Free Republic

What A Revoltin’ Development by: Malcolm A. Kline, July 22, 2009 We have written about film studies and English professors who come up with novel theories about cinematic masterpieces without bothering to check the archived papers of the directors, writers and producers of those films to see if their hypotheses were the filmmakers’ original intentions. For example, the English professor at Penn could have checked the letters of the film’s creator that are stored at BYU before theorizing that King Kong was an allegory for miscegenation. The 1933 film’s producer clearly stated that the movie’s scenes in which the gorilla...

An acclaimed black US scholar accused a police officer in Cambridge, Massachusetts of racism for investigating reports of a break-in as he entered his own house, after which he was arrested, police records have shown. Henry Louis Gates, 58, considered a preeminent professor of African American studies at the prestigious Harvard University, was charged with disorderly conduct. Police cited his "loud and tumultuous behavior." Gates was seen by a passing woman to be attempting entry to the front door of his house -- which was damaged -- along with another black man, according to the police report from July 16....

The Rev. Al Sharpton is taking up the banner of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., accusing Cambridge cops of racism for arresting Gates, and vowing to stand by his side at an arraignment next month. “I’ve heard of driving while black, and I’ve heard of shopping while black. But I’ve never heard of living in a home while black,” said Sharpton, a New York minister who has made a national name for himself by seizing on cases of alleged racism. Gates, 58, an acclaimed Harvard University academic and black-history documentarian, was arrested Thursday after an incident at his Cambridge...

BOSTON – Supporters of a prominent Harvard University black scholar who was arrested at his own home by police responding to a report of a break-in say he is the victim of racial profiling. --------- snip "Gates continued to yell at me, accusing me of racial bias and continued to tell me that I had not heard the last of him," the officer wrote.

BOSTON — Henry Louis Gates Jr., the nation's pre-eminent black scholar, is accusing Cambridge police of racism after he was arrested while trying to force open the locked front door of his home near Harvard University. Cambridge police were called to the home Thursday afternoon after a woman reported seeing a man "wedging his shoulder into the front door as to pry the door open," according to a police report. An officer ordered the man to identify himself, and Gates refused, according to the report. Gates began calling the officer a racist and said repeatedly, "This is what happens to...

Durham, N.C. — Duke University has fired an employee who faces federal child sex charges. Frank M. Lombard, 42, of 24 Indigo Creek Trail in Durham, was let go from his position as associate director of the Center for Health Policy at Duke, a spokesman said. Duke Vice President for Public Affairs Michael Schoenfeld said Lombard was placed on unpaid leave at the time of his arrest June 24 and was fired Monday. Schoenfeld added that the university was cooperating with the investigation. Lombard faces extradition to Washington, D.C., to face charges that he solicited an adult to have...

When I began examining the political affiliation of faculty at the University of Oregon, the lone conservative professor I spoke with cautioned that I would "make a lot of people unhappy." Though I mostly brushed off his warning – assuming that academia would be interested in such discourse – I was careful to frame my research for a column for the school newspaper diplomatically. The University of Oregon (UO), where I study journalism, invested millions annually in a diversity program that explicitly included "political affiliation" as a component. Yet, out of the 111 registered Oregon voters in the departments of...

(This is part 2 of an article.) Recently neo-fascists opposed to Sonia Sotomayor, Barack Obama’s nominee to the United States Supreme Court, have argued that she doesn’t respect the “sanctity” of the law and chooses instead to be guided by her personal beliefs. But if there is such a thing as “sanctity” of the law, why are so many Supreme Court cases decided by five-four votes split along ideological lines? Where is this concern when self-loathing Clarence Thomas uses his experiences at Yale University, not the law, to dismantle affirmative action programs, or when Antonin Scalia unethically hears cases where...

Ward Churchill could find himself on the hook for up to $50,000 in out-of-pocket costs the University of Colorado incurred fighting the lawsuit the former ethnic studies professor filed against it, CU's lead attorney said Wednesday. CU attorney Patrick O'Rourke said he plans to file for recovery of those costs -- which include flying witnesses in and out of Colorado and creating deposition transcripts -- over the next 15 days and said the amount would be in the "five figures" and likely just shy of $50,000. "We've got to go through and add it up -- it's not a staggering...

Boulder learning will go on without Ward Churchill. On Tuesday Judge Larry Naves granted CU's and the Board of Regent's motion for judgement as a matter of law that the Board of Regents is immune from being sued and vacates the jury verdict from April of this year. Naves also denied Churchill's motion for reinstatement of employment as well as any "front" pay. He essentially got nothing. "We are very gratified with the decision," said Bronson Hilliard, spokesman for CU Boulder. The ethnic studies professor had sued the University of Colorado in an attempt to regain his teaching post. Churchill...

VILLANOVA, Pa. (AP) - Authorities say the dean of Villanova University's law school was involved in a prostitution investigation before resigning last week. State police say Mark Sargent was seen leaving a suspected house of prostitution in suburban Philadelphia just before a raid Nov. 25. He was not charged. Instead, police say Sargent was one of two customers who provided information to authorities prosecuting the case. The owner of the Kennett Township home recently pleaded no contest to promoting prostitution; two co-defendants pleaded guilty to the charge.

It's often a topic of discussion among professors in the field of psychiatry and related fields. There is a growing influence by the pharmaceutical industry on research provided on it by those in academia. Often, junkets and seminars are paid for University psychiatry professors by the drug companies. In fact, the relationship is so close that it's unclear just how much the research these academics do on the drugs that pharmaceuticals develop. In fact, the relationship has gotten so cozy that their role as watchdog over the industry has likely been totally compromised.

All eyes will be on Chief Denver District Judge Larry Naves on Wednesday as he takes arguments at an all-day hearing for and against giving ousted professor Ward Churchill his job back at the University of Colorado. The hearing is the culmination of a lengthy dispute between CU and the controversial professor, who was fired two years ago. The judge has the option of ruling from the bench at the end of the hearing or issuing a written decision later. Neither the judge’s clerk nor the attorneys in the case would hazard a guess as to when Naves might announce...

A University employee was charged by the FBI with child sex abuse June 24 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Frank Lombard, 42, associate director for the Health Inequalities Program at the Center for Heath Policy, is charged with enticing an undercover police officer over the Internet to take part in interstate travel in order to engage in an illegal sex act with a minor during a sting conducted by the FBI and Metropolitan Police Department for the District of Columbia's Child Exploitation Task Force, according to a news release from the FBI. According to The (Raleigh)...

Author’s Note - In response to my last two columns, 88 Duke University professors have issued a joint statement condemning gay racism at Duke. The professors wanted to shed light on the gay Duke Administrator accused of molesting his black adopted son. They believe his actions must be seen as one part of a larger set of pathologies at Duke. Their statement follows in its entirety:We are listening to our students. We’re also listening to the Durham community, to Duke Staff, and to each other. Regardless of the results of the police investigation, what is apparent everyday now is the...

Durham, North Carolina–Demonites, feast your eyes upon Frank Lombard, associate director of the Center for Health Policy at Duke University. Now, how in the hell did such a prestigious fella end up gracing the pages of the Dreamin’ Demon? Unpaid parking tickets? Overdue library books? Jaywalking? Nah. Seems Mr. Lombard is quite the scummy perv. Lombard was recently arrested and charged with allegedly offering, over the Internet, to have an out-of-state pervert molest his adopted 5-year-old son. Heh…an accommodating and generous perv. How nice…

It all began on a hot southern summer day on Indigo Creek Trail much like an episode of one of those to catch a predator shows that are so popular these days and leave honest folk with their mouths slack from incredulity and disgust with the only difference being that instead of a perp coming to a decoy house stocked with fresh made lemonade or sweet tea, cameras, and an moralizing media finger wagger the authorities were instead coming to the house of one Frank Lombard and his male house mate. Frank was a successful gay man so much so...

 Gay Duke University Official Molested Black Adopted Son, Pimped son to Cop

Associate director of Duke University's Center for Health Policy, Frank Lombard, was recently arrested by the FBI and charged with offering up his adopted 5-year-old African American son for sex to an undercover cop. Lombard admitted to molesting his own adopted son to the undercover officer in an online chat room under the user name "Perv Dad for Fun". He invited the under cover officer to travel to North Carolina to rape his already-molested adopted son. Lombard faces 20 years in prison if convicted but is not eligible for the death penalty.Lombard bragged to the detective that “the abuse of...

A new and even more scandalous rape allegation has surfaced at Duke University. Yet the usual media and campus PC crowd are keeping mighty quiet. Identity politics apparently trumps all sense of outrage. Of course, after the disgraceful media and university reaction to the phony allegations against Duke Lacrosse team members, it is wise avoid jumping to conclusions, but the comparative silence on the current case is nonetheless remarkable, considering how many particulars of the case were left out of the main AP account. Mike Adams, writing on Townhall, lays out the facts the MSM won't: Frank Lombard is the...

It looks like Duke University has another rape case on its hands. This one may hurt the university nearly as much as the one that rocked its campus back in 2006. Unlike the previous case, this one appears to involve a credible confession of sexual abuse. Like the previous case, crucial facts are already being filtered through the prism of identity politics. Frank Lombard is the associate director of Duke’s Center for Health Policy. The university administrator was recently arrested by the FBI and charged with offering up his adopted 5-year-old son for sex. I tried to contact Frank Lombard...

Even if the "stimulus" package doesn't seem to be doing much to stimulate the economy, it is certainly stimulating many potential recipients of government money to start lining up at the trough. All you need is something that sounds like a "good thing" and the ability to sell the idea. A perennial "good thing" is education. So it is not surprising that leaders of the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities have come out with an assertion that "the U.S. should set a goal of college degrees for at least 55 percent of its young adults by 2025." Nothing...

A Kansas teacher says he was wrongfully terminated for his conservative views. Tim Latham has been teaching history and U.S. Government for over 19 years. But after teaching for just one year in the Lawrence School District in Lawrence, Kansas, Latham says his contract was not renewed because school officials did not like his conservative views -- particularly a teacher website that Latham hosted and paid for himself. A teacher coach confronted him on that issue. "She had concerns about it. I've never had a complaint about it -- nothing but compliments. Parents love it because of their access to...

Harvard University announced this morning that it plans to lay off 275 staff members as the college grapples with budget pressures caused by a precipitous endowment decline.

OK, before you get your knickers in a twist, let's put the CEO's comments into context. Vineet Nayar, the highly respected CEO of HCL Technologies, one of India's hottest IT services vendors, was speaking this morning in New York City to an audience of about 50 customers and partners when he related a recent experience with an education official in a large U.S. state. The official wanted to know why HCL, a $2.5 billion (revenue) company with more than 3,000 people across 21 offices in 15 states, wasn't hiring more people in his state. Vineet's short answer: because most American...

Former McHenry County College President Walt Packard did not leave his post over an ailing wife. He was pushed out by the MCC board, two trustees said. In late February, the college announced that Packard was stepping down to take care of his sick wife and assuming the role of president emeritus. That wasn’t the whole story.

The Miami Herald explains that the FBI was reluctant to arrest and prosecute Americans who spied for Cuba until after Cuba shot down two Brothers to the Rescue planes, killing four Americans. It also indicates that Cuban intelligence was badly damaged when Army General Arnaldo Ochoa was executed for drug running and the Ministry of Interior, the agency in charge of Cuba's security was purged.

Former CU professor will appear on 'Stories from the Edge of Free Speech' on June 29. The controversial academic-misconduct case surrounding Ward Churchill will be prominently featured in an upcoming documentary about free speech that is scheduled to air later this month on HBO. Key players in the case, including Churchill, are interviewed for the documentary, called "Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech." CU system Ken McConnellogue, in an interview, said that the school fired Churchill because he did not meet academic standards.

Global Warming Consensus Melts by: Evan Sumortin, June 10, 2009 In Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, he assures the public that the “[global warming] debate in the scientific community is over.” The Heartland Institute disagrees. On June 2nd, 2009 the Institute hosted its Third International Conference on Climate Change, touting an impressive speakers list that included scientists, economists, and politicians. Their stated mission was to challenge the “consensus” on global warming. Dr. Richard Lindzen, a Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has spoken at the conference since its inception. Each time, he confronted the alleged scientific...

My oh my, what would the critics, the Civil War publications, publishers, and bloggers do if it weren't for the bad boys of the Confederacy and those who study them and also those who wish to honor their ancestors who fought for the Confederacy?

WASHINGTON — The First Amendment guarantees Americans the right to free speech. The Second Amendment guarantees the right to possess firearms. ----------------------------cut------------------------- Many gun-rights advocates are arguing that college campuses, which are supposed to be open to diversity of thought, provocative dialogue, politics and protest, are hardly bastions of free speech when it comes to discussing firearms. "The fact is, the topic is so explosive," said Robert Shibley, spokesman for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which tracks discriminatory practices against students involved in conservative issues on campus. They've been dealing with "more and more" complaints about efforts...

Yale may have turned a similar departmental chair down, but longtime football rival Harvard University is set to proceed with the establishment of a chair for visiting scholars of GLBT studies. [Snip] Other critics had little use for either history or theory. At conservative chat site Free Republic.com, the academic issues took a back seat to but the sexual stereotypes that flew thick and fast. The site’s enlightened discourse followed a parenthetical exclamation of, "Ha!" after the NY Times headline, which read, "Harvard to Endow Chair in Gay Studies," as well as a photo of an upside-down stool accompanied...

The University of Colorado’s flagship campus will cut $12.9 million from its budget, partly by eliminating 75 faculty and staff positions, trimming its investments in long-term plans and slowing down the pace that it replaces its computers and campus technology. There are smaller budget-trimming chores, too — employees are even being asked to take out their own trash to save on garbage services. CU-Boulder’s operating budget is about $500 million.

Boston - Ivy League university Harvard is to endow a professorship of gay, lesbian and transgender studies, the organisers have said. The Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus announced that the USD 1.5 million chair, funded by members and supporters of the group, will "enable Harvard to regularly invite eminent scholars studying issues related to sexual minorities." The first visiting faculty member is expected to be appointed for the fall of 2010 and will teach at the university's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, usually in affiliation with the women's studies committee, the announcement said on Wednesday. The chair is to be...

Harvard University will endow a visiting professorship in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender studies, a position that, it believes, will be the first endowed, named chair in the subject at an American college. The visiting professorship, which the university is planning to announce formally as part of commencement exercises on Thursday, was made possible by a gift of $1.5 million from the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus. With the gift, Harvard said it would regularly invite “eminent scholars studying issues related to sexuality or sexual minorities” to teach on campus for one semester, according to a draft of a university...

The Webster School on Holly Avenue in St. Paul, Minn., has a tradition going back almost 130 years. It has a rousing song ("Webster School is great as can be / Teachers, parents, friends and family ..."). It boasts a commitment to creativity, opportunity and diversity, three qualities that qualify it as an emblem of the nation's greatest and most enduring values. And it was named for one of the greatest exemplars of the American idea, Daniel Webster. All of which makes it all the more remarkable, all the more startling, all the more troubling, that the Webster School will...

A California nonprofit dedicated to "teaching about Islam & Muslims" at U.S. high schools and college campuses features a board of advisors that is stacked with some of the most controversial activist professors in the field of Middle Eastern studies today. The imprimatur of these scholars may signal a troubling shift toward the support of proselytizing efforts and the further unraveling of Middle East Studies in America. The board of Islamic Networks Group (ING) is a veritable Who's Who of Islamist apologists and activists. Leading the list is John Esposito, the founding director of the Saudi-funded Center for Muslim Christian...

Former University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill will make his case for getting his job back during a one-day hearing to be held July 1, a Denver District Court clerk said Wednesday. Chief Denver District Court Judge Larry Naves will preside over the hearing, during which both Churchill and the University of Colorado will argue for and against reinstatement of the former controversial ethnic studies professor. Churchill was fired nearly two years ago by the CU regents after the school claimed he had committed widespread and systematic academic fraud.

It seems that a lot of Notre Dame students are offended by some Catholics’ decision to protest Barack Obama’s commencement speech on Sunday. In the weeks leading up to Obama’s visit, students sold T-shirts with a message for the protestors: “Please don’t ruin my graduation.” Fair enough. But I have to ask, what are they so upset about? Ruining college graduation ceremonies is a liberal pastime. If the commencement speaker doesn’t tell them exactly what they want to hear (or has political views to the right of Karl Marx), liberal narcissists respond with self-serving, disruptive protests.

Born and raised in Mozambique and now a naturalized U.S. citizen, Serodio, 45, has filed a lawsuit against a New Jersey medical school, claiming he was harassed and ultimately suspended for identifying himself during a class cultural exercise as a "white African-American."

It's not enough that Democrats have command of some key real estate in Washington. This month, they've also got the ear of just about every college student in the country. Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and White house chief of staff Rahm Emanuel all have multiple invites to be keynote speakers at graduations this spring. And while President Obama is pulling a hat trick at Notre Dame, Arizona State and the U.S. Naval Academy, you won't see one of that last institution's most famous graduates on stage anywhere this year.

A native of Mozambique has sued a New Jersey medical school, saying he was suspended for defining himself in class as a "white African-American." Paulo Serodio, 45, is of Portuguese descent. But his family has lived in Mozambique for several generations. He told ABC News that he got into trouble at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark in March 2006 when an instructor, Dr. Kathy Ann Duncan, led students in a discussion, asking them for self-definitions. Serodio's description of himself upset some other students, and he said Duncan later told him never to call himself...

CNN) -- A wanted University of Georgia professor killed himself with a single gunshot to the head after he dug his own grave and covered it with brush, police said Tuesday. The manhunt for George Zinkhan ended Saturday when cadaver dogs discovered his body in Georgia's Clarke County, about a mile from where his red Jeep Liberty was found more than a week earlier, police said. "Zinkhan's body was found in a small dugout area in the ground, covered with leaves and debris, and it was apparent that he took significant steps to try to conceal his body from being...

The United States was founded, formed and grew to international prominence and prestige without compulsory schooling and with virtually no government involvement in schooling. Before the advent of government-controlled schools, literacy was high (91-97% in the North, 81% in the South), private and community schools proliferated, and people cared about education and acted on their desire to learn and have their children learn.  Mr. Matthew J. Brouillette, President of the Commonwealth Foundation in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and former Director of Education Policy for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, wrote: From the outset of the first settlements in the New World, Americans...

It seems a lot of college professors didn’t like my column last week about academic socialism. Though conspicuously short on details, a University of Oregon professor declared the analogy between grade redistribution and wealth redistribution “really dumb.” (This should show you what sophisticated thinkers most of these professors are: they call everything they disagree with “dumb.”) But I think their real problem is the fact that the YAF video contest made students rethink the Marxist claptrap they’ve been force-fed during their college years.

Soon college students will come home and present parents with their grades. To avoid delusion, parents should do some serious discounting because of rampant grade inflation. If grade inflation continues, a college bachelor's degree will have just as much credibility as a high school diploma. Writing for the National Association of Scholars, Professor Thomas C. Reeves documents what is no less than academic fraud in his article "The Happy Classroom: Grade Inflation Works." From 1991 to 2007, in public institutions, the average grade point average (GPA) rose, on a four-point scale, from 2.93 to 3.11. In private schools, the average...

If you’re baffled by college students’ enthusiastic support for Soviet-lite economic policies, you need to watch several short videos created by members of Young America’s Foundation (YAF). In the videos, YAF members approach their classmates with a petition calling for the redistribution of student GPAs. “It would make it so that all students have an equal opportunity to go to grad school,” University of Oregon YAFer Kenny Crabtree explains. Students with bad grades would therefore be entitled to points earned by straight-A students.

SANTA ANA, Calif. — A federal judge ruled that a public high school history teacher violated the First Amendment when he called creationism "superstitious nonsense" during a classroom lecture.

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) - A dissertation written by President Barack Obama's late mother is being published. Duke University Press said Monday that an edited version of Ann Dunham's anthropological study about rural craftsmen in Indonesia is scheduled to reach stores this fall. Dunham completed the study three years before she died in 1995. Duke marketing manager Emily Young said the foreword was written by the president's half-sister and Dunham's daughter, Maya Soetoro-Ng (so-TOR'-oh ING). The book is based on Ann Dunham's 14 years of research among village workers on the Indonesian island of Java.

SANTA ANA, Calif. — A federal judge has ruled that a history teacher at a Southern California public high school violated the First Amendment when he called creationism "superstitious nonsense" during a classroom lecture.