Free Republic

Los Angeles public schools are encouraging teachers and staff to wear badges that identify them as “LGBT allies” and supporters of the pro-gay movement. Superintendent John Deasy kicked off the effort Thursday, which he said was necessary to prevent gay kids from being bullied. “We want all our youth and staff to know that it is safe to be you in LAUSD,” said Deasy in a statement to the Los Angeles Times. The move is part of the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center’s “Out for Safe Schools” initiative. The front sides of the badges have the word “ally” written on...

A parent in Bryant, Ark., claims her sixth-grade daughter brought home a history class assignment that asks students to “revise, omit two and add two amendments” to the “outdated” Bill of Rights. Her daughter is reportedly a student in the Bryant School District. Lela Spears, the girl’s mother, told the Digital Journal that the worksheet requires students to take part in a theoretical special committee, the “National Revised Bill of Rights Task Force.” The committee is charged with the task of revising the Bill of Rights to “ensure that our personal civil liberties and the pursuit of happiness remains guarded...

An Ohio school district has agreed to keep a portrait of Jesus Christ off school property and pay a $95,000 fine in the face of legal pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union. The Jackson City School District, located in Jackson, reached a deal on Friday after the ACLU, along with the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation, sued the district in February, citing “unconstitutional” actions and charging that students and visitors to the school “will continue to suffer permanent, severe and irreparable harm and injury,” according to the lawsuit. The picture had been hanging in Jackson’s high school since 1947...

What are your kids studying in school today? Public schools from California to Florida are celebrating LGBT History Month, where they highlight a homosexual or lesbian each day. Today, America’s school children are learning about Edward-turned-Gwen Araujo, who was intimate with men who allegedly beat him when they discovered that he was not a woman. “If parents think our school children should be focused on science and math, not sex and murder, they need to talk to teachers, principals, and school boards to ensure that this program is stopped,” cautions Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. “The sexual...

Duke University sociology professor Eduardo Bonilla-Silva says white people are as racist as they’ve ever been, it’s just modern, more insidious forms of racism have taken over the more overt forms of racism common in America’s past, The Dartmouth reports. Bonilla-Silva made his argument Thursday in a guest lecture at the Ivy League Dartmouth College. Bonilla-Silva argued when white people say things such as “some of my best friends are black,” or “use the election of President Barack Obama to support the claim that America has moved beyond its racially tense past,” or say they didn’t personally own slaves – they are just denying their...

A video uploaded to YouTube by a pro-life organization appears to show a university student verbally attacking a campus pro-life group on Thursday. Students For Life said in an email that the video, which has garnered a little over 2k views since it was posted Thursday, captures “one of the most disturbing ones our team has yet to take on a college campus.” The 26-second clip appears to show an unidentified student at Indiana University approaching the pro-life college group, allegedly upset with a display they had erected on the campus. “You’re in conflict with the world that I want...

The principal at Marina High School in Huntington Beach had made a vow before one of his students – a transgender teen – was crowned homecoming queen Friday night. "If Marina High School is to make high-profile news during its homecoming week this year," Principal Paul Morrow said before the ceremony, "then we are proud that the message is one of equity and individual respect." Cassidy Lynn Campbell, who was born male but told The Times she always felt like a girl, broke down in tears during the homecoming ceremony at the school’s football game.

[SUMMARY: All levels of education influence each other. College professors can greatly help higher education by joining the fight to improve secondary education.]-- No school is an island; each school, each sector of education, is connected to the others. Influences flow between them. It’s reasonable to think a nation’s educational institutions will rise and fall together. College professors may hope they can retreat to an ivory tower, untouched by the mediocrity in our public schools. Some professors may believe they are an intellectual aristocracy, and as such cannot be contaminated by the rabble below. However, the contamination relentlessly spreads and...

It is our duty to stop stuff like this. Guyer High School (and obviously several others) are complicit in attempting to condition students to interpret the 2nd Amendment in a clearly opposite manner in which it was intended. The 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th are also misinterpreted as several commentators below pointed out. This textbook, currently being used by Guyer High School, is attempting to redefine the Second Amendment to impressionable young minds. Parents, you must speak up and demand action. Investigate your child's history book ASAP, and post more pictures in the comments below. Call your school and demand...

Liberal Academia pushing Islam on the children. In case you missed this one, there was a report at JihadWatch and numerous other sources that a Boston school (Concord-Carlisle High) replaced the Pledge of Allegiance with a Muslim poem on the anniversary of 9/11. Now if that isn’t infuriating enough, there is another report out of Arkansas in which a school attempted to sneak in a Muslim speaker to proselytize on the 9/11 anniversary. Parents weren’t told and Liberal media was surprised that parents would have a problem with this. Notice in the video report below, how the media managed to...

The protesters who uprooted a 9/11 memorial display at a liberal arts college in Vermont claimed they were defending Abenaki tribal lands and taking a stand against U.S. imperialism.The Abenaki tribe’s response? “Disgusting.”Don Stevens, chief of the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe, said his tribe did not approve of the actions taken by five people–including one student–at Middlebury College last week. (RELATED: Student destroys 9/11 memorial, citing U.S. imperialism)“We didn’t know anything about this and if we had we certainly wouldn’t have sanctioned it,” he said in a statement to The Addison Independent.The 9/11 memorial display consisted of 2,977 flags placed in...

Why do American middle school teachers insist on playing the Macklemore & Ryan Lewis song “Same Love” for their students when the far-superior “Thrift Shop” is readily available?The Daily Caller cannot answer this vexing question. What is certain, though, is that this week marks the first time this year that a school district has suspended a teacher for playing the song.The unidentified teacher from rural Taylorsville, N.C. was suspended for showing the “Same Love” music video in class, reports the Charlotte Observer.“At West Alexander Middle School, there was an inappropriate video shown in class, outside the bounds of the curriculum...

The Michigan Republican Party called the remarks political intimidation against students. ... “This is a public institution, funded by taxpayers, and this type of bullying is inexcusable. ” … By bringing his personal views into the classroom, Penn has directly isolated and threatened young Republicans into silence. His use of political intimidation is shameful and should not be tolerated.” Penn’s remarks were captured on video by a student and posted online by Campus Reform,

Shocked? I sure am. I thought they’d just give him a quiet slap on the hand or ignore him altogether. I never expected he’d receive real consequences for leftist tirade: CAMPUS REFORM – Michigan State administrators have suspended Prof. William Penn for the remainder of the semester, after he was caught on video going on an anti-Republican tirade on the very first day of his literature class. In an email to students Thursday morning, Dean Karen Wurst of the College of Arts & Letters, cited his “inappropriate, disrespectful and offensive” comments. “On Aug. 29, during your Literatures, Cultures, Identities course,...

If you come from a broken or dysfunctional family, or bad neighborhood, how enticing and deceptive this indoctrination is… Via The Blaze: Fourth-grade students in Illinois are learning that “government is like a nation’s family” because it sets rules and takes care of needs such as health care and education. So says a worksheet for social studies homework that was distributed to students at East Prairie School in Skokie, Ill, complete with a drawing of Uncle Sam cradling a baby that represents the citizens. Students are then prompted to answer 10 questions comparing government and families, including how their family...

(Newser) – Do you send your kids to private school? Then congratulations: "You are a bad person," Allison Benedikt argues in Slate. "Not bad like murder bad—but bad like ruining-one-of-our-nation’s-most-essential-institutions-in-order-to-get-what’s-best-for-your-kid bad. So pretty bad." Her reasoning is simple: if everyone were invested in public schools—and not just monetarily invested, "but real flesh-and-blood-offspring" invested—they would get better. Involved parents can make a huge difference. Yes, your kid may not get as excellent an education. "Take a deep breath and live with that." "If you can afford private school," even just barely, "chances are that your spawn will be perfectly fine...

This week begins my 34th year serving on George Mason University's distinguished economics faculty. You might imagine my surprise when I received a letter from its Office of Equity and Diversity Services notifying me that I was required to "complete the in-person Equal Opportunity and Prevention of Sexual Harassment Policies and Procedures training." This is a leftist agenda for indoctrination, thought control and free speech suppression to which I shall refuse to submit. Let's look at it. Ideas such as equity and equal opportunity, while having high emotional value, are vacuous analytical concepts. For example, I've asked students whether they...

One conservative college professor’s support for traditional marriage was enough for one online commenter to brand him “the biggest embarrassment to higher education in America.” How the professor responded was pretty fantastic.

Steven Salaita, an associate professor of English at Virginia Tech, argues in a column posted this morning at Salon.com that Americans should stop saying "support the troops," calling it "trite and tiresome." He argues that patriotism and voicing support for the troops is merely a cover for American "imperialism" and likens American soldiers to murderers and ignorant individuals who "act like an Adam Sandler character."

MADISON – Parents, do you know your elementary school’s masturbation education policy? OLD ENOUGH?: Some Wisconsin school districts have authorized sexual education, including topics such as masturbation, at elementary schools. The Oak Creek School District developed a booklet for parents of elementary students to help them “understand how staff and outside resource people will handle these sensitive topics.”Sensitive topics, indeed.The elementary school booklet covers masturbation, sexual intercourse, sexual orientation, abortion and contraception.The booklet is a complement to the Human Growth and Development curriculum that takes various forms throughout public school districts across the state.It’s unclear how prevalent the Human Growth...