individuals in the Spanish language. Someone, for example, may be described as a “Latino” writer (if a man) or a “Latina”...

A newly introduced bill aims to force colleges and universities with endowments valued at $10 billion or more to spend some of their own money on coronavirus-related financial assistance for students before they accept federal aid. Introduced April 22 by Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, the bill has gained steam, picking up Republican cosponsors in recent days, including Tennessee’s Marsha Blackburn, Florida’s Marco Rubio and Arizona’s Martha McSally.

Humorless, intolerant leftist academics are a force to be reckoned with on many college campuses, and a new case at the University of North Texas (UNT) pushes the envelope. After earning his PhD in mathematics from Baylor University in spring 2019, Nathaniel Hiers found employment at UNT. He began teaching full-time as an adjunct faculty member in the fall semester—three sections of linear algebra and one of calculus. The mathematics department thought highly enough of Dr. Hiers that, in November, it notified him that he was invited to renew his contract for the coming semester. Hiers promptly emailed back to...

The results are in — most students are not impressed with distance learning. The College Fix recently asked 1,000 students: “How has the quality of your education changed because your college or university moved its courses online due to the coronavirus?” Fifty-four percent of students said it’s “somewhat worse,” and another 25 percent replied it’s “significantly worse,” for a total of 79 percent.

Since the Department of Education began cracking down on the failure to report riches from abroad, colleges across the country have become much more meticulous in their disclosure of assets from foreign funding, with some digging up records dating back to 2013. A D.C.-based nonprofit has found that U.S. schools previously failed to report $1 billion, based on its comparison of the new disclosures with last year’s, now revealed to be massively incomplete. Of that $1 billion, “About one-third came from countries known for their influence operations in America,” according to the Clarion Project, whose research challenges “Islamism, white supremacy,...

Many academic disciplines have gotten “woke” in recent years, especially in the humanities and social sciences. For the most part, this transformation has occurred in plain view as colleges created departments for (and offered degrees in) “Women’s and Gender Studies,” “Black Studies,” “LGBTQ Studies,” “Latino Studies,” and the rest of the intersectionality parade. One discipline, however, sports an innocent-sounding moniker—“Religious Studies.” Studying religion would seem to be immune to the current trends in higher education, focusing instead on theological concerns. That impression, however, is inaccurate. Religious studies—one of the most “woke” disciplines on America’s college campuses—is an ideological wolf in...

The nation's two biggest teachers unions say they would consider strikes or major protests if schools reopen without the proper safety measures in place or against the advice of medical experts — raising the possibility of yet more school disruptions. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, previewing a reopening plan first with POLITICO, said funding is needed for a host of public health measures for schools, including personal protective equipment. Collective bargaining, strong enforcement of safety standards and protections from retaliation will be important for teachers and staff so they feel safe to speak up as schools try new...

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-Mich) warned the people of her state that “the continued anti-government antics of a minority may force me to extend the lockdown longer than I originally planned.” She likened her predicament to that of “a teacher trying to deal with a few unruly students. She’s spoken loudly and sternly. Yet, there are some who insist on mocking and resisting the rules she’s laid out for everyone. Her ultimate weapon is to threaten to cancel recess or keep everyone after school in the hope that she can inspire enough social pressure to contain the offenders. Like that school...

Vlog report about Ivermectins effectiveness in treating the Wuhan Corona Virus.

On picking up What Snowflakes Get Right: Free Speech, Truth, and Equality on Campus, one might expect a book urging those who dismiss today’s college students’ complaints about institutional racism, persistent sexism, and other societal ills to take them more seriously. To engage with their arguments and to try to empathize with them, rather than ignoring or lambasting them, even when they engage in what seems to many people like unjustified histrionics. What Snowflakes Get Right is not that book. In fact, on completing NYU comparative literature professor (and former vice provost) Ulrich Baer’s book laying out his views on...

Left-wing activists made multiple false and misleading claims on Thursday following President Donald Trump’s White House Coronavirus Task Force press briefing in which the president commented on new scientific findings from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The activists falsely claimed that Trump “urged Americans to inject themselves with disinfectant” and “told people to drink bleach.” To understand Trump’s remarks, it’s important to first understand the full context of what was said at the press briefing. Bill Bryan, Under Secretary for Science and Technology at DHS, said at the press briefing, “Our most striking observation to date is the powerful...

A top U.S. scientist and research pioneer has broken her long silence, revealing an insider’s nightmare spanning three decades of conducting research under the governmental control of Dr. Anthony Fauci. And the allegations are downright frightening. (more below) And if true, these details warrant a host of NEW federal investigations to get to the bottom of numerous Fauci-led schemes revealed by Dr. Judy Mikovits on the Thomas Paine Podcast on Tuesday. Dr. Mikovits said Fauci helped imprison her after stealing her proprietary research not once, but twice and her allegations against the White House’s coronavirus top medical advisor and his...

Is meritocracy just? Just a short time ago, it was commonly accepted that it is the fairest way to determine who wins and who loses in the competition of college admissions. Now, it is one of the most hotly debated questions in higher education. Some believe it is just, as it encapsulates the American dream of “work hard and achieve your educational goals.” Others, however, believe meritocracy is inherently unjust and view it as a cut-throat system rigged against the lower and middle classes. So, how much should innate intelligence and academic performance factor into who gains admittance into college?...