Free Republic

Harvard University has created a task force to fight antisemitism on campus — and the effort is already embroiled in controversy. The co-chair of the school’s newly appointed Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism once declared “veins of hatred run through Jewish civilization,” according to his 2023 book. “Israel’s dispossession of Palestinians from their land and oppression of those who remain have made it one of the most disliked countries on the planet,” Jewish history professor Derek Penslar claimed in his tome, “Zionism: An Emotional State,” in which he wrote, “Jewish culture was steeped in fantasies (and occasionally, acts) of...

Elite thinking, as it’s termed, is under attack – and rightly so – for being out of step with the rest of the country. Below, we highlight some of the profound attitudinal differences between elites and average Americans: • In a time when most Americans have suffered a loss of real take-home pay, 74% of elites say they are financially better off today than in the past versus 20% of all Americans. • Nearly six in ten say there is too much individual freedom in America – double the rate of all Americans. • More than two-thirds (67%) favor rationing...

Have you ever met a college admissions officer? Who does he or she remind you of? The answer is: “someone who works at the DMV.” Put nicely, they’re people who’ve done the best they could with limited options. Put cruelly, they’re midwits on a power trip. Perhaps a tad less cynical. A little skinnier. Glasses a bit higher end. But platonically speaking, college admissions officers and DMV workers emanate toward the same form: the ultimate low busybody. DMV workers afflict the immense class of drivers with their mediocrity. Admissions officers’ victims are a smaller set — people who go (or...

A new report reveals that top colleges and universities that received billions of dollars in foreign donations from countries with authoritarian regimes and failed to report these funds to the U.S. Department of Education also saw a deterioration of free speech and a rise in antisemitism on their campuses. The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy has published a report titled “The Corruption of the American Mind: How Concealed Foreign Funding of Higher Education in the United States Predicts the Erosion of Democratic Values and Antisemitic Sentiment on Campus.” Released in November, the report has received renewed...

A group of Jewish Harvard University students filed a lawsuit on Wednesday accusing it of enabling anti-Semitism and selectively enforcing its own policies to avoid protecting Jews from harassment. “Harvard permits students and faculty to advocate, without consequence, the murder of Jews and the destruction of Israel, the only Jewish country in the world,” the lawsuit by student Alexander Kestenbaum states. “Meanwhile, Harvard requires students to take a training class that warns that they will be disciplined if they engage in sizeism, fatphobia, racism, transphobia, or other disfavored behavior.” Kestenbaum’s lawsuit, filed jointly with the group Students Against Antisemitism (SAA),...

Now that the Claudine Gay story has died down in the news cycle, let's look at how much bigger this story can end up being. Where most of the pixels spilled over this story ended with the pushback that got gay "fired" to only getting paid $900K per year, that turned out to be only the beginning. Billionaire Bill Ackman decided to stop donating to his alma mater, and led the charge to have Gay removed. But then The Empire Struck Back, via a Business Insider hit piece that tried to smear his wife with with plagiarism charges. One might...

For a long time, people (including me) have been calling for major changes in higher education. Now someone is doing something about it. Hedge-fund tycoon Bill Ackman is waging war to make universities accountable. Ackman started his campaign by demanding the resignations of University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill, Harvard President Claudine Gay and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth after the trio’s shambolic performance before Congress on antisemitic harassment on their campuses. Magill and Gay are now gone, and Kornbluth is worried. Penn’s board of trustees pushed Magill out pretty quickly. Gay, being a diversity hire, was harder...

Plagiarism and Collaboration The College recognizes that the open exchange of ideas plays a vital role in the academic endeavor, as often it is only through discussion with others that one is fully able to process information or to crystallize an elusive concept. Therefore, students generally are encouraged to engage in conversations with their teachers and classmates about their courses, their research, and even their assignments. These kinds of discussions and debates in some ways represent the essence of life in an academic community. And yet, it is important for all scholars to acknowledge clearly when they have relied upon...

Last night, no one at @MIT had a good night’s sleep. Yesterday evening, shortly after I posted that we were launching a plagiarism review of all current MIT faculty, President Kornbluth, members of MIT’s administration, and its board, I am sure that an audible collective gasp could be heard around the campus. Why? Well, every faculty member knows that once their work is targeted by AI, they will be outed. No body of written work in academia can survive the power of AI searching for missing quotation marks, failures to paraphrase appropriately, and/or the failure to properly credit the work...

Fox News host Mark Levin discusses revelations that allege billions in foreign funding of U.S. academia on 'Life, Liberty & Levin.' Egypt, KSA and other middle-eastern countries are funding elite universities, in which anti-Semitism and suppression of free speech on campus have grown exponentially.

“When DEI is under attack, what do we do? Stand up, Fight Back!!! We stand for Claudine Gay.” — The Rev. Al Sharpton. Wondering about who the Harvard Board of Trustees might consider for president of that august outfit once Claudine Gay moves to her new professorship in the graduate program for creative writing? The no-brainer, in more ways than one, has got to be Ibram X. Kendi, the founding director of Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research, launched in 2020, then un-launched in September, 2023, after BU auditors disclosed that $43-million in donations, endowments, and grants to the center...

In the wake of the resignation of Claudine Gay as the president of Harvard, leftists have found themselves in an embarrassing frenzy of rage-addled excuse-making for the prolific plagiarist and attacks against those who called her out. Chris Rufo was one of Gay's biggest critics and also of DEI and other progressive ideologies infiltrating American academia. Graduates of the illustrious David Hogg University, also known as 'Havard', wasted no time making a mockery of their alma mater in an attempt to belittle Rufo. Christoper Rufo claims his master's is from Harvard U. It's actually from Harvard *Extension.* Harvard U. doesn't...

Whew, what a week it’s been for higher ed!The Claudine Gay debacle at Harvard has raised some fundamental questions about academia in general. She was president of the university, traditionally seen as the pinnacle of American academia.But a careful look at her extremely thin academic publishing record was packed with unattributed borrowings from other authors in her own field.Once all of this became public, and in light of her Congressional testimony in which she found a new love for the free speech that has been heretofore nearly banned at Harvard, it became impossible for her to continue as president and...

The problem is much larger than Gay and demands the right go about dismantling institutions like Harvard with whatever means available.News of Harvard President Claudine Gay’s resignation on Tuesday prompted understandable celebration on the right and much-deserved praise for journalists Christopher Rufo, Christopher Brunet, and Aaron Sibarium, who exposed Gay as a serial plagiarist. No doubt, celebration is in order. Gay was of course not only a plagiarist but a Hamas apologist who shrugged off rampant antisemitism on Harvard’s campus in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israeli civilians. In a shocking congressional hearing last month...

Genocide-depends-on-context Claudine Gay hints fake race card - but it all started with racist-Arabs cheering "Palestinian" Oct 7 atrocitiesTerrorist-loving students ask for 'mental health support.' Students from over 30 campus organizations at Harvard University are now dealing with the consequences of supporting Hamas terrorists. Campus Reform, October 12, 2023, 2:34 pm ET. Several Harvard University students came out quickly after Saturday’s terrorist attacks in Israel to blame Israelis for the carnage and support Hamas. Public scrutiny fell on these individuals and now many appear to regret their pro-Hamas position. The Harvard Arab Alumni Association has reportedly put out a statement...

Research into ‘active collaboration’ between Harvard and Nazi Germany gains relevance as Harvard continues to frame antisemitic rhetoric on campus as freedom of speech Doctor Ernst 'Putzi' Hanfstaengl, formerly Press Chief for German Chancellor Adolf Hitler at his London home on July 7, 1937. (AP Photo/ Eddie Worth) Ninety years ago at Harvard University, campus administrators had what some historians call “friendly” relations with Nazi Germany.Whether Harvard president Claudine Gay’s resignation was catalyzed by a plagiarism scandal or her much-criticized lack of response to calls for the genocide of Jewish students, the university already has a century-old history of repressed...

Harvard University’s Provost and Interim President Dr. Alan Garber has made millions from sitting on pharmaceutical company boards during his time with the school. Garber made more than $2.7 million from board seats with pharmaceutical firms Exelixis, Inc. and Vertex Pharmaceuticals since becoming Harvard provost in 2011, the Harvard Crimson reported in 2019, citing company filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Both firms confirmed to the outlet Garber received compensation without performing any additional duties beyond his board memberships. ... He joined Exelixis’ board in 2005 and received $2.3 million from the company, $1.6 of which came after...

Introduction We are living in a time of grassroots demands to transform our built environment and our relationships with one another and the earth.2 To abolish prisons and police, rent, debt, borders, and billionaires.3 To decommodify housing and healthcare and to decolonize land.4 To exercise more collective ownership over our collectively generated wealth.5 Some of us are reimagining the state. Others are dreaming of moving beyond it.6 But these are more than dreams. These are demands for a democratic political economy. These demands increased in volume this year as the violence of policing continued, the fires burned in California and...

Dear Members of the Harvard Community, It is with a heavy heart but a deep love for Harvard that I write to share that I will be stepping down as president. This is not a decision I came to easily. Indeed, it has been difficult beyond words because I have looked forward to working with so many of you to advance the commitment to academic excellence that has propelled this great university across centuries. But, after consultation with members of the Corporation, it has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so...

At least 100 American colleges and universities illegally withheld information on approximately $13 billion in undocumented contributions from foreign governments, many of which are authoritarian…. Speech intolerance—manifesting as campaigns to investigate, censor, demote, suspend, or terminate speakers and scholars—was higher at institutions that received undocumented money from foreign regimes.” — ISGAP report, “The Corruption of the American Mind,” November 2023.