Free Republic

College faculties may be further to the political left than they have ever been but students aren’t necessarily following in the same direction. “In 1971 National Review published the results of a poll of undergraduates at twelve American campuses in 1969-1970,” George H. Nash wrote in his book The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945. “The results were deeply disheartening to conservatives.” The NR poll found that: “Three-fifths [of the respondents] call themselves political liberals, fully 17 % are self-proclaimed radicals.” “Almost half favor the socialization of all basic industries” “Just over half believe that organized religion is harmful...

Many view America's education as a failure, but in at least one important way, it's been a success -- a success in dumbing down the nation so that we fall easy prey to charlatans, hustlers and quacks. You say, "Williams, that's insulting! Explain yourself." OK, let's start with a question or two. Are you for or against global warming, later renamed climate change and more recently renamed climate disruption? Environmentalists have renamed it because they don't want to look silly in the face of cooling temperatures. About 650 million years ago, the Earth was frozen from pole to pole,...

The anti-Israel movement has made academia its breeding ground, and new initiatives to boycott Israeli academics and research are frequently introduced to student and professorial bodies. But the BDS movement was dealt a crippling blow on Wednesday, after one college turned the tables - introducing the first anti-BDS resolution at an American university. The student government at Western Washington University (Associated Students WWU) voted unanimously Wednesday that it will not consider boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) based on national origin, according to Israel advocacy organization StandWithUs. The 7-0 vote represents the first time ever that a North American university’s student...

The ruling is in response to a request from a group of students who said the laws make it virtually impossible to fire poorly performing teachersA judge issued a tentative ruling Tuesday that found California's public school teacher tenure laws unconstitutional after hearing testimony from students who claimed the job protections made it virtually impossible to dismiss low-performing teachers. The decision in Vergara v. California pitted the state and its largest teacher unions against students who asked the judge to consider laws regarding teacher tenure, dismissal and seniority consideration for layoffs. A Silicon Valley-based group called Students Matter brought the...

BLADEN COUNTY, NC - Not every school district in southeastern North Carolina is out for the Memorial Day holiday. Bladen County is open for students and staff today. ... [Separate report from WBTV ... Students and staff at Cleveland County School reported for school Monday morning . School leaders also told WBTV that Memorial Day that the calendar committee decided to preserve spring break and designate Memorial Day as a snow make-up day. Students and staff in the Clover School District, in South Carolina, were also in class on Memorial Day. ]

It was reading, writing and religious brainwashing at this top Connecticut high school. Staffers at Avon High indoctrinated three once-happy girls into a death-obsessed religious cult that had them speaking in tongues and acting like zombies, a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by their parents charges. Three Spanish teachers and a guidance counselor “taught students to believe in superstition, magic and a non-scientific, anti-intellectual world view,” the suit says. “They lost their humor and their empathy. They began speaking in a bizarre new language. They became unable to think critically or independently. They became dependent on the school teachers and...

Academia is hell. In the latest higher-education fad, students want "trigger warnings," according to The New York Times. It appears that some students are so fragile that they want university staff to protect them from big bad ideas. Students around the country say they want "explicit alerts that the material they are about to read or see in a classroom might upset them or, as some students assert, cause symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in victims of rape or in war veterans." An Oberlin College draft -- now "under revision" -- for trigger warnings suggested faculty "be aware of racism,...

There was a time when people looking for intellectual debate turned away from politics to the university. Political backrooms bred slogans and bagmen; universities fostered educated discussion. But when students in the 1960s began occupying university property like the thugs of regimes America was fighting abroad, the venues gradually reversed. Open debate is now protected only in the polity: In universities, muggers prevail.

A professor at a public university in North Carolina forbade his students from thanking God in personal statements that will be delivered during their departmental graduation ceremony on Friday. In an email obtained by Campus Reform, Assistant Professor Eli Hvastkovs, who teaches chemistry at East Carolina University (ECU), instructed his students to prepare a “family friendly” 35­ word personal statement that mentions future plans or “thanks someone.” The students, however, were explicitly forbidden from thanking God. “I've had some submissions that needed to be edited. so [sic] here are some guidelines,” the email reads. “1. You can't thank God. I'm...

Diversity and tolerance is a one way street Via The DC Students in a California school district will not be allowed to wear American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo, due to concerns that such displays of patriotism would inflame racial tensions by offending Mexican students on their holiday. The district’s policy concerned many free speech advocates, but was upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In response, Tea Party groups plan to protest outside Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill. And they will be wearing American flag T-shirts. “They silenced a symbol of patriotism and freedom in...

Students who graduate from the University of California-Berkeley can expect to spend roughly $120,000 for a four-year degree. This year, they still must pay an extra $10 to attend their own graduation ceremony, where they will also listen to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Students who do not cough up the cash before Wednesday, April 30 for the campus-wide commencement ceremony have been told they will not be able to attend on May 17 at California Memorial Stadium.

Michelle Obama has rescheduled a high school graduation speech after the students complained that her appearance would prevent many of their friends and relatives from attending the ceremony. The First Lady was scheduled to speak at a combined graduation ceremony for five high schools in Topeka, Kansas, on May 17 but will now be speaking at a different 'senior recognition day' ceremony the day before. 'Once we learned about the concerns of some students, we were eager to find a solution that enabled all of the students and their families to celebrate the special day,' said the First Lady's communications...

Nearly 40 children have been found with guns on school premises over the last three years, a shocking new national survey has disclosed. Figures obtained from police forces across Britain showed guns and air weapons had been confiscated on 37 occasions by officers—including two hand guns. The other guns included 27 ball bearing guns and seven other air weapons. The figures showed almost 1,000 pupils in total were caught by police with weapons in schools, including a Taser stun gun, a meat cleaver, three axes and a cut-throat razor. The total is likely to be only the tip of the...

WASHINGTON -- Spring is in the air, and one senses that it is again time for the college students of the land to engage in protest. It all began in the late 1960s, and one of the legacies of that period is that the campuses are evacuated as soon as possible. By May, the student body will be vamoosing. Administrators have discovered that that soft, gentle, spring-like weather breeds discontent among the students, drunken carousal, violence and criminality. It is best to return the inmates to their parents. An early sign of this seasonal discontent came a week ago at...

President Barack Obama on Monday announced more than $100 million in grants for two dozen schools across the country that are helping students gain work experience for what he called the “in-demand jobs of the future.” The money, which comes from fees that companies pay for visas to hire foreign workers for specialized jobs, is the result of an executive order Obama signed last year to better prepare high school students for college or for careers. Students are working on “cooler stuff than when I was in high school,” Obama said as he announced the grants before cheering high school...

Parents and students are fighting back against the war on Christmas and there is evidence that in some states they are winning the battle. Help has come from recently passed legislation that allows celebrations of the holidays in school rooms once again.

Common Core indoctrination has become an issue in coming elections as parents target politicians who support the Federal government imposed program on school districts.

Today, I write with some good news some of you may have already heard. On March 20, in Greenville, N.C., a federal jury unanimously sided with me in my claims that the University of North Carolina–Wilmington (UNCW) violated federal law in a 2006 promotion decision. Specifically, the jury found that my First Amendment–protected speech was a “substantial or motivating factor” in the defendants’ decision not to promote me to full professor. They also found that defendants could not prove they would have made the same decision in the absence of my speech activity. The case now moves to the judge...

HARTFORD — Mary Jo Andrews, Carol Poehnert and several other West Hartford mothers of children with mental-health problems had quietly met for eight years, usually over dinner, to share their experiences and frustrations, and to trade tips and shortcuts learned while navigating the treatment system. Then the Sandy Hook School tragedy happened in December 2012. "And we decided we needed to get out and do some advocating,'' Andrews told 70 parents and health care professionals at a forum at the Institute of Living Wednesday evening. It is the first of a handful of planned sessions — part of an effort...

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