Free Republic

A Washington state senator has survived a campaign by Western Washington University students who demanded their school revoke his master’s degree because he’s not radical enough on global warming. Doug Ericksen, a Republican and chair of Washington’s Senate Energy, Environment and Telecommunications Committee, has blocked efforts to force businesses and residents to go green, but he supports voluntary compliance. He opposes mandated cap-and-trade programs and low-carbon fuel standards. But the effort to yank Ericksen’s degree — he earned his MA in political science and environmental policy at WWU — met with a stiff rebuke last week from the university’s president....

A New Jersey public school teacher who instructed her third-grade students to write “get well” letters to a convicted cop killer was fired at a raucous school board meeting that stretched into the wee hours of Wednesday morning, despite her pleas that “there’s a community behind me.” Marylin Zuniga, a first-year teacher who drew widespread condemnation for assigning her young charges the task of writing to Mumia Abu-Jamal, was canned at the meeting of the Orange Board of Education, the Star-Ledger of Newark reported.

The FBI has targeted Bergen County, New Jersey to stop Islamic State militants from getting a stronghold there – and agents have been going to high school with a message. Christine Sloan was there when agents visited a Bergen County school on Tuesday. An FBI intelligence analyst who did not wish to be identified spoke at the Bergen Arts and Science Charter School in Hackensack. He warned students about a new threat – a sophisticated recruitment video trying to lure them into joining the terrorist group ISIS. “There’s a role for everybody. Every person can contribute to the Islamic State,”...

CONROE, Texas – Parents knows it can be difficult to get kids to eat their greens, but after an incident at a Texas high school some students may never eat vegetables again. “There’s no way they could’ve missed (them), picking up a handful of broccoli like they do with their gloves on and not seen these ginormous bugs,” Melissa Evans, mother of Caney Creek High School junior Falyn Evans, told Click2Houston. Falyn Evans and her friend were served the bug-infested broccoli for lunch Monday and the two almost ate the insects before they realized they were there. “It was kind...

Need your help Freepers. Where is the picture of GW Bush talking to a student assembly with just a microphone? That pic used to come up with google images immediately when you tried searches like: Bush talking to Students. Bush vrs Obama talking to students Ect. What has happened?

An old teacher-licensing test that blacks and Hispanics had trouble passing poses a grave threat to city coffers — $300 million, according to internal budget documents obtained by The Post. Taxpayers are on the hook for cliams by thousands of minority teachers as part of a civil-rights case in which a judge ruled they were illegally fired, demoted or denied jobs for failing the racially discriminatory Liberal Arts and Sciences Test.

DENVER, April 17 (UPI) -- A Denver teacher's assignment asking third grade students to write down things "I wish my teacher knew" went viral when she shared some of the responses.

Full title: Iowa students preparing for Hillary's first 'listening' session think she's a 'control freak' who will be 'talking s**t' and only wants immigration reform because the Democratic party needs voters When Hillary Clinton steps off her road-trip van on Tuesday at a rural Iowa community college, she might not be greeted by cheering throngs. Daily Mail Online spoke to students at Kirkwood Community College's regional center in Jones County, where the former secretary of state will hold her first low-key campaign event. The outlook isn't sunny for the kickoff of her 'listening tour': Of the ten students interviewed in...

Iowa students preparing for Hillary's first 'listening' session think she's a 'control freak' who will be 'talking s**t' and only wants immigration reform because the Democratic party needs voters Daily Mail Online spoke to ten students at Kirkwood Community College's satellite campus in rural Iowa where Hillary Clinton will be Tuesday One student is among those picked by teachers to question the former secretary of state He wants her to comment on his suspicion about immigration reform – that Democrats are pushing the policy because they need new loyal voters Another predicted that 'she's going to be, like, talking s**t'...

Teacher, 30, faces decades in prison after pleading guilty to 37 charges for having sex with three students and getting pregnant by one A former Florida teacher accused of repeatedly having sex with at least three students has pleaded guilty to three dozen criminal counts. Jennifer Fichter, 30, was set to attend a pre-trial hearing in Polk County Court Thursday morning, but instead she pleaded guilty to all 37 counts of unlawful sexual contact with a minor. Each charge carries a maximum of 15 years in prison. Fichter's sentencing is scheduled for July 2. Fichter taught English at Central Aerospace...

A few hours before Central Student Government is set to consider a divestment resolution during their weekly meeting, members of the campus group Students Allied for Freedom and Equality hung a banner from a window in Mason Hall, which read “The Deaths of These Children” and included a list of names. The list names children who have allegedly died amid the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. The banner says the deaths of these children were “sponsored by” companies such as the Boeing Company, Caterpillar Inc., G4S and United Technologies Corporation. SAFE, a Palestinian solidarity group, posted a photo of the...

BOUNTIFUL — A judge ruled Monday that a former Davis High School teacher will face separate trials on charges of sexually abusing three students. Brianne Altice, 35, faces a total of 14 felony charges — including rape, forcible sodomy, forcible sexual abuse, unlawful sexual activity with a minor and dealing in materials harmful to a minor — stemming from alleged sexual relationships with three former Davis High students who were 16 or 17 years old at the time. Second District Judge Thomas Kay ruled Monday that it was "appropriate and necessary" to split the 10 original charges into three trials,...

The University of Toronto Mississauga Students’ Union (UTMSU) is pushing to have people never use the word "idiot" because, according to them, it promotes "ableism." According to "StopAbleism.org," ableism "are the practices and dominant attitudes in society that devalue and limit the potential of persons with disabilities." UTMSU believes that the word "idiot," even if you are calling yourself that, promotes ableism. They feel so strongly that they are now putting up posters around campus to get the word out:

Graphic cell phone footage has emerged of brutal attack on a school girl that took place in Brooklyn after class on Monday afternoon. The three minute clip shows an unfair fight that begins with a small girl in a light blue hoodie being set upon by at least four other students. As the girl is mercilessly pummelled by the gang her blonde hair extensions are ripped from her head as she is repeatedly punched and kicked.

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. —Six young protesters are blocking Highway 1 in Santa Cruz where the fishhook merges with Highway 17. A California Highway Patrol officer told KSBW that the protesters are University of California Santa Cruz students. They are using their bodies, trash cans filled with cement, and pipes to block southbound lanes. Students are linked together and laying down across the usually-busy highway. While holding a banner reading "Fight The Hikes," demonstrators said they are standing up against tuition hikes by the University of California system, as well as police brutality.

I once asked my late father if he had any experiences with anti-Semitism. There weren't many. Although that was probably in part because of his scoring methodology. The Irish kids who beat up the Jewish kids in his Bronx neighborhood didn't do so because they were anti-Semitic, but because "they had to fight somebody," as my dad put it. Today, such behavior would probably be called a hate crime. So I suppose that's progress. He did tell me that the first time someone said to him "Don't Jew me" was during his freshman year at the University of Michigan. He...

MONESSEN, Pa. (AP) - Parents in a Pennsylvania school district are turning 50 shades of red over word search puzzles given to middle school students based on an erotic novel and movie. The students in Monessen were given puzzles based on "Fifty Shades of Grey" that contained terms including "spanking," ''submissive," ''leather cuffs" and "bondage." Other words on the list were more explicit. Parent James Carter complained about it at Tuesday night's school board meeting, saying he tried to question the school's principal and dean of students, but they refused to talk when he insisted on recording their conversation. "I...

Two students were shot this evening outside Frederick High School near the gymnasium, police said. Officers were called shortly after 8 p.m. The assailants, described as four black males dressed in black, are at large, said Officer First Class M. Cox. A SWAT team was searching the area. Two students were wounded, and all other students and staff in the building are safe, according to an email alert from Frederick County Public Schools. Lt. Bruce DeGrange said the students’ injuries were not considered life-threatening. Police did not release the victims’ names because they are under 18. A junior varsity boys...

Anti-Israel activists at the University of California, Davis heckled Jewish students and shouted “Allahhu Akbar” at them during a vote last week on a resolution endorsing a boycott of the Jewish state, according to video of the event obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The commotion erupted late Thursday evening as pro-Israel students attempted to counter a student government resolution to divest from Israel as part of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Activists waving Palestinian flags shouted at the Jewish and pro-Israel students as they left the meeting room ahead of an eight to two vote in favor...

Sometimes these various bits of state gun legislation get a bit confusing for me. In Texas is it apparently already legal for teachers to employ “reasonable force” in disciplinary situations and be protected from legal repercussions. (Good for them.) That applies to normal situations of “discipline” and maintaining order, though.. not a full blown crisis or attack. But in a new bill under consideration in the Lone Star State, deadly force would garner similar protection in the courts under appropriate circumstances. A proposed bill would allow teachers in Texas to use deadly force against students and be protected from...