Free Republic

APALACHIN, N.Y. — The State University of New York's Broome Community College ... Warren had served as chairman of the community college's Criminal Justice and Homeland Security program. He also was a former police officer and New York state-certified criminal investigator.

Yet the liberal obsession with “academic freedom” seems a bit misplaced to me. After all, no one ever has “full freedom” in research and publication. Which research proposals receive funding and what papers are accepted for publication are always contingent on political priorities. The words used to articulate a research question can have implications for its outcome. No academic question is ever “free” from political realities. If our university community opposes racism, sexism, and heterosexism, why should we put up with research that counters our goals simply in the name of “academic freedom”? Instead, I would like to propose a...

As a group of students begins studying for a calculus exam, a white student turns to an Asian peer and says, “Hey, would you mind helping me solve this problem? It’s really difficult, but you can probably do it.” The Asian student agrees to help, but for some reason feels uncomfortable with the way the question was asked. Is the Asian student being oversensitive? Was the white student subtly and subconsciously displaying racial prejudice against Asians? Could both be true? According to Dr. Derald Sue, a professor of psychology at Columbia University, the Asian student may have been the victim...

A Dallas-based company that writes research papers, essays and other classroom assignments -- so students don't have to -- says it is doing so well that it has expanded its staff from just a few writers to more than 100 in the past year. The company bills itself as the one "students trust to write professional, in-depth and plagiarism-free essays that receive the highest grades for all levels of coursework...so they no longer have to face the burden of academic coursework." It says the writing is done for an "affordable" fee; and it has foreign writers on staff for non-American...

A Common Core-aligned elementary school homework assignment in a Jefferson County, Colorado school district tells children that by 2512, Kansas will be an oceanfront state, that the “Smokey” Mountains [sic] will become the “Smokey” Islands [sic], and that a sharp decline in the human population will take place, all due to man-made global warming.

Although the title of a panel at the Modern Language Association indicated it would be a forum for dissident Iranian artists, the panelists made few claims that the dictatorship there might dispute. Several panelists debated interpretations of contemporary Iranian art and film in a session entitled, “Media, Justice, and Revolution in Contemporary Middle East.” Only 15 people in attendance, including a moderator and three panelists. The panel featured Babak Elahi, an associate professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Pouneh Saeedi, a Trent University professor and Amy Motalgh of the American University of Cairo. Elahi analyzed an Iranian art website...

The high-profile bullying case of a black student has thrust San Jose State under an intense spotlight to improve the college experience for its minority students and diversify its predominately white faculty. But an analysis of demographic figures by this newspaper shows that a lack of racial diversity in academia runs wide and deep: The South Bay campus' faculty is more diverse than other major Bay Area universities and the state's two university systems. At San Jose State, 59 percent of the faculty are listed as white, although 10 percent of the professors didn't specify a race. The faculty at...

However if one truly wants to make such a big deal out of what we call the armed conflict which occurred in America from 1861 to 1865 , and if its historical accuracy and honesty that one truly seeks, then I think Douglas Southall Freeman is, perhaps, the truest to historical accuracy in coining the proper term . . .

<p>Two factors have so far shielded the American university from the sort of criticism that it so freely levels against almost every other institution in American life. (1) For decades a college education has been considered the key to an ascendant middle-class existence. (2) Until recently a college degree was not tantamount to lifelong debt. In other words, American society put up with a lot of arcane things from academia, given that it offered something — a BA or BS degree — that almost everyone agreed was a ticket to personal security and an educated populace.</p>

"Tony McDonald, a member of the University of Texas Young Conservatives, sets up a protest anti- American Civil Liberties Union nativity scene, dubbed a 'solstice barn,' on the university's campus in Austin December 4, 2006. The display features a 'Nancy Pelosi' angel, a 'suicide bomber' shepherd, and Marx, Lenin and Stalin as the Three Wise Men." "Josh Perry, a member of the University of Texas Young Conservatives, spreads hay as he sets up a protest anti-American Civil Liberties Union nativity scene, dubbed a 'solstice barn,' on the university's campus in Austin, Texas December 4, 2006. The display features a...

Robert Chao Romero, an ethnic studies professor at UCLA who also runs a Christian youth ministry in Los Angeles, argues students are often taught Christianity and social justice causes such as immigration reform and affirmative action stand opposed. But the way Romero sees it, Jesus would support immigration reform, affirmative action – even the Affordable Care Act – and it’s part of a message he gives to college students to teach them about “Jesus’ heart for justice,” he tells The College Fix. Romero recently published a free ebook, “Jesus For Revolutionaries,” which spells out in detail why he believes Jesus...

<p>Brian C. Mitchell, president emeritus of Bucknell, described his chosen field by noting: “I replied that presidents are better thought of as King Solomon determining how to divide the baby.”</p> <p>“In modern history, only the forced labor camps of the former U.S.S.R. under Stalin approached these levels of penal confinement,” Alice Goffmann, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison claims of the six million incarcerated in U. S. prisons. Actually, “From 1929 until Stalin’s death in 1953, an estimated 14 million people passed through the Gulag,” Radio Free Europe reports. “About 1.6 million people died there.”</p>

A pair of University of Maryland economists actually found themselves channeling supply side-icon Jack Kemp although they might be loathe to admit it. At a Brookings Institution conference, associate professor Melissa Kearney and assistant professor Lesley Turner noted thtat today’s SNAP [the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program]requirements have a “secondary earner penalty.” In layman’s terms, that meant that if both married spouses in a couple worked, they would be taxed or penalized for having both spouses work. Both Kearney and Turner proposed that the tax code be reformed to cut out taxes on these secondary earners in order to boost...

Freepers, as an adjunct professor of humanities, I am most interested in your opinions on American historiography and education.

Instead of going through Congress and making the initiative bipartisan, President Obama acted alone in mid-November, promising $100 million in grants to specialized high schools — such as New York City's Pathways in Technology Early College High School — that prepare students for technical careers. The president's on the right track, but why make it partisan? Schools like P-TECH are an idea whose time has come — one that can be adopted by both parties and by business as well as government. Vocational education fell from favor decades ago because it was seen as an inferior track for less able...

“If you are a white male, you don’t deserve to live. You are a cancer, you’re a disease, white males have never contributed anything positive to the world! They only murder, exploit and oppress non-whites! At least a white woman can have sex with a black man and make a brown baby but what can a white male do? He’s good for nothing. Slavery, genocides against aboriginal peoples and massive land confiscation, the inquisition, the holocaust, white males are all to blame! You maintain your white male privilege only by oppressing, discriminating against and enslaving others!” Professor Noel Ignatiev, a...

<p>Current and former students in the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies expressed their support for professor emeritus Val Rust following a demonstration in one of his graduate classes last Thursday.</p> <p>Student demonstrators alleged that there is a “toxic” racial climate in the graduate school, including in Rust’s classroom. Organizers told the Daily Bruin last week that they decided to host the demonstration after a recent report examining racial discrimination among the university’s faculty stated that UCLA’s policies and procedures do not sufficiently address racially motivated instances of discrimination.</p>

Current and former students in the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies expressed their support for professor emeritus Val Rust following a demonstration in one of his graduate classes last Thursday. Student demonstrators alleged that there is a “toxic” racial climate in the graduate school, including in Rust’s classroom. Organizers told the Daily Bruin last week that they decided to host the demonstration after a recent report examining racial discrimination among the university’s faculty stated that UCLA’s policies and procedures do not sufficiently address racially motivated instances of discrimination. After Thursday’s sit-in, several current and former students said they...

Last week, ABC 7′s I-Team produced a troubling report about a surge in extreme drinking so far this year at UC Berkeley. According to the investigation, UC Berkeley has seen an increase in the number of students who get so drunk, often at frat parties, that they need to be taken to the hospital for care. This has, at times, put a significant burden on the city’s ambulance services, leaving other city residents waiting for care, or requiring the Berkeley Fire Department to call for help from other paramedics in the region. It also puts pressure on the hospital closest...

In a recent O'Reilly "Mad as Hell" segment, a student-viewer expressed his anger at being unable to voice his conservative views in the college classroom without fear of reprisal from his liberal professors. Think about that for a moment. We send our youth to college so that they can lead more productive and lucrative lives, to become contributing citizens who help weave more strength into the fabric of this nation. In that context, every stout thread has value, whether it warps left or right. And the key word in that sentence is "value," and even more particularly, "future value." Now...