Free Republic

Back on April 15, I received an extremely courteous message from Matthew Weinberg, the chairman of the UCLA chapter of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), inviting me to speak on campus in mid-May. While I was grateful for the invitation and immediately accepted, being invited to UCLA was the equivalent of getting a message from the dentist saying it’s time for a root canal: it’s painful and unpleasant, but necessary. The pro-Hamas mob in the campus encampment, however, might not allow someone as dangerous as me to speak there. Yes, they’re the ones in charge. YAF explained what is happening...

The University of Saint Katherine, a small nonprofit in North San Diego County, recently announced it will close May 18, citing “financial pressure due to unprecedented inflation and rising state-mandated labor costs.” It’s not alone. Nationwide, universities face financial hardships that appear to be getting worse. More than 100 colleges and universities have closed or merged, or announced plans to, over the last eight years, according to a tracker updated this month by Higher Ed Dive. The list, which does not include for-profit colleges and also omits mergers among public institutions, totals 108 since 2016. The closures span the spectrum...

The anti-Israel demonstrations at Columbia University, among other colleges and universities, may be, for many involved, simply about venting anger or rage. But at Columbia, they do make a specific demand: that the university divest its endowment from firms involved in the Israeli economy. A December 1 document signed by 89 student groups—ranging from the Young Democratic Socialists of America to the Sexual and Reproductive Health Action Group at the Mailman School of Public Health—made divestment the explicit focus: Columbia’s current investment portfolio enables and lends legitimacy to Israel’s violations of international law. Columbia is both morally obligated and compelled...

Interrogations of university leaders spearheaded by conservative congressional representatives. Calls from right-wing senators for troops to intervene in campus demonstrations. Hundreds of student and faculty arrests, with nonviolent dissenters thrown to the ground, tear-gassed and tased.We’ve been here before. In my book “Resistance from the Right: Conservatives and the Campus Wars in Modern America,” I detail how, throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, conservative activists led a counterattack against campus antiwar and civil rights demonstrators by demanding action from college presidents and police. They made a number of familiar claims about student protesters: They were at once coddled elitists,...

As the pro-Hamas protests rage on at universities across the nation, some of our enemies are laughing at us and encouraging the protesters to wreak even more havoc. It’s been a crazy period as mobs have taken over a number of campuses and are making tent cities, chanting hateful messages, committing vandalism, and causing Jewish students to feel extremely unsafe. Militias backed by Iran, however, are enjoying our plight and our mocking the U.S., condemning Israel, and egging on students to keep it up:The Sabereen News, a Telegram channel affiliated with Iran-backed Iraqi militias is inciting American students to escalate...

An official with the Palestinian terror group Hamas and the supreme leader of Iran have praised the growing college campus protests in the United States against Israel's military offensive in Gaza, including pro-Hamas demonstrations at Columbia University that have driven fear into the hearts of Jewish students. Columbia University in New York City announced a shift to hybrid classes after protestors set up a "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" last Wednesday. This led to the arrest of more than 100 people after Columbia University President Minouche Shafik authorized police to clear the camp. The demonstrators resettled the encampment, and there have been...

The recent wave of violent protests and arrests at elite universities like Yale and Columbia have only confirmed for Scott Katz that he made the right decision to attend Elon University. The North Carolina college, where he is currently wrapping up his sophomore year, is a long way from his hometown of Lafayette Hill, the predominantly liberal Philadelphia suburb where the average home costs $610,000. Katz, who is Jewish, says the antisemitism that’s increasingly visible at colleges nationwide—especially in the Ivy League, and other elite institutions like Stanford and Berkeley—hasn’t even touched his campus. “I haven’t been affected by it...

The University of North Carolina system oversees 16 state universities. Campus locations include Chapel Hill, Wilmington, Charlotte, Asheville, and Greensboro. UNC-Chapel Hill, originally called the University of North Carolina, was founded in 1789 and is one of the oldest public universities in the United States. According to Wikipedia statistics, some 245,000 students attended UNC system universities in 2021. One of the schools in the UNC system, UNC-Greensboro, is in the news these days because of a decision by Chancellor Franklin D. Gilliam Jr. to cut undergraduate and/or graduate programs in physics, mathematics, computer science, anthropology and nursing, citing “university direction,...

History demonstrates that attempts to “cure” a problem by exceeding the federal government’s constitutional powers generally lead to more and worse problems... “A rage ... for an abolition of debts ... or for any other improper or wicked project ....” — James Madison, Federalist No. 10.. The courts, in the exercise of what is called “equity jurisdiction,” have long excused borrowers from obligations incurred through fraud, duress, and other forms of creditor unfairness.. In addition, federal bankruptcy laws (authorized in the Constitution by Article I, Section 8, Clause 4) offer a path to safety for debtors who get in over...

New details are emerging about the Canadian tourist charged with abducting and raping an 80-year-old grandmother with Alzheimer's at a luxurious Bahamas resort. Gordon Wilkie, 61, of New Waterford, Nova Scotia, was arrested and charged with rape in the shocking incident on January 28 at the Warwick Hotel Paradise Island Bahamas. DailyMail.com can confirm that Wilkie is a faculty member at Novia Scotia Community College, where he specializes in renewable energy and has been placed on leave following his arrest.

Harvard is among the many U.S. schools that remain committed ... as of February 6, 2024, an astounding 68 American colleges and universities still have Covid shot mandates in place. Yes, you read that correctly. There are 68 schools in the United States that continue to push the mRNA serum on college students across America. ... The list includes historically elite schools like Harvard and Johns Hopkins. It also includes a variety of ultra leftist colleges in California and New York, and elsewhere, coupled with a significant amount of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). ... Speaking of Harvard, they...

The Center Square) - Erich Eischen is unique. According to Federal Election Commission data, he is the only person who lists his employer as a college or university in the United States who made a contribution of $1,000 or more to Donald Trump's presidential campaign so far in the 2024 election cycle. Such donors are a dime a dozen for President Joe Biden. There are 289, in fact, according to the FEC. Biden has more higher ed support at the University of California alone, than Trump has in the whole country. And Biden's support comes from schools that will tell...

The university's VP of Academic Affairs said the changes will no longer 'mask' students' 'demonstrated abilities'.. An Oregon university announced they will abandon failing letter grades, citing a "GPA fixation" that negatively impacts students. Western Oregon University issued a news release earlier this month that revealed the school would be replacing "D-" and "F" grades with "no credit" to discourage undergrads from dropping out. ... The difference is that the grade of NC will not negatively impact student GPAs, ... the decision came after data from the university showed that 65% of freshman students who dropped out had earned at...

A new report reveals that top colleges and universities that received billions of dollars in foreign donations from countries with authoritarian regimes and failed to report these funds to the U.S. Department of Education also saw a deterioration of free speech and a rise in antisemitism on their campuses. The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy has published a report titled “The Corruption of the American Mind: How Concealed Foreign Funding of Higher Education in the United States Predicts the Erosion of Democratic Values and Antisemitic Sentiment on Campus.” Released in November, the report has received renewed...

A University of Wisconsin chancellor was fired from his position Wednesday after it was revealed that he’d made and distributed pornography with his wife. UW-La Crosse chancellor Joe Gow, 63, was fired Wednesday in a unanimous vote by colleagues, following revelations that he’d been filming and releasing homemade pornography with his wife, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The couple apparently released videos under the moniker “Sexy Happy Couple” on various adult websites, and run social media accounts called “Sexy Healthy Cooking” in which they make food with porn stars.

years-long abandonment of free speech has allowed radicalism and anti-semitism to fester on campus. Where free speech dies, institutional stupidity takes its place. ... Jewish students were mobbed by pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Harvard and protesters were heard chanting for an “Intifada revolution” on UPenn’s campus this weekend — leading the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to investigate both schools for Title VI discrimination violations. ... Students retreat into echo chambers where their beliefs go unchecked, and they are readily swept down radical rabbit holes in which Zoomer TikTokers are inexplicably celebrating the philosophy of Osama bin Laden. In...

The pro-Hamas protests and marches keep expanding across our college and university campuses. Much to the dismay of Jewish students, alumni, and donors (as well as non-Jewish Americans watching these events with alarm), those who claim to support the cause of the Arab population living in Gaza and the West Bank feel perfectly comfortable ratcheting up the antisemitic rhetoric, using threats and even resorting to violence. (This disturbing behavior has also spilled into our cities, including the nation's capital. Demonstrations outside the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., earlier this week turned violent. Six Capitol Police officers were injured,...

Over the past month, college campuses all over the United States have seen a rash of antisemitism that has left most Americans what the heck students are being taught. For example, in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks that left 1,400 Israeli civilians, many of them children, slaughtered, a Cornell professor took the stage at a pro-Palestine rally and said that he was “exhilarated” by Hamas murdering Israelis. At Harvard, dozens of student groups signed a letter blaming Israel for the attack while expressing sympathy with terrorism, calling it “decolonialism.” Last week, a Jewish student was physically attacked by...

NEW YORK -- A Cornell University junior was arrested Tuesday for allegedly making violent online threats directed toward Jewish students at the school. Gov. Kathy Hochul says state police and the FBI's joint terrorism task force questioned him earlier Tuesday. Patrick Dai accused of posting antisemitic threats The U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York says 21-year-old Patrick Dai has been arrested for posting antisemitic threats, including, "If you see a Jewish 'person' on campus follow them home and slit their throats." The feds say Dai is from the Rochester area and faces charges of posting threats to...

Like most Americans, I was of course shocked by the vicious inhumanity that the cowardly terrorist group Hamas carried out in Israel three weeks ago. Unfortunately, organized evil is neither unique nor surprising. The Nazis were equally evil across Europe, as were the Japanese at Nanking and Stalin with Ukraine, and Mao with his people. Sadly, evil happens, devils exist and thankfully they are rarely celebrated. But rarely doesn’t mean never, and the most shocking thing was not the evil perpetrated, but rather the extraordinary support it has received. Not only is Hamas’s evil finding exuberant support in places like...