Free Republic

Marquette University has begun the process to fire a tenured professor after he publicly said that students have the right to oppose gay marriage while in class, while also naming the professor who tried to ban it. In a letter to Dr. John McAdams, Marquette informed the professor that the "University is commencing the process to revoke your tenure and to dismiss you from the faculty. Marquette is taking this action after Dr. McAdams became aware that another professor, Cheryl Abbate, had banned a student from opposing gay marriage in her classroom. Parts of the incident were recorded secretly by...

Former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, unceremoniously dumped in his 2014 GOP primary by Tea Party favorite Dave Brat, has won a gig at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics. Cantor will join two others who fell short of election in 2014, former Democratic North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan and former Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, who lost her bid for governor, as Institute fellows.

When professors do pay attention to religion, they usually get it wrong. “Conservatives would rather have [social welfare] provided by religious organizations, which is incompatible with other aspects of Catholic social teaching,” Robin Sowards, an adjunct professor at Duquesne University told an audience at the Modern Language Association (MLA) convention in Vancouver, Canada. Here are a few highlights from the history of Catholic Charities: October 24, 1727—“Ursuline sisters arrive from France to open an orphanage, school for street girls, and health facility in New Orleans. It is the first formal Catholic charity in the present United States.” January 1, 1845—“The...

Dr. Bryon McClanahan reviews Pryor's work on Lee. He is quite critical and discusses major problems with the book as well as the "trendy" practice by modern historians of "humanizing" (tearing down) American heroes . . .

It all started when a University alumnus made a $3 million dollar donation to fund the position of Director of Islamic Studies at Duke University. Bettye Martin Musham, who gifted the Islamic Studies Center with the vast sum of money, said that she was convinced that it was the right thing to do after hearing a lecture on the meaning of jihad. Musham said that she and her husband would later become “hooked with the importance of Islam.” Dr. Omid Safi was appointed to run Islamic Studies at Duke University in July of 2014. He has been the point of...

Turns out there’s no free lunch, even if you’re among those lucky few dining at the Harvard Faculty Club. The New York Times is feasting on the delicious uproar created by Harvard professors who are now outraged to be hit with higher health care costs as a result of ObamaCare. I hardly know where to start on this one. Perhaps with the fact that the article appears in the New York Times? I will let that one go for the moment. Here’s what’s clear: Health care costs at Harvard are going up. Immediately. And they are rising directly as a...

Danielle George, Professor of Radio Frequency Engineering, at the University of Manchester, claims that the under 40s expect everything to ‘just work’ and have no idea what to do when things go wrong...This year’s Royal Institution Christmas Lectures are entitled ‘Sparks will fly: How to hack your home’ she is hoping it will inspire people to think what else they can do with common household objects...Ideas include using a magnifying glass and shoe box to turn a mobile phone into a rudimentary projector; how to use tin foil to make too small batteries fit correctly and how to turn a...

A feminist professor of communications at the University of Michigan has become a laughingstock for a poorly-sourced column in a socialist newspaper about the academic basis for hating Republicans. In the article, Susan J. Douglas began with the statement, “I hate Republicans” and declares that “marrying a Republican is unimaginable to me…” A specialist on “Gender and the Media,” she is reportedly married with a daughter. I’ve got something that beats that. Curtis J. MacDougall, the author of a journalism textbook that I used in college, was a Marxist with a 319-page FBI file, who wrote favorably about Fidel Castro...

U-M professor Susan Douglas Susan Douglas is a University of Michigan professor and department chair who is not shy about expressing her viewpoints - political or otherwise. Earlier this week Douglas penned a column for the independent nonprofit magazine In These Times titled "It's okay to hate Republicans." "I hate Republicans," she wrote to begin her column. "I can't stand the thought of having to spend the next two years watching Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Ted Cruz, Darrell Issa or any of the legions of other blowhards denying climate change, thwarting immigration reform or championing fetal 'personhood.'" University of Michigan...

In a Dec. 5 op-ed, the president of California State University (CSU) claimed if you are “light skinned” you have “significant unearned privilege” and routinely think less of those who are different than yourself. In her piece, “Privilege at The Beach,”—referencing the Long Beach area where the school resides—Jane Close Conoley, a white woman herself, asserts that “light skin color and high income levels may attract significant unearned privilege.” Those who qualify for such privilege, often unknowingly exert distrust and “lower expectations of behavior” on those of another skin color. “Those who are less affluent with darker skin or from...

President Jane Close Conoley of California State University has a message for you: if you are “light skinned,” are are likely the owner of “significant, unearned privilege” and, despite the fact that you might not look down upon other races, you are still likely a racist. In an opinion piece called “Privilege at The Beach,” which is reference to Long Beach in California, where the college is located, Conoley had a few choice words for whites. Conoley herself is white. “I’d like to do some thinking and talking about how to ensure The Beach is a zone of kindness and...

MICHAEL KARAS/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Attendees recently sat around Kean University's custom-made oak conference table. Breaking News: Legislator calls for investigation into Kean University's $219K conference tableIt costs more than $44,000 in tuition to attend Kean University for four years, and many of the school’s students struggle to pay the bill.  But the taxpayer-supported school in the township of Union spent $219,000 so far and has authorized up to $270,000 — about the average price of a house in the nearby working-class neighborhood — for a custom-made, circular conference table that seats 23 and features data ports, microphones and an illuminated...

As a former academic, headlines describing what appear to be questionable policies or practices in institutions of higher learning usually get my attention. When the fine print implicates a philosophy department, a subject I used to teach, I take a close look. Now, suppose you are an undergraduate at a large, private Catholic university that is one of the 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. You decide to enroll in a course given by the philosophy department that will explore the intersection between ethical theories and contemporary controversies -- a course of the sort I...

Prof under investigation for violating amorous relationship policy. The University of Colorado has agreed to pay philosophy professor Brad Monton $120,000 plus the rest of his salary for the academic year — about $65,000 — in exchange for his resignation. Monton's departure, which Chancellor Phil DiStefano termed "a business decision," comes during a year of turmoil for the Boulder campus' philosophy department, which has been accused of creating a culture that's perceived to be unfriendly to women. Monton had been under investigation for potentially violating the university's amorous relationship policy with students, CU officials confirmed. Both Monton and CU deny...

Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Education wrapped up its investigation of Princeton University's sexual harassment and assault policies. The findings were unsurprising, though still striking: the government essentially accused the university of violating federal anti-discrimination law by extending too much due process to accused students. Princeton had been one of the last hold-outs on the standard of proof in college rape trials. The university required adjudicators to obtain "clear and convincing" proof that a student was guilty of sexual assault before convicting him. That's too tough, said DOE. As part of its settlement, Princeton is required to lower...

(CNSNews.com) – The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) plans to launch a new “think tank” designed to “establish best practices and policies so college athletes and coaches can fully participate in their chosen sport regardless of religious beliefs, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression.”During a meeting Tuesday and Wednesday entitled “Seeking Common Ground: Creating a Respectful Athletic Climate for Athletes and Coaches of All Religious Perspectives, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity or Expression,” the NCAA will “develop the first-ever suggested guidelines so faith-based schools, public schools, and private secular schools across the country can provide inclusive and respectful athletic...

A former professor at the University of Arizona is so convinced that global warming is ruining Earth that he’s proposing a desperate plan to save the world: Destroy human civilization as we know it. Guy McPherson, who left academia in 2009 for “ethical reasons,” says humanity will be extinct by 2030 no matter what we do, so for the sake of the other species on Earth, we must “terminate industrial civilization” and abandon the modern technology that gives us electricity, worldwide mobility, clean drinking water, and medical care; to say nothing of the creature comforts of modern life. “I think...

When faced with a choice between confronting two evils, elites—particularly academic ones—usually focus on the less prevalent one. “In April, the Fifth Annual Conference on Islamophobia was held at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Law School, organized by Hatem Bazian, a Palestinian activist, co-founder of Students for Justice in Palestine, and professor of a current Berkeley course called ‘De-Constructing Islamophobia and the History of Otherness,’ with part of the course requirements being that students open a Twitter account and tweet at least once a week about ‘Islamophobia,’” Richard L. Cravatts, president of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East wrote in The...

Pompeo v. Board of Regents (D.N.M. Sept. 29, 2014, but apparently not substantially publicized until Thursday): The University of New Mexico offered a class and Plaintiff enrolled in that class. The subject matter of the class (“Images of (Wo)men: From Icons to Iconoclasts”) as set out in [the Complaint] was chosen by the class instructor, Defendant Hinkley, to spark “incendiary” class discussions. The syllabus assured students that “it’s quite clear that we do not expect anyone to necessarily agree with the positions and arguments advanced in our work. There’s controversy built right into the syllabus, and we can’t wait to...

How reliable is academic research? Not very it seems, after noting that the Journal of Vibration and Control, a reputable academic publication, had to retract 60 different papers over the summer. The editors concluded that Chen-Yuan Chen, a researcher in Taiwan, had created a “peer-review and citation ring.” OK, it’s not exactly a “Sopranos” plot. But it’s pretty shady for the world of higher education. Chen went to great lengths to make up fake e-mail addresses and even assume the names of other scientists to write approvingly of his own research. In a sense, though, he was just exploiting the...