Free Republic

The English department at Rutgers University, the eighth-oldest university in America, recently went woke. In an email obtained by The College Fix, Rebecca Walkowitz, English department chair, announced to faculty, staff and students that the department would implement a set of "anti-racist" initiatives. Lest the gullible be led astray by such anodyne phraseology, these initiatives include "limit(ing) emphasis on grammar/sentence-level issues so as to not put students from multilingual, non-standard 'academic' English backgrounds at a disadvantage." A pedagogical insistence on proper English grammar and syntax, you see, is now racist. Once upon a time, in those halcyon days before America's...

“Groupthink” is a phenomenon that social psychologists know well.  It was in 1972 that Irving Janis first coined the term, and since this time the concept of groupthink has been applied to the study of decision-making in various contexts.However, all too rarely have scholars analyzed academia in terms of groupthink.  Yet there can be no question that contemporary academics at most universities and colleges throughout America (and beyond) are at least as much as and, truth be told, probably much more so than anyone else under the spell of Groupthink.I have been teaching philosophy for the last 18 years.  I...

Recently, I received an email from a professor in the philosophy department at Guilford College. Her short, strange, and unsolicited missive asked whether it was true that I think that “transgender folk” are “mentally ill.” She went on to say that such a view is “an insupportable position” that is “unworthy of a scholar.” She concluded her brief sermon by informing me that her “preferred pronouns” are “she, her, and hers.”Although I don’t usually answer unsolicited emails I can answer her question succinctly: Yes, I do think “transgender folk” are mentally ill. I also think that any professor who actually thinks...

A conservative professor decrying the corrosive effects of political correctness on the larger society wrote a recent Letter to the Editor in our local paper. In the letter, the professor compared young people to butter sticks who melt at the slightest rise in temperature. The professor’s brief letter suggested that parents are raising their kids to be hypersensitive and that the universities are making the situation worse, not better. I agree with everything the professor wrote but I believe the situation is much more ominous than that. So I am writing to supplement, rather than contradict, the professor’s astute observations....

What is it with people on the left that brings them to the conclusion that the Islamic State isn't evil, let alone be angry with the perpetrators of the horrific Paris attacks last Friday? In the 11th Arrondissement, or administrative district, of Paris, some residents aren't angry with ISIS, nor do they consider them evil (via Haaretz): A group of friends was standing near the candles that had been lit at the foot of the monument at the square, trying to find out if the waiter that had served them at La Belle Equipe, one of the restaurants attacked in...

Earlier this month, a conservative student named Laura was suspended from Barry University for exposing her administration's sympathetic nature to ISIS. She’s a 4.0 honors student and was even awarded 'Most Outstanding Senior’ by the Communications Department the same day her expose was published. The administration, obviously feeling embarrassed, retaliated by punishing Laura for alerting the community of their anti-American behavior. For the past three weeks, Laura’s graduation status has been in jeopardy. Unfortunately, this type of retaliation towards conservative students happens every single year. It happened to me around this time last year, as I was about to...