Free Republic

Raise your hand if you believe government has too little involvement in our lives. Put down your hands, members of the Obama administration. During a previous political uprising in the 1980s, academic institutions managed to fend off conservative attacks on some of the subjects taught on their campuses—from “peace studies” to kinky sexual practices, to bad history—with cries of “academic freedom.” Where are those cries now that the federal government is on the verge of regulating the content of subject matter on college campuses and changing the way these institutions are accredited? According to the Centennial Institute, a proposed new...

Imagine a product whose price tag for decades rises faster than inflation. People keep buying it because they're told that it'll make them wealthier in the long run. Then, suddenly, they find it doesn't. Prices fall sharply. Bankruptcies ensue. Great institutions disappear. Sound like the housing market? Government-subsidized loans have injected money into higher education, as they did into housing, causing prices to balloon. But at some point, people figure out they're not getting their money's worth, and the bubble bursts. Some think this would be a good thing. Charles Murray has called for the abolition of college for almost...

Last night, Glenn Beck had a textbook Glenn Beck-style address in which he hyperbolically dug into both progressive universities and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius within the same 30 seconds.Target 1: Universities.There was a time not too long ago in this country that we used to walk through walls of fire to make sure we weren’t funding Hamas or Hezbollah. I have news for you: there are a lot of universities that are just as dangerous with indoctrination of our children as these terror groups are in Iran or North Korea.

University efforts to test Amazon’s electronic readers—Kindles—as substitutes for standard textbooks has run into trouble with the Obama Administration. The idea behind using Kindles is to save money by supplanting bulky paper-based books with lighter and smaller electronic devices. For example, one small hand-held Kindle could hold all the books needed for a four-year degree. Despite the seemingly obvious benefits, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is threatening legal action against any school that might be tempted to try the devices. Thomas Perez, head of the Civil Rights Division, warns that the devices violate the Americans with Disabilities Act. “Even...

While it strives for respectability, the Muslim Students Association (MSA) has a dark side. For example, a 2007 report by the New York Police Department describes MSAs as "part of a growing trend of Salafi-based radicalization." The report lists MSAs as an example of "Salafi Influences and Incubators," stating: "Extremists have used these university-based organizations as forums for the development and recruitment of like-minded individuals - providing a receptive platform for younger, American-born imams, to present a radical message in a way that resonates with the students." But the organization's role in radicalizing other Muslims is just part of the...

Truly, the Lord works in strange and mysterious ways. It was both unbelievable and unsurprising at the same time that a Catholic scholar— Dr. Kenneth Howell— was fired from a state university for teaching the Church’s position on homosexuality in a course on Catholicism. “Howell, who had been teaching at the university since 2001, was relieved of his teaching duties based in part on an anonymous complaint sent via e-mail to university officials,” the Alliance Defense Fund reports. “The e-mail was sent by the friend of an anonymous student who claimed to be ‘offended’ by a May 4 e-mail Howell...

Loony 'troon [Mark Steyn] Readers may recall Ann Coulter's visit to the University of Ottawa a couple of months back. The Provost, François Houle, had threatened her with criminal prosecution before she'd even set foot on Canadian soil, whereupon a mob of Houligans forced the cancellation of her speech. The Canadian Press filed a freedom-of-information request and has discovered that M Houle's fatuous letter was sent at the behest of the University's President, Alan Rock, a former Minister of Justice under the Liberals: "Ann Coulter is a mean-spirited, small-minded, foul-mouthed poltroon," Rock wrote to Houle in a March 18 email....

NOTE The following text is a quote: www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-obama-and-president-medvedev-russia-us-russia-business-summit Home • Briefing Room • Speeches & Remarks The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release June 24, 2010 Remarks by President Obama and President Medvedev of Russia at the U.S.-Russia Business Summit U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Washington, D.C. 3:08 P.M. EDT PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, good afternoon, everybody. It is a pleasure to be here with my friend and partner, President Medvedev, and I want to thank him again for his leadership, especially his vision for an innovative Russia that’s modernizing its economy, including deeper economic ties between our...

Professor Ross Forman, who earned his doctorate in comparative literature at Stanford, had a tough time finding work in American universities, but found an inviting atmosphere in Asia, where his education and skills were valued despite his being male. More and more American academics – most of them male – have been traveling far afield to find work in the better environment provided outside of the United States, where higher education has increasingly come to resemble a ladies’ book club. In addition to the ideologically-rooted hostility against men standard in American universities, skyrocketing tuition costs and bloated budgets for the...

"Like many middle-class families, Cortney Munna and her mother began the college selection process with a grim determination. They would do whatever they could to get Cortney into the best possible college, and they maintained a blind faith that the investment would be worth it. Today, however, Ms. Munna, a 26-year-old graduate of New York University, has nearly $100,000 in student loan debt from her four years in college, and affording the full monthly payments would be a struggle. For much of the time since her 2005 graduation, she’s been enrolled in night school, which allows her to defer loan...

Why would newspapers carry on a vendetta on one of the most important institutions that we have today in the United States,namely the Catholic Church? Do you know - the Catholic Church educates 2.6 million students everyday at the cost to your Church of 10 billion dollars, and a savings on the other hand tothe American taxpayer of 18 billion dollars. Your graduates go on to graduate studies at the rate of 92%, all at a cost to you. To the rest of the Americans it's free. The Church has 230 colleges and universities in the U.S. With an...

While we are all focused on health care, while immigration and cap & trade wait in the wings, we shouldn't forget the fourth leg of Obama's nasty tricks to "change" America: education reform. One might argue that George W Bush already federalized public school education with his infamous No Child Left Behind legislation. Whether one believes its consequences have been positive or negative, one cannot dispute that NCLB has effectively given the federal government control over critical parts of the public school curriculum. State and local officials understand very well that they must teach and test what the feds want,...

Since arriving in Canada I've been accused of thought crimes, threatened with criminal prosecution for speeches I hadn't yet given and denounced on the floor of the Parliament (which was nice because that one was on my "bucket list"). Posters advertising my speech have been officially banned, while posters denouncing me are plastered all over the University of Ottawa campus. Elected officials have been prohibited from attending my speeches. Also, the local clothing stores are fresh out of brown shirts. Welcome to Canada!

The notion of objective truth has been abandoned and the peer review process gives scholars ample opportunity to reward friends and punish enemies. Last fall, emails revealed that scientists at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England and colleagues in the U.S. and around the globe deliberately distorted data to support dire global warming scenarios and sought to block scholars with a different view from getting published. What does this scandal say generally about the intellectual habits and norms at our universities? This is a legitimate question, because our universities, which above all should be...

The Arab lobby has taken over from the long time powerhouse Brit lobby for giving us BAD advice. The Saudi-led Arab lobby has been funding our universities, shmoozing the Washington elite, and suckering the gullible New York Times with money they reap from our dependence on their oil. And they have achieved surprising success, considering that 15 of the 19 terrorists who attacked the Twin Towers were Saudis. Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal donated $20 million each to Harvard and Georgetown Universities "to promote interfaith understanding." For Georgetown, the gift was the second-largest ever received. Cornell University, Stanford University, and...

A prominent Islamic scholar will use a speech in London to issue a 600-page religious edict, denouncing terrorists and suicide bombers as "unbelievers". Muhammad Tahir ul Qadri is a leading figure who has promoted peace and interfaith dialogue for 30 years. He said he felt compelled to issue the fatwa because of concerns about the radicalisation of British Muslims at university campuses and because there had been a lack of condemnation of extremism by Muslim clerics and scholars. Ul Qadri says his fatwa, which is aimed at persuading young Muslims to turn their backs on extremism, goes further than any...

Glenn Beck has now supplanted Rush Limbaugh as the most influential broadcaster in America. He's the one the tea-party movement looks to. Beck wowed the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) crowd Feb 20 with his attack on progressivism, which he said must be "eradicated." "Progressivism is the cancer in America and it's eating our Constitution," Beck told the crowd. Now that Beck has given his marching orders, expect to hear all the Fox Puppets echoing him. The goal is to discredit "progressivism" as they did "liberalism." Beck fancies himself a historian; his patter is full of historical references that seem...

Enough is enough. Post-docs, complaining of low pay while conducting vital research, are rising up in university towns across the state. Nearly 300 postdoctoral researchers at University of Massachusetts campuses in Amherst, Boston, and Dartmouth joined the United Auto Workers union, becoming the first post-doc researchers in the state to unionize. The move triggers a process that will require the university system to negotiate over wages, health insurance, job security, and other workplace issues. “We’ve taken this step so we can protect our rights on the job, and make sure post-docs working on different campuses and in different labs are...

... Mr. Macias is just one of more than 26,000 students at San Francisco State, and now educational opportunities cost more and are harder to grasp and even harder to hold onto than ever before. Mr. Macias’s experience of truncated offerings, furloughed professors and crowded classrooms is typical. ... Terry Hartle, the senior vice president of the American Council on Education, a [higher education] trade association, confirmed that higher education in California has become akin to navigating an obstacle course. ... In 1960, he added, the state created “the gold standard in high-quality, low-cost public higher education. This year, the...