Free Republic

Students at George Mason University (GMU) signed a petition early this month asking President Obama to listen in on the "private conversations" of all Fox News employees and their families. -video at link- The petition, which was circulated on GMU's flagship campus in Fairfax, Va, near Washington D.C., by Media Research Center video reporter Dan Joseph, described the right-leaning news channel as “a threat to media integrity and an informed populace.” “We want the to be able to legally read their private e-mails and listen in on phone conversations between Fox News employees and their associates and their families," Joseph...

The Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is pressuring public schools in this country to make special accommodations for Muslim students and to deny comparable accommodations for students of other faiths. For example, CAIR’s instructional material for teachers entitled “An Educator’s Guide to Islamic Religious Practices” advises schools to permit Muslim students who wish to attend Friday congregational worship (known as Jum’ah) to “request a temporary release from school.” In Michigan, CAIR went beyond dispensing general advice from its guidebook. In April, 2013, it pushed for public schools in Dearborn, Michigan to accommodate Muslim students who wish to comfortably...

Anti-Israel college students will trek to a scenic campsite in upstate New York this summer to learn how to launch campus boycotts against the Jewish state at a program subsidized and run by one of America’s largest Quaker faith groups. The American Friends Service Committee “We Divest Campaign Student Leadership Team Summer Training Institute” describes itself as a “five (5) day intensive program for campus [Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions] organizers—those with campaigns already running and those hoping to get one launched in the 2013-2014 school year.”

Youths surround Pope Francis as he meets with students from Jesuit schools June 7 in Paul VI hall at the Vatican. (CNS/Reuters) By Carol GlatzCatholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis ditched a 1,250-word prepared speech to students saying it would be "a tad boring" to read out loud and opted instead to just quickly hit the high points and spend the rest of the time answering people's questions. "Would you like that?" he asked as some 9,000 students, alumni and teachers from Jesuit-run schools and associations in Italy and Albania yelled "Yes" with cheers and applause....

A group of about 100 high school students traveling from New York to Atlanta were thrown off a flight, along with their chaperones, after the pilot and crew lost patience with some kids who wouldn't sit down and put away their cellphones. The teenagers, all seniors at the Yeshiva of Flatbush, in Brooklyn, were ordered off the AirTran flight around 6 a.m. Monday as it sat at a gate at LaGuardia Airport. AirTran's parent company, Southwest Airlines, said in a statement that flight attendants asked passengers several times to take their seats and put their mobile devices away. The airline...

SAINT-JEROME, QC - A school board north of Montreal has launched an internal investigation after school staff strip searched 28 high school students to find a cellphone during a year-end exam. The board admits that staff at Cap-Jeunesse high school in Saint-Jerome, QC, "lacked judgment" for asking 28 Grade 10 students to remove their clothes when a phone went missing last week. The students were ordered to put their phones on a teacher's desk to prevent cheating during a math exam but one phone was unaccounted for, prompting teachers to order the strip search. "They put us in a small...

An all-too-familiar scene was enacted on the campus of Swarthmore College during a meeting on May 4 to discuss demands by student activists for the college to divest itself of its investments in companies that deal in fossil fuels. As a speaker was beginning a presentation to show how many millions of dollars such a disinvestment would cost the college, student activists invaded the meeting, seized the microphone, and shouted down a student who rose in the audience to object. Although there were professors and administrators in the room — including the college president — apparently nobody had the guts...

Liberal Chick is back and completely off her rocker. This time the zany Leftist wants pressure cookers banned in light of the Boston Terrorist Attack. The sad thing is she finds dozens of college students ready to outlaw them as well. Cockle-Doodle-Do!

Students in some Albany High School English classes were asked to participate in the unthinkable this week as part of a persuasive writing assignment. The objective? Prove why Jews are evil and convince the teacher of their loyalty to the Third Reich in five paragraphs or less. “You must argue that Jews are evil, and use solid rationale from government propaganda to convince me of your loyalty to the Third Reich!” read the description on the assignment, which the school superintendent said reflects the kind of sophisticated writing expected of students under the new Common Core standards and was meant...

Tell us what you really think, Oklahoma Rep. Mike Reynolds. Reynolds is making a few enemies after bluntly stating "it's not our job to see that anyone gets an education" in an email exchange between Oklahoma lawmakers. When fellow Rep. James Lockhart emailed colleagues asking them to support a bill that would expand Oklahoma's Promise, a scholarship program for qualified low-income students, Reynolds responded, "It is not the responsibility of me, you, or any constituent in my district to pay for his or any other persons [sic] education …

Telling them how, not what, to think How is it that when a person disagrees politically with a teacher, suddenly said teacher is “indoctrinating” students instead of teaching them? OK, I admit it: I indoctrinated students. I indoctrinated them that their job was being a student. Instead of a check, they got paid every nine weeks with a report card. At the end of four years’ service, they got a “bonus”: a diploma. I indoctrinated them by telling them to consider their “paycheck” an investment account that, once earned, no one could take away from them. I told them a...

Shortly after I did my first TV special on education, "Stupid in America," hundreds of union teachers showed up outside my office to yell at me. They were angry because I said union rules were a big reason American kids don't learn. The union is a big reason kids don't like school and learn less. Union contracts limit flexibility, limit promotion of good teachers, waste money and make it hard for principals to fire even terrible teachers. But I was wrong to imply that the union is the biggest problem. In states with weak unions, K-12 schools stagnate, too. Education...

Last week, I reported on the federal government's massive new student-tracking database, which was created as part of the nationalized Common Core standards scheme. The bad news: GOP "leadership" continues to ignore or, worse, enable this Nanny State racket (hello, Jeb Bush). The good news: An independent grassroots revolt outside the Beltway bubble is swelling. Families are taking their children's academic and privacy matters out of the snoopercrats' grip and into their own hands. You can now download a Common Core opt-out/disclosure form to submit to your school district, courtesy of the Truth In American Education group: http://truthinamericaneducation.com/uncategorized/ccss-parent-opt-out-form/ Parents caught...

Wisconsin Education Officials Want Students to Wear ‘White Privilege’ Wristbands The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction runs several programs that heavily emphasize racial issues in public schools, EAGnews.org has been finding. Some feel that one of those programs – an Americorps operation called VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) – may go a bit overboard by encouraging white students to wear a white wristband "as a reminder about your (white) privilege.” Geared towards high school students, the program “seeks to build capacity in schools and districts serving low-income families to develop an effective, sustainable, research-based program of family-school-community partnerships,” according...

If students want to pass John Banzhaf’s law class, they’ll have to fight for increased government regulation in the food and beverages industry.Banzhaf, a law professor at George Washington University, will require his students to lobby state and local governments to ban sugary beverages, according to a press release. The release was put out by Banzhaf himself, who summarized the objective as “Undergrads Required to Lobby for Obama Policy.”“Some 200 undergrads will be asked to contact legislators in their home cities, counties, or states asking them to adopt legislation similar to that already adopted in New York City … banning...

In Harvard University’s latest attempt to promote the delegitimization of the state of Israel, Jewish students in freshman and upper class dormitories received mock eviction notices in light of “Israel Apartheid Week”, which is currently being organized on college and university campuses worldwide. The campaign, organized by the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee, distributed notices at the beginning of March which read, “We regret to inform you that your suite is scheduled for demolition in the next three days”, a reference to the group’s views regarding Israel’s treatment of the Arab population. The Anti Defamation League (ADL) expressed outrage over the...

An Advanced Placement World Geography teacher at a Texas high school who encouraged students to dress in Islamic clothing also instructed them to refer to the 9-11 hijackers not as terrorists – but as “freedom fighters,” according to students who were in the class. Students at Lumberton High School were also told to stop referring to the Holocaust as Genocide – instead they were told to use the term “ethnic cleansing.” John Valastro, the superintendent of the Lumberton Independent School District, tells me that the teacher did absolutely nothing wrong. “What is more dangerous – fear and ignorance or education...

<p>The Oregon House has voted to extend resident college tuition rates to some young illegal immigrants.</p> <p>The House's 38-18 vote on Friday sends the measure to the Senate. In the last decade, similar legislation has failed twice.</p> <p>The measure would allow students to qualify for in-state tuition at the Oregon's seven public universities if they've attended an Oregon high school for at least three years and lived in the United States for at least five.</p>

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Police say hundreds of students brawled at Minneapolis South High School after a food fight got out of control. **SNIP** Minneapolis Police spokesman Sgt. Bill Palmer says 200 to 300 students fought and no weapons were used. He says about a dozen officers were on the scene and used chemical spray to break up the fight.

The University of Wisconsin – Superior (UWS) is sponsoring a campaign that teaches students it is “unfair” to be white, a university spokesperson confirmed to Campus Reform last Wednesday. A poster produced by the Unfair Campaign. The controversial project, named the “Unfair Campaign,” exists to teach students that “systems and institutions are set up for us [whites]” and as such are “unfair.” The campaign’s slogan, as it appears on its official website, is “it’s hard to see racism when you’re White.” The project disseminates its controversial message through an aggressive campaign of online videos, billboards, and lectures. Posters produced by...