Free Republic

A coalition of liberal student organizations has condemned California State-Long Beach President Jane Close Conoley and her administration for allowing an event hosted by the school’s Turning Point USA group. On October 23, TPUSA hosted conservative pundits Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens who were greeted by some 200 demonstrators protesting outside the venue. The activists chanted phrases such as “Go home, fascists” and “Say it loud, say it clear, immigrants are welcome here.”

Leading surgeon says lack of hobbies and creativity in schools has affected children’s practical abilities. New medical students have spent so much time on screens that they lack vital practical skills necessary to conduct life-saving operations, a leading surgeon has warned. Roger Kneebone, professor of surgical education at Imperial College London, said that a decline in hands-on creative subjects at school and practical hobbies at home means that students often do not have a basic understanding of the physical world. Kneebone said spending hours engaged in virtual worlds was no substitute for experience in the real world. “Partly it stops...

“It’s incredible you got into Harvard — especially with its racist admission policies!” I heard the sentiment of this impassioned exclamation all too frequently in the months following my acceptance. Everyone guilty of saying it meant well. They probably even believed that the last bit — the one that never failed to provoke an internal grimace — strengthened the compliment, elevating the gravity of my achievement. Of course, I’d happily accept the praise if the sentiments fueling it didn’t have the potential to harm other equally-deserving Harvard hopefuls. Unfortunately, that potential remains strong, more so now than ever. During this...

MEMPHIS — " We must not be afraid to be free," Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black famously said in a dissent defending free expression. That appeal is germane today, especially on college campuses, professor Daniel Cullen argues. Cullen, a professor of political science at Rhodes College, is working to engage liberal arts college students on the critical importance of the First Amendment and free speech. It's part of a program at 30 colleges and universities across the country who will be marking Constitution Day on September 17, the 231st anniversary of its signing. “It is a critical moment in American...

The president of a conservative Christian college in Colorado has voiced his concern about proposed changes to the Higher Learning Commission's standards for accreditation that he says could harm religious schools. Donald Sweeting, president of the 8,000-student Colorado Christian University, spoke during a public hearing for the Negotiated Rulemaking Committee of the U.S. Department of Education on Thursday to comment on changes that could negatively impact religious freedom. At issue is a draft proposal on the commission's criteria for accreditation that Sweeting said would essentially remove language requiring accrediting bodies to take an institution's "specific and diverse" mission into account...

"Education is a weapon the effect of which is determined by the hands which wield it, by who is to be struck down." -- Stalin, interview with H.G. Wells Beginning in early K-12 and continuing to the highest levels of university education, Leftist indoctrination is the gravest dilemma that afflicts education in North America, rendering it perhaps the most powerful instrument of anti-Western bias and socialist propaganda of the modern era. Here my concern is with the abandonment of genuine scholarship, fact-based historical research, familiarity with the “Great Books” and the development of critical thinking habits, particularly in the humanities...

Ohio State University employs nearly 90 diversity-related administrative employees, which costs taxpayers in the Buckeye State about $7.3 million in salaries and benefits annually,... The 88 administrators receive an estimated $7.3 million in total compensation, which includes $5.38 million in salaries and an estimated $1.89 million in fringe benefits. “To put that administrative expense into perspective, about 750 in-state students could get a full scholarship for tuition and fees if those dollars were directed to student financial aid. Stated differently, it takes the entire tuition dollars from 750 in-state students to pay for those 88 diversicrats,” economics Professor Mark ....

Eager to attack a potential new Trump administration policy dealing with sexual assault on college campuses, on Thursday, NBC’s Today show actually ignored its own reporting on the litany of problems with existing Obama-era policy. Instead, the story feared that Trump’s Department of Education was getting ready to silence sexual assault victims. “Also this morning, could the rules on how universities handle sexual assault and harassment cases be about to change and give more rights to the accused?,” warned co-host Savannah Guthrie while introducing the segment. Correspondent Kate Snow fretted: “Proposed rules by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, obtained by The...

The United States Department of Justice said in a court filing Thursday morning that Harvard’s race-conscious admissions policies inflict “unlawful racial discrimination” against Asian American applicants.“The record evidence demonstrates that Harvard’s race-based admissions process significantly disadvantages Asian-American applicants compared to applicants of other racial groups — including both white applicants and applicants from other racial minority groups,” department officials wrote. The Justice Department’s criticism came as part of a “statement of interest” it filed in the ongoing admissions lawsuit that alleges Harvard discriminates against Asian Americans in its admissions process. Its statement is meant to oppose the University’s earlier motion that...

Clinical psychologist and University of Toronto Professor Jordan Peterson called out colleges for teaching “pseudo-disciplines” on “Fox & Friends” Tuesday and said they made a “dreadful mistake” by legitimizing imitation majors. “I think part of it’s still a hangover from the 1960s,” Peterson said. “I would say and perhaps even a bit of a hangover from the Cold War.” (RELATED: Jordan Peterson Pushes Back Against Google’s Secret Police) “I also think the universities made a dreadful mistake expanding their humanities purview to include disciplines like women’s studies and these ethnic studies disciplines, which aren’t disciplines,” he continued. “They’re pseudo-disciplines at...

The rise and fall of the Art Institute of Charleston took just 11 years, carrying with it the aspirations of hundreds of young artists — and leaving some of them struggling beneath a mountain of debt. The for-profit chain of colleges opened its Market Street location in April 2007 amid fanfare from local political leaders, including then-Mayor Joe Riley, who had invited the school to train workers for the hospitality and restaurant industries.

Professors at the University of Wyoming say the school’s new cowboy slogan promotes “white heterosexual” masculinity. Expanding upon the University of Wyoming’s Cowboy mascot, the school recently adopted a new slogan — “The World Needs More Cowboys.” But some professors are up in arms over the choice, claiming that it promotes “white heterosexual” masculinity. Christine Porter, associate professor of kinesiology and health at the university, is leading the charge against the new slogan. “The history of cowboys, of course, is much more diverse than that racially, and presumably also for sexual orientation,” Porter said in a comment. “But the image...

Amy Wax, a University of Pennsylvania law professor, has come under attack and scathing criticism because she dared criticize the school's racial preferences program. In an interview with Brown University economist Glenn Loury, discussing affirmative action, Wax mentioned how racial preferences hinder the ability of blacks to succeed academically by admitting them into schools at which they are in over their heads academically. At UPenn's seventh-ranked law school, Wax said, she doesn't think that she has ever seen a black law student graduate in the top quarter of his class, and "rarely" is a black student in the top half....

The Trump administration on Tuesday rescinded an extensive set of guidelines put in place under President Barack Obama that had called on colleges and universities to consider race as a way of promoting diversity. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the 24 documents many of which gave advice to schools on how to deal with Supreme Court decisions on race and admissions “were unnecessary, outdated, inconsistent with existing law, or otherwise improper.” It has the effect of bringing the federal government’s position on affirmative action close to that of the George W. Bush administration which held that race could be...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration plans to revoke guidelines that encourage considering race in the college admissions process as a way of promoting diversity, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. The guidelines, put in place in the Obama administration in 2011 and 2016, put forth legal recommendations that Trump officials contend “mislead schools to believe that legal forms of affirmative action are simpler to achieve than the law allows,” the Journal reported, citing two people familiar with the plans. Trump administration officials plan to argue the guidelines go beyond what the Supreme Court has decided on the issue....

When 39 university associations send an open letter to Congress expressing “grave reservations” about proposed legislation, you can be sure that money is involved. No matter how they describe their concern about students, our colleges and universities have spent money at a pace well above inflation for decades, and they have raised tuition and fees in tandem. The federal student loan program has been their “enabler,” so they want to keep the money flowing.New buildings, new stadiums, fitness centers, luxury apartments, a “lazy river” at Louisiana State University, climbing walls at Notre Dame and Rutgers, and a $120 million refurbishing...

With more and more people going to more and more colleges than ever before, and more and more money being spent on “education,” scientists recently reported a discouraging statistic: since 1975, IQ levels have been falling consistently. The steady decline in math and science scores is especially troubling. They don’t know why this is happening, but I think we do. Maybe they ought to take a look at what’s being “taught” in some of these colleges. And in the workplace, too. Netflix employees last week got a new set of rules designed to do away with sexual harassment. It’s #MeToo...

POSTED ON JUNE 15, 2018 BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN RACIAL PREFERENCES HARVARD DOESN’T LIKE ASIANS I wrote here about the class action lawsuit that accuses Harvard of discriminating against Asian-Americans. The court has denied Harvard’s motions to dismiss, and the case is moving forward, which caused the university to defend its admissions practices in an email to its alumni. In denying discrimination, Harvard says it relies on a “whole-person admissions process.” That is, Harvard “considers the whole person, not just an applicant’s grades and test scores.” That’s fine as far as it goes, but if one ethnic group consistently needs...

I always knew that my alma mater, Harvard University, discriminates against Asians.  But I was surprised to learn how the university does it.  A lawsuit filed has shed some light on the matter. (By the way, although I am not a racist, I despise the word "Asians" – it can mean anything from Chinese to Pakistanis.  Although I will play along and continue to use the word "Asians," we are mostly talking about Chinese heritage here, with a smattering of Korean heritage, Japanese heritage, Filipino heritage, and a few other groups of applicants.) Harvard is being sued by a group claiming that Asians were...

A group called Students for Fair Admissions sued Harvard contending that the school’s admissions process significantly and unfairly limits the percentage of Asians who are accepted each year. Today the NY Times reports that an analysis of Harvard admissions records filed in support of the group’s lawsuit shows the school is consistently downgrading Asian applicants on subjective personal qualities in a way that reduces their overall admissions rate: