Free Republic

High school students in Long Island, N.Y., were recently denied the right to establish a club for Christian students by their school administrators. This marks the second time they’ve run into trouble. Last year, John Raney, a 17-year-old student at Ward Melville High School, created Students United in Faith as an extracurricular club where Christian and non-Christian students could come together to discuss faith and pursue hunger-relief charity projects. “I wanted to start the club because I thought it would provide a safe space for Christians to meet and talk about their faith,” Raney told Fox News. Administrators at Raney’s...

It’s hard to imagine that any school would have a problem with a book about a Christian family that helped Jews escape the Holocaust. But Springs Charter Schools in Temecula, Calif., not only had a problem with “The Hiding Place,” they also took issue with any other book that was written by a Christian author or included a Christian message. “We do not purchase sectarian educational materials and do not allow sectarian materials on our state-authorized lending shelves,” Superintendent Kathleen Hermsmeyer wrote in a letter to attorneys at the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI). Pacific Justice Institute is representing a parent...

Ithaca, N.Y. — Leaflets calling a conservative columnist for the Cornell Daily Sun a “Racist Rape Apologist” have been anonymously distributed around campus. Julius Kairey, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences and author of a biweekly Sun column titled, “Always Right,” recently wrote a column about sexual assault that drew rebuttals. The circulated leaflets show a photo of Kairey. Under the photo, the words, “Daily Sun Columnist and Racist Rape Apologist” appear. No other text, no specifics supporting the allegations, are printed on the page.... The most recent Kairey column takes issue with a new California law...

Dissident conservatives have long bemoaned the prevalence of academic bias against them. The bias, indeed, has become so prevalent that liberal politicians are starting to notice. “Liberals, especially in universities, profess ‘diversity’ and ‘tolerance’,” Grove City College professor Paul Kengor said during an interview with the Young America’s Foundation. “In truth, they only tolerate things they agree with—which, of course, isn’t really tolerance. What liberals really practice is, at best, a selective tolerance and a selective diversity.” Kengor is the author of a number of books, the latest of which is entitled 11 Principles of a Reagan Conservative. Surprisingly, similar...

"Men are also allowed to receive extra credit, as long as they shave their bodies from the neck down. Student Stephanie Robinson said it was a “life changing experience.” Female Arizona State University students can receive extra credit for defying social norms and refusing to shave for 10 weeks during the semester. Women and Gender Studies Professor Breanne Fahs, encourages her female students to cease shaving their underarms and legs during the semester and document their experiences in a journal. "One guy did his shaving with a buck knife." Student Stephanie Robinson said it was a “life changing experience.” “Many...

No Koch Bros wanted at B.C. Brooklyn College, part of the disastrous and dysfunctional City University of New York sinkhole, has a $60 million endowment. A drop in the bucket compared to CUNY’s horrifying $3 billion budget.46% of its wildly inflated budget comes from New York State. New York City taxpayers kick in another 10%.With so much taxpayer money, involuntarily extracted, they just aren’t in need of any dirty Koch Brothers cash. Brooklyn College’s liberal politics are keeping grants and progress from faculty and students, one frustrated CUNY professor told the Observer.The CUNY college has turned down a $10 million...

Another little boy has gotten in trouble at school for having something that represents a gun but isn’t actually anything like a real gun. This time, eight-year-old Asher Palmer rolled up a piece of paper, called it a gun and pointed it at other kids, reports the New York Post. Officials at the special-needs school in New York City which Palmer attended then expelled him. The school is the Lang School, a ritzy private bastion which specializes in educating students with language difficulties. Annual tuition is $51,500. “Asher is exactly the type of student Lang is supposed to be serving,”...

Author's Note: The idea for this column isn't terribly original, as this YouTube video attests.Some readers have written questioning my series of columns lampooning the lavender graduation at UNC-Wilmington. That is the ceremony where UNCW graduates are given purple cords to show that they are gay and lavender cords to show they approve of homosexuality. Students then wear these cords when they get their degrees at the university-wide graduation ceremony. Some self-proclaimed conservatives have reasoned that since participation in the ceremony is optional, lavender graduation isn't a topic worthy of column space. That view is misguided as it fails to...

JANESVILLE, Wis. – A school district in southern Wisconsin has publicly apologized for a highly controversial film promoted to students that endorses same-sex marriage while disparaging those who disagree. Last month, students at Craig High School were shown the short video Kids React to Gay Marriage. Controversial statements in the film include calling those who do not approve of same-sex marriage “outrageous” and “insane.” The video was selected by the school’s Gay/Straight Alliance and approved by both the club’s advisers and Craig High Principal Dr. Alison Bjoin to be shown as part of the Day of Silence observance on April...

When it comes to today’s college curricula, nothing, it seems, is beyond the pale. Case in point: At San Diego State University, a brand new graduate program will offer an “Advanced Certificate in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies,” starting this fall, according to Nathan Harden, editor of The College Fix. A university press release describes the program as a way to “advance knowledge in sexual and gender identity, and increase understanding of the diverse cultural, historical, ethnic, racial and contemporary experiences of people across sexualities.” The new LGBT certificate is actually no surprise for a school that honors San...

A reading assignment has some parents in New Hampshire confused and upset. The controversial book “Nineteen Minutes” by Jodi Picoult is required reading for some 9th grade students at Gilford High School. The book is a fictional story about a school shooting and has been part of the curriculum since 2007. School officials say that the book contains important themes, but parents say that message is overshadowed by what some call pornographic content on one page. The book was assigned to students last Monday, but the school failed to give parents of freshmen students notice of the sexually explicit content...

Campus Reform on Tuesday reported that Brent Terry, professor at Eastern Connecticut State University who teaches creative writing, told his class that a 2014 GOP victory in the Senate will turn America into a very different kind of country and that colleges will start closing up. A current student, who disagreed with the Terry, who according to Campus Reform, wants to remain anonymous recorded the audio of Terry’s rant against Republicans accusing Republicans that they will not and do not want blacks, Latinos, old and young people to vote and Terry incorrectly stated that it is because they are all...

Imagine walking into a college class Monday morning and finding the professor ranting against those 'racist, misogynist, money-grubbing people' known as Republicans. Welcome to intro to creative writing at Eastern Connecticut State University (ECSU). If the GOP takes control of the House and the Senate in 2014, Professor Brent Terry warned, ‘colleges will start closing up’ and America could very well revert back not to 1955, but to 1855:' There are a lot of people out there that do not want black people to vote, do not want Latinos to vote. Do not want old people to vote, or young...

ARKPORT, N.Y. – Were officials in the Arkport Central School District being petty and vindictive in their treatment of children whose parents removed them from Common Core testing? ice creamIf so, they went about it in the worst possible way – by giving an ice cream treat to the third through sixth grade students who took the tests, and denying those who didn’t. Parents of the opt-out kids were simply exercising their legal rights, and they’re angered that their children had to pay the price in such an obviously nasty manner. After all, The fair and equitable distribution of ice...

--snip-- This was Thursday night and the two were part of a community meeting on the recent highly publicized violent incidents at the school, including a couple of lunchtime brawls and an assault on a conflict-resolution specialist by a 17-year-old student. Yes, a man charged to keep the peace got his skull fractured. At the start of the meeting, God got a shout-out by one of the speakers. It probably wasn't a bad idea. Given the disagreements over what caused the problems at Bartram, and what it's going to take to fix them, divine intervention may be the only solution....

A first grader in California has been told she’s not permitted to talk about the Bible at school. A teacher at Temecula Valley School told her first grade class to bring an object to school that represented a family Christmas tradition and then give a one-minute presentation. Brynn Williams brought the star that tops her family’s Christmas tree and shared how her family remembers Jesus’ birth at Christmas. “The star is named the Star of Bethlehem,” Brynn said. “The three kings followed the star to find the baby Jesus, the Savior of the world.” Brynn had planned to end her...

When you think about bullying in public schools, it's generally in the context of a bigger kid picking on a smaller kid.  According to Susan Kimball, a kindergarten teacher of 20 years in the Sikeston Public School District, it's administrators and fellow teachers bullying and intimidating her, all because she opposes Common Core. At yesterday's Senate Education Committee hearing, Kimball testified she has suffered from bullying and intimidation since she began speaking out about the controversial standards. [caption id="attachment_25492" align="aligncenter" width="639"] "You have no idea what I have been through over the past six weeks because of my stand." -...

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...

An assistant philosophy professor at Rochester Institute of Technology has proposed a bold plan to settle the debate on Global Warming. Lawrence Torcello wrote an essay suggesting that scientists who fail to fall in line with global warming alarmists should be charged with criminal negligence, and possibly even be thrown in jail. Nothing screams academic freedom like a little intellectual Fascism. Right? When it comes to global warming, much of the public remains in denial about a set of facts that the majority of scientists clearly agree on. Well, Larry (can we call him Larry?), it might surprise you –...

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.