Free Republic

Trinity College Dublin is to remove the bible from its crest, it has been there since 1592. They will also change the color scheme on the ancient crest to avoid a clash with Ryanair’s corporate image. The world famous college is set to be rebranded as ‘Trinity College, the University of Dublin’ in a strategic plan to be launched next year. The Irish Times reports that it is not only the name that will change at the university, home to the Book of Kells. Religious symbolism has also been removed from the college’s ancient crest at a cost of almost...

While returning to a dorm room last month, a black student at Grand Valley State University in Michigan was greeted by racist graffiti on a dry erase board on the door complete with a hanged stick figure labeled “black.” But on Friday, the Grand Valley Police Department reported that the owner of the board was the very person responsible for the racist remarks. This incident at Grand Valley State is just the latest of many instances over the past few years in which people claim to be the victims of hate crimes they inflicted on themselves or completely fabricated. Perhaps...

Grant Middle School workbook’s gun-rights description has some up in arms A workbook used by Grant Middle School that has generated controversy among gun-rights supporters won't be removed from the classroom. Jason Nevel Updated Mar 24, 2014 at 10:23 PM A workbook used by students at Grant Middle School that has generated controversy among gun-rights supporters has no political agenda and won't be removed from the classroom, Springfield interim Superintendent Bob Hill said Monday. Since the controversy surfaced online last week, Hill said, he's received a handful of calls and more than a dozen emails. Gun-rights supporters claim students at...

The journalists at ABC's World News on Sunday enthusiastically touted a fawning question from a Democratic activist to Hillary Clinton. After anchor David Muir insisted that "it didn't take long for a student there to ask a pointed question," college student Vrinda Agrawal wondered, "If you don't represent women in politics in America as a future president, who will?" [MP3 audio here.] This is a tough question? The event was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and held at Yale Law School. Agrawal followed-up by enthusing, "I will proudly run your campaign." At no time did Muir or reporter Susan Saulny inform...

Indiana is the first state among the 45 who adopted Common Core standards since 2010, to drop out. Governor Mike Pence (R) said: I believe when we reach the end of this process there are going to be many other states around the country that will take a hard look at the way Indiana has taken a step back, designed our own standards and done it in a way where we drew on educators, we drew on citizens, we drew on parents and developed standards that meet the needs of our people. As a parent, with two small boys...

The University of Michigan would not explain how it is responding to death threats and racial epithets that were reportedly issued by pro-Palestinian activists at students who oppose a resolution to divest from Israel. University of Michigan police were first contacted last week after two pro-Palestinian activists shouted “threats of violence” at a student who refused to support their boycott initiative during a “sit-in” at the student government’s headquarters. The Washington Free Beacon has further learned that the pro-Israel student received death threats and that others have allegedly been called “kikes” and “dirty Jews” by backers of the virulently anti-Israel...

<p>Last week, the University announced Eduardo Peñalver will serve as the next dean of Cornell Law School. Over 20 years ago, however, University administrators were considering suspending Peñalver.</p> <p>In November 1993, Peñalver was a leader of a four-day occupation of Day Hall, which resulted in two reported confrontations with Cornell police, The Sun previously reported.</p>

PALO ALTO, CA, March 21, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A group of about 100 homosexual activists at Stanford University have successfully intimidated the Graduate Student Council (GSC) into withdrawing $600 in previously-approved funding for a pro-marriage conference to be held on campus in April. The university administration also tried to charge the organizers $5,000 for security costs, but backed down amidst public pressure after the organizers accused them of “impos[ing] a tax on free speech.” The Stanford Anscombe Society (SAS) is sponsoring the event, called “Communicating Values: Marriage, Family and the Media.” Featuring prominent pro-family speakers, the event’s goal is “to...

Rush Limbaugh - radio host, conservative firebrand and... children's book author of the year? The Children’s Book Council and its Every Child a Reader program released on Thursday their author-of-the-year finalists for their annual Children’s and Teen Choice Book Awards. Limbaugh is one of the four finalists, and his nomination has prompted outrage on social media, given the host’s often-incendiary nature. Limbaugh's book is titled, "Rush Revere and The Brave Pilgrims: Time-Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans" – a time-traveling tale of colonial America and the latest of two books in the "Rush Revere Series" published last year by Simon &...

The story of the Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev shocked the American public consciousness and made many ask: how could a person with a good education from a well-off family turn out to be a terrorist?

First Amendment enthusiasts are thrilled that Mike Adams, a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, won his lawsuit against administrators who denied him a promotion because of his conservative, Christian views. Adams joined the university in 1993. He was an atheist at the time. By the year 2000, he had converted to Christianity and become an outspoken political conservative. He eventually wrote columns for Townhall.com. In 2006, he was denied a promotion. Administrators were retaliating against him for his conservative views, he claimed. The jury agreed. Adams’s lawyers said the victory is an important one for free speech...

The Hempstead school board won't renew the contract of a principal who instructed her students not to speak Spanish, in a rapidly-evolving district where more than half of the students, like many Texas schools, are now Hispanic. Hempstead Middle School Principal Amy Lacey was placed on paid administrative leave in December after reportedly announcing, via intercom, that students were not to speak Spanish on the school's campus. The Hispanic population of the rural area, roughly 50 miles northwest of Houston, is growing quickly, and Latino advocates say that it's important to allow Spanish in public schools.

A 24-year-old geography major is the first Wikipedian-in-residence at the University of California, Berkeley. His announcement can be found - where else? - but on his own Wiki page. Cal hired Gorman, according to a February announcement, to advise students and professors on the complex task of editing articles for Wikipedia, the user-generated online encyclopedia that gets 500 million monthly visitors. Until now, Wikipedians-in-residence have been assigned to cultural institutions, such as the British Museum, the Gerald Ford Presidential Library and the U.S. National Archives. In a statement, Cal calls Gorman a "hardcore Wikipedian" since his undergraduate days at Berkeley,...

In recent times, there has been a development quite odd and unprecedented in the annals of the sexual “revolution.” When America’s traditional sexual mores started to break down, it always took the form of slouching toward “tolerance.” For example, consider fornication. Two unmarried opposite-sex individuals cohabitating was once known as “living in sin” and was not something any couple could do in their community. But as pedophile Alfred Kinsey’s fraudulent science and the phenomenon whereby, as Confucius said, no one likes “virtue as much as sex” eroded moral barriers, this started to change. And then one thing led to another,...

An upcoming conference organized by Stanford University’s Anscombe Society called “Communicating Values: Marriage, Family & the Media” has been dubbed “hate speech” by the college’s graduate-level student government, which refused to allow any of its student fee-funded budget to support the event. The Anscombe Society is a conservative student group centered around traditional marriage and family values; it also encourages chastity, and tackles subjects such as sexual integrity and pornography.

Kids can text on tiny keyboards, convey their thoughts in 140 characters or less and use numbers for prepositions, but some states fear they soon may not be able to sign their own names. In this digital age of Internet acronyms, like “LOL,” and emoticons, Tennessee is the latest state pressing for legislation that mandates students learn cursive writing in school. Lawmakers in the state are pushing for passage of House Bill 1697, which would require all public school students to learn how to read and write in cursive, preferably by the third grade. The bill, authored by state Republican...

Fertility is the missing chapter in sex education. Sobering facts about women’s declining fertility after their 20s are being withheld from ambitious young women, who are propelled along a career track devised for men. The refusal by public schools’ sex-education programs to acknowledge gender differences is betraying both boys and girls. The genders should be separated for sex counseling. It is absurd to avoid the harsh reality that boys have less to lose from casual serial sex than do girls, who risk pregnancy and whose future fertility can be compromised by disease. Boys need lessons in basic ethics and moral...

SANTA BARBARA – A department of feminist studies professor has been accused of going berserk after coming across a campus prolife demonstration that used extremely graphic displays, leading a small mob of students to chant “tear down the sign” before grabbing one of the signs, storming off with it, then allegedly engaging in an altercation with a 16-year-old prolife protestor who had followed the educator to retrieve it. Much of the scuffle was recorded on a smartphone by the 16-year-old, Thrin Short. The yet-to-be-released video is now in the custody of Santa Barbara law enforcement officials, who are investigating the...

The homosexual lobby is now putting a full-court press on the Massachusetts Legislature to pass H3909 which would change the state's school "anti-bullying" law -- to completely silence any negative discussion of those behaviors and threaten schools and administrators that do not comply. Their stated goal is to use the anti-bullying laws to "change the overall climate and culture" in the every school in the state by "addressing bigotry and discrimination." In other words, the goal is not to reduce bullying per se, but to punish opinions by students and staff that are critical of homosexual or transgender behaviors, or...

Teacher orders boy, 10, to remove Help for Heroes wristband worn in memory of Lee Rigby 'because it might cause offence' By Mark Duell PUBLISHED: 04:33 EST, 12 March 2014 A teacher allegedly ordered a 10-year-old boy to take off his Help for Heroes wristband because it could cause offence. Tracy Tew was shocked when her son Charlie was put on a report card at Maldon Primary School in Essex after he refused to take off the charity rubber bracelet sold to honour injured soldiers. Charlie wears the wristband - bought at the Colchester Military Festival - in honour of...