Free Republic

A Bainbridge Island teacher is giving a lesson that has parents on edge. The lesson plan: Boys can't play with Legos. The Bainbridge Island Review reports that Karen Keller, a kindergarten teacher at Blakely Elementary, is tackling the issue of gender equity by not allowing the boys in her class to play with Legos. The Lego-restricted lesson plan doesn't make a whole lot of sense for KIRO Radio's Dori Monson. "If I was a parent of a boy in that class, I'd get them out of there ... we've gone insane in our public schools," he said. "This Bainbridge Island...

The University of Vermont recently held a retreat exclusively for Caucasian students so they could explore white privilege. "Examining White Privilege: A Retreat for Undergraduate Students Who Self-Identify as White," was the name of the three-day conference, as first reported by the website Campus Reform. It's a bit wordy for a t-shirt, in my humble opinion. They should've just called it "Blame the White Guy 2015." As we all know the only way to build a stronger and inclusive university campus is to shame the white children into acknowledging they are personally responsible for every imaginable evil that has befallen...

Princeton University has become the latest school to be embroiled in a race scandal with 30 student's staging a sit-in inside their president's office. The Black Justice League (BJL) have told President Christopher L. Eisgruber they won't leave until Woodrow Wilson's name is removed from a college and international affairs school, and a mural to him in a dining hall is demolished. The group believe the former President, who led the formation of the League of Nations and helped all women get the vote, was a 'proud Clansman' who has a 'racist legacy'. They also want a 'cultural space' only...

A resolution to honor the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks each year at the University of Minnesota was rejected by the student government there, with some students expressing concern that such a measure could foster “Islamaphobia.” The resolution noted that the attack still has a lasting effect on many on campus, and “the events of that date are of immeasurable importance to the world we live in today,” and that the university has no formal memorial for that date on campus. It called for a moment of recognition on the morning of Sept. 11, 2016, and every year to...

Student groups planning a protest on Thursday at Manhattan's Hunter College are using classical antisemitic tropes for advertising. The rally is part of a nationwide campaign called "Million Student March," demanding tuition-free education and the cancellation of student debt. [...]... The Zionist administration invests in Israeli companies, companies that support the Israeli occupation, hosts birthright programs and study abroad programs in occupied Palestine, and reproduces settler-colonial ideology throughout CUNY through Zionist content of education. While CUNY aims to produce the next generation of professional Zionists, SJP [NYC Students for Justice in Palestine] aims to change the university to fight for...

Much like the lie known as “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” rumors and unsubstantiated allegations continue to flow freely on the University of Missouri campus, with some of the worst of it coming from student body president Payton Head. Head, who had previously claimed he was called the “n-word” from a passing pickup truck — one of the actions that led to the school’s president, Tim Wolfe, resigning on Monday — was at it again on Tuesday. This time, he took to social media to warn students about the KKK being on campus, according to Twitchy.com: There’s only one small problem...

A market economy is a tool for securing human welfare and promoting human freedom. It may or may not be effective at those things, but either way, that's what it is: a tool. Sadly, the contemporary Republican Party has elevated that tool into a religion, bowing before it and disparaging those who don't.We need some philosophers to scrutinize that religion's dogmas, and we need some welders to help dismantle its gaudy temples. Last night, as I listened to the Republican debate, I was surprised to hear my own profession called out by name. I am a professor of philosophy. Accordingly,...

Video from investigative journalism outfit Project Veritas (PV) released Thursday morning shows a Cornell administrator shredding a copy of the U.S. Constitution after a PV journalist posing as a student told the administrator the document is triggering. Elizabeth McGrath, Cornell’s Lead Title IX Investigator, is seen in the video feeding pages from a pocket-size Constitution through a paper shredder after the undercover journalist says it would be therapy for her. McGrath asks the journalist if she would like to participate, an offer she declines. I have my own personal reasons why the Constitution is very triggering for me, the PV...

Al Gore .. has levied his global warming activism from a net worth of $700,000 in 2000 into an estimated net worth of $172.5 million by 2015. He is not alone in his financial endeavor. Funding of science, in this particular case, climate change science, is dominated by the federal government. We assert that this will cause recipients of [government] grants to publish findings that are in-line with government policy preferences (i.e., do not bite the hand that feeds you ... Studies that receive financial support from the public sector do not have to disclose it as a conflict of...

The day after the first Democratic presidential debate, Donald Trump called Bernie Sanders a maniac. "This socialist-slash-communist," Trump said to raucous cheers. "I call him a socialist-slash-communist, because that's what he is." Well, no. The terms "socialist" and "communist" are often confused, thanks in large part to the Cold War. Layer on top of that the nuance of the term "democratic socialist," which is how Sanders describes himself, and it's easy to see why people might generally be confused... To offer America a bit of a primer, I reached out to Dr. Lawrence Quill, chairman and professor of political science...

•The phrase 'politically correct' is now a microaggression according to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. •The university’s 'Just Words' campaign aims to 'raise awareness of microaggressions and their impact.' •These microaggressions include the words: 'lame,' 'thug,' 'trash,' and 'third world.' The phrase “politically correct” is now a microaggression according to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The university’s “Just Words” campaign is the work of UWM’s “Inclusive Excellence Center” and aims to “raise awareness of microaggressions and their impact”—microaggressions like “politically correct” or “PC.” Merriam-Webster defines “politically correct” as “conforming to a belief that language and practices which could offend political sensibilities (as...

Of the nearly $600,000 Cornell’s faculty donated to political candidates or parties in the past four years, over 96 percent has gone to fund Democratic campaigns, while only 15 of the 323 donors gave to conservative causes. The Sun’s analysis of Federal Election Committee data reveals that from 2011 to 2014, Cornell’s faculty donated $573,659 to Democrats, $16,360 to Republicans and $2,950 to Independents. Each of Cornell’s 13 schools — both graduate and undergraduate — slanted heavily to the left. In the College of Arts and Sciences, 99 percent of the $183,644 donated went to liberal campaigns. The law school...

What is your position on the climate-change debate? What would it take to change your mind? If the answer is It would take a ton of evidence to change my mind, because my understanding is that the science is settled, and we need to get going on this important issue, that’s what I thought, too. This is my story. More than thirty years ago, I became vegan because I believed it was healthier (it’s not), and I’ve stayed vegan because I believe it’s better for the environment (it is). I haven’t owned a car in ten years. I love animals;...

Perception is everything. Wars are often won or lost based on how the actors perceive one another’s strengths and weaknesses, not so much how strong or weak they are in reality. So it goes with any agenda item. When people sense a shift in public opinion on an issue, a fair number will shift right along with what they perceive. Thus, power elites can shape behaviors and attitudes by applying various techniques of crowd psychology, focused on propaganda and silencing dissent. ... Effective propaganda also keeps you in the dark about the fact that you are being manipulated. You Can’t...

Greensboro College student Claire Sellers, who claims her play was heckled so badly that performers vomited afterwards. Greensboro College student Claire Sellers, who claims her play was heckled so badly that performers vomited afterwards. A liberal arts college in North Carolina is pledging to identify and potentially punish students who heckled a play about sexual assault the college forced them to attend. “It Stops Here,” an original play produced by students at Greensboro College, was first performed last Wednesday before a crowd of students, but the performance didn’t go as planned. According to people at the play, members of the...

Case in point is a freshman-level English class taught at several major universities across the country called “The Literature of 9/11” — which focuses almost entirely on writings from the perspective of the Islamic terrorists, rather than the nearly 3,000 Americans who were slaughtered by them. “These readings offer points of view that justify terrorism, paint the United States and its government as wholly evil and immoral and desecrate the memory of the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks,” the UNC College Republicans said in a recent letter to Chancellor Carol Folt.

A federal judge has denied a transgender teenager’s request to allow him to use the same bathroom as his peers at his public school in Virginia. Instead, the judge ruled Friday, the teenager must continue using a separate, private bathroom that he has said makes him feel “singled out and humiliated.” Gavin Grimm, a teenage boy who was born female, used the boys’ bathroom for seven weeks with no problem, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought a lawsuit against the Gloucester County School Board on his behalf. But then parents heard about the teen using the boys’...

The first San Francisco elementary school to make bathrooms gender neutral has proudly removed the circles, triangles, and stick figure signs from the kindergarten and first-grade bathrooms that delineate the differences between the sexes.Principal Sam Bass of Miraloma Elementary said the change at the beginning of the school year was prompted by the needs of six to eight students who are outside calling themselves simply boys or girls, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Bathrooms for children older than first grade will be altered in coming years, even outside bathrooms that have multiple stalls.Bass told the Chronicle, “There’s no need...

Multiple professors at Washington State University have explicitly told students their grades will suffer if they use terms such as “illegal alien,” "male," and “female,” or if they fail to “defer” to non-white students. According to the syllabus for Selena Lester Breikss’ “Women & Popular Culture” class, students risk a failing grade if they use any common descriptors that Breikss considers “oppressive and hateful language.” The punishment for repeatedly using the banned words, Breikss warns, includes “but [is] not limited to removal from the class without attendance or participation points, failure of the assignment, and— in extreme cases— failure for...

Those who teach in higher education are relatively OK with some religious groups, according to a study based on a 2012 online national survey that drew 464 complete responses. Asked to assess religious groups on a “feeling thermometer” of 1 to 100, Jewish people, mainline Protestants and Catholics all achieved an average score of 65 or higher, researchers led by University of North Texas sociologist George Yancey reported in an online article in the journal Sociology of Religion. Next to the bottom, just slightly above fundamentalists, were Protestant evangelicals with an average score of 48. Based on the rankings and...