Free Republic

The student unrest that roiled the nation’s campuses in the first half of this year was most often associated with the “encampment,” a visible tent-manifestation of scruffy, keffiyeh-swaddled support for the governing of Gaza by the terrorist group Hamas, as well as many other expressions of rank anti-Semitism. But was it really “student” unrest? niversity administrators might be surprised (or perhaps not) that much of today’s campus chaos originates, as it always has, with the employees. Both faculty and staff have for decades mobilized students for protest, activism, and, at times, illegal activity. Today’s pro-Hamas student movement, as with so...

When accepting the Heritage Foundation’s 2024 Salvatori Prize on May 22, Chris Rufo remarked that state legislatures in red states such as Oklahoma need to start exercising oversight of their public universities. He’s right. “There is an endemic rot of indoctrination, politicization, and intellectual intimidation,” Joel Gardner observed on this website in 2020, “that is eviscerating the historical purpose and nature of our institutions of higher learning.” This remains true today and not just in elite institutions. The rot is widespread even in public universities in Oklahoma, one of the reddest states in the nation. Fortunately, with Republicans in possession...

Stanford University police arrested 13 pro-Palestinian protesters Wednesday who entered the president’s office early in the morning and, the university said, caused extensive damage in the building and injured one of the officers trying to clear the building. Outside, protesters graffitied the stone walls with swear words and death threats against police, America and Israel. On the last day of spring instruction at Stanford, university officials then wasted no time in dismantling a pro-Palestinian encampment on nearby White Plaza, removing tents that had been up since April. They also removed an adjacent pro-Israel display featuring chairs with the names of...

Student debt in the U.S. has ballooned to over $1.7 trillion, burdening millions of Americans with financial stress. Rising tuition costs and stagnating wages are considered to be the major drivers of this issue.To gain insight into how this is affecting students, Visual Capitalist's Marcus Lu visualized the results of WalletHub’s Student Money Survey.This survey was conducted in 2024 with a nationally representative sample of 210 students. Results were normalized by gender and income.Data and Key FindingsStudent wealth surveys can provide unique insights into the financial preparedness of younger Americans.Starting with post-grad fears, it appears that the majority of students...

Higher-education administrators remain in a tight spot regarding the recent spate of antisemitism on campuses. They have allowed, and in some cases encouraged, a system that has an untenable moral tension where the treatment of Jews is concerned. The war in Palestine has brought this tension to light. Students and faculty on elite campuses tend to see the world in terms of opposing groups: us and them, black and white, good and evil, and, most importantly, oppressor and oppressed. The oppressed can be identified among the poor, black, female, homosexual, etc. The oppressors fall into the opposite groups: the rich,...

Most of the general public, particularly those who know students in college or university, are aware of the sharp increases in the cost of higher education over the last several decades. Such increases have strained the budgets of students and their families and have led to significant increases in student debt. Included in these sharp price increases is the cost of textbooks and online materials that students need for their courses. A commonly cited estimate is that the cost of these materials may average around $1,200 per year per student (or $150 per course for eight courses during an academic...

Money-laundering is the art of taking money illicitly gained and cleaning it so that it cannot be traced back to its source and is therefore free and clear. In the television show Breaking Bad, Walter White and his co-conspirators purchase cash-based businesses such as the A1A Car Wash to launder their profits from cooking perfectly blue crystal meth.Crystal meth is illegal and the profits obviously in need of laundering. Sometimes, though, even legally gained money might need to be laundered. What if the government gave you a contract to do one thing, and you wanted to buy something else with...

Starting your career with a business major is a strategic move in today's dynamic job market. This qualification opens doors to many lucrative and impactful opportunities. And you'll find some of the highest-paying business jobs right here on Monster.Trends indicate a positive outlook for business careers. The job market is robust, with a wide range of sectors such as finance, consulting, human resources, and marketing seeking business-savvy professionals. This demand is fueled by an ongoing need for graduates with strategic thinking, financial acumen, and innovative problem-solving skills.You can carve out a highly rewarding career in these lucrative sectors with the...

The conventional wisdom among “progressives” is that black Americans must be given preferences in college admissions, hiring, and government contracting because the nation is so suffused with racism that they cannot advance otherwise. There are many problems with that view, and in her book The Adversity of Diversity Carol Swain explores them. As a black woman who grew up in impoverished conditions in rural Virginia, Swain has a compelling case to make against the idea that preferences actually help blacks. Her success in life is a strong counter to the leftist racial agenda, and she argues that it makes matters...

Clearly, the most newsworthy story in American collegiate life recently has been the widespread eruption of pro-Palestinian protests over the war between Israel and Hamas. A central demand of pro-Palestinian demonstrators has been that colleges divest themselves of investments in Israel, which presumably means not only Israeli-owned companies but also American firms doing business there. This demand is inane on many levels, even if you accept (which I don’t) the premise that Israel’s determination to eliminate Hamas’s military capabilities is wrong. First of all, many large American companies (McDonald’s and Coca Cola come to mind) do business in Israel, but...

Much “news” today consists of quick, divisive headlines with little regard for complexity or subtlety. A prominent example is the rapid firestorm that surrounded the conservative governments of Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia last year when some faculty loudly expressed their dissatisfaction with right-leaning higher-ed reforms. Having consulted an American Association of University Professors (AAUP) survey on the subject, media everywhere ran with the notion that red-state faculty would soon be fleeing, with many outlets printing articles claiming a “brain-drain” would soon occur. The AAUP survey in question, conducted last fall, attempted to understand whether and why faculty members...

The 19th century Prussian general Karl Von Clausewitz famously said: “War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.” or as we more often hear it, “War is but politics by different means.” War is what generally happens when two (or more) sides get to a point where they can no longer peacefully coexist with the current circumstances. We’re there… How does one know a civil war is coming? Have you been on a college campus lately? 2024 is an echo of 1968, the original Summer of Love. Today, the ostensible catalyst for what we’re...

A university library I visited recently was giving away stickers that said, “You Belong Here.” Surely this affirming declaration does not mean that students can’t flunk out or get expelled, or that employees can’t ever get fired. I began to wonder what it means to belong at one’s college or university. The sticker’s message soon became newbiquitous: I’ve since noticed “belonging” referenced by corporate consultants, as well as high-school and university administrators who have added a “B” to DEI. Some education scholars have argued that student success depends on a sense of belonging. Educational leaders are trying to build belonging...

The president of Evergreen State College has announced he will comply with the demands of students who protested professor Bret Weinstein, who refused to participate in a campus event where white students and staff were asked to leave school grounds. Although Evergreen President George Bridges announced that progressive professor Bret Weinstein wouldn’t be suspended, Bridges announced that he would comply with the long list of demands that the students brought before him. “I’m George Bridges, I use he/him pronouns,” he began, before stating that he would comply with most of the student protester’s demands. Bridges went as far to say that...

Borrowing to pay for college is about to get more expensive: The interest rate on new federal student loans for undergraduates during the upcoming 2024-25 academic year will be the highest in 12 years. The federal student loan interest rate will be 6.53% for undergraduate students, up from 5.5% for the current year. The interest rate has not been that high on any undergraduate loans since the 2012-13 school year. Graduate students will see an 8.08% interest rate this coming academic year, up from 7.05%. And PLUS loans, which are available to both parents and graduate students, will come with...

Video

The City of Seattle has long been a laboratory for the radical Left. Activists experiment with concepts, language, techniques, and policies that eventually appear in other cities. For this reason, Seattle law enforcement often gets early insight into the evolving tactics of left-wing street protesters. The city’s officers have had decades of experience dealing with Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and anarchist movements, which culminated in the George Floyd riots of 2020. To understand the latest chaos at American universities, I spoke with Christopher Young, who served as an officer and detective for the Seattle Police Department, including working undercover for...

Nearly three years ago I wrote about a mandatory diversity training that took place at UNC-Chapel Hill after the conservative paper on campus got an audio recording of the event.Ms. Parle started the presentation with an ‘indigenous land recognition,’ after which the hundreds of Greek attendees were advised that they should make a habit of repeating the political catechism in their daily lives and taught how to do so. After establishing her lecture was on stolen land, Ms. Parle asked students their feelings about ‘the system.’ Were they warm towards it? Apathetic? Or, the last option: ready to dismantle it?The...

Harrison Butker, Place Kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs, and three-time Super Bowl Champion, received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. He then delivered the commencement address for the graduating class of 2024.

As I walked around taking photographs of the Anti-Israel encampment at Cornell University, one of the participants kept calling after me -- “Julie! Julie, right? Haven’t we met before?” It was one of the appointed mediators for the student activists. She wore a yellow vest, carried a walkie-talkie, and used any pretense she could think of to strike up a conversation with non-students to quickly discern their intentions. A week before I visited, twenty-two students and two staff members had been arrested for staging a sit-in in Day Hall, the administrative center for Cornell. Shortly before that, multiple suspensions had...