Free Republic

Hours after Harvard University faced the Trump administration in court for the first time in its push to restore more than $2 billion in blocked federal funding, the nation’s oldest and wealthiest college made a symbolic bow to White House demands, renaming its diversity, equity and inclusion office. The change was announced Monday in an email to the campus community from the head of what had been the Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging. It nods to a sweeping effort by President Donald Trump to eliminate DEI practices – designed to advance racial, gender, class and other representation in...

A Virginia Commonwealth University professor called for deplatforming right-leaning media figures and influencers to “disrupt capitalism.” Podcaster and blogger Dr. Karlyn Borysenko went undercover to report on the Male Supremacism Studies Conference. Dr. Kay Coghill, during a conversation at the conference, advocated for silencing those who hold conservative or Republican views.

There is controversy at George Mason University after Nicholas Decker, an economics PhD student published an essay asking “When Must We Kill Them?” in reference to Trump and his supporters. The essay captures the growing violent ideation on the left, fueled by rage rhetoric from politicians and commentators. The danger is that, for some on the extremes of our society, the question is not “when must we kill them?” but “when can we kill them?” On his Substack “Homo Economicus,” Decker warns that “evil has come to America” and that Trump is “engaged in barbarism” and seeking “to destroy the...

Elite universities push for federal funding while ignoring legal and ethical obligations, fueling public distrust as they prioritize ideology over academic rigor and free speech. Harvard has refused to accept the orders of a Trump administration commission concerning its chronic problems with anti-Semitism, campus violence, and racial tribalism, bias, and segregation. Yet, unlike some conservative campuses that distrust an overbearing Washington, Harvard and most elite schools like it want it both ways. They do as they please on their own turf and yet still demand that the taxpayers send them multibillion-dollar checks in addition to their multibillion-dollar private incomes. Aside...

A Washington State University (WSU) instructor and PhD student was arrested for allegedly assaulting an engineering student who was wearing a red “Take America Back” hat from the 2024 Donald Trump campaign, according to a police report obtained by “The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH. The victim, Jay Sani, told Pullman Police that he was walking to a restaurant when the suspect, identified as Patrick Mahoney, grabbed the MAGA hat and threw it onto the street. After attempting to defend himself, the police reports say that Mahoney, along with a second suspect identified as Gerald Hoff, “grabbed Sani and took...

Their multibillion dollar hedge funds (endowments) should be taxed.

Any good accountant knows that when the organization pushes back against an audit they are hiding something. (Leftist) Harvard University professors are suing to block the Trump administration’s review of nearly $9 billion in federal contracts and grants awarded to the Ivy League school. The review is part of the government’s crackdown on what it says is antisemitism on college campuses. Via Reuters.

A prominent Palestinian-American businessman, Bashar Masri, quits his position at Harvard University after a lawsuit alleged he abetted Hamas with development projects in Gaza. Masri served on the dean’s council at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. The school confirms to The New York Post that Masri has resigned. “The lawsuit raises serious allegations that should be vetted and addressed through the legal process,” a spokesperson tells the news outlet. …

Indiana University has faced criticism after abruptly firing Professor XiaoFeng Wang on the same day FBI agents executed search warrants at his home. The university also removed the couple’s online profiles, causing concern among academics regarding their due process. Federal authorities have confirmed the investigation is ongoing. Wang has brought approximately $23 million in federal grants to the university. However, Wang was barred from his office and denied access to university resources prior to his dismissal. Veracity IIR president Doug Kouns said, “He’s right there on the cutting edge of this kind of research as far as data privacy, cybersecurity...

BREAKING: A professor just FLIPPED OVER A TABLE set up by the College Republicans at the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire. The group reports the professor is José Felipe Alvergue, the Chair of the English Department. They were tabling for today's Supreme Court election. The group reported that José Felipe Alvergue flipped the table. From their X account: "Jose Felipe Alvergue has now been confirmed by the university to be the attacker from this morning." Chair of the UWEC College Republicans: "The university has since confirmed that this attacker was the Chair of the University's English Department."

A group of people continued marching and circling around the main gate of Columbia University on Monday afternoon, banging loud drums and chanting, "Long live the intifada." Their actions come shortly after Columbia University professors held what they called an "emergency vigil" in response to the college's agreement to implement a host of policy changes, including overhauling its rules for protests and conducting an immediate review of its Middle Eastern studies department following demands from the Trump administration. The group gathered outside the university's gates on 116th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, holding signs that read "defend democracy," "defend teaching" and...

The administration has moved to cut $400 million in federal funding to the university without changes to its policies and rules.Columbia University agreed on Friday to overhaul its protest policies, security practices and Middle Eastern studies department in a remarkable concession to the Trump administration, which has refused to consider restoring $400 million in federal funds without major changes. The agreement, which stunned and dismayed many members of the faculty, could signal a new stage in the administration’s escalating clash with elite colleges and universities. Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan and dozens of other schools face federal inquiries and...

A demand for the university’s administration to place the Middle Eastern studies department under receivership could signal a broader crackdown across the United States. It was an obscure, 44-word demand toward the end of the Trump administration’s ultimatum to Columbia University this month ordering a dramatic overhaul of admissions and disciplinary rules. But it could prove to have consequences for colleges and universities nationwide.With $400 million in canceled government grants and contracts on the line, federal officials ordered Columbia’s administration to place the university’s Middle Eastern studies department under academic receivership for at least five years.Typically, a receivership is handled...

Columbia University has been ground zero for the Ivy League’s pro-Hamas demonstrators. Since the October 7, 2023, terror attack, activists at the university have set up encampments, occupied buildings, shut down classes, and targeted Jewish students. The Trump administration recently moved to revoke a protest leader’s green card and canceled $400 million in federal funding because of the university’s failure to address anti-Semitism on campus. This student-led movement is also supported by some faculty. We have identified one Columbia professor, neuropsychologist Jennifer J. Manly... snip According to the National Institutes of Health and other publicly accessible databases, she has been...

Over the last three decades, elite American universities have engaged in economic, political, social, and cultural practices that were often unethical, illegal -- and suicidal. They did so with impunity. Apparently, confident administrators assumed that the brand of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and other elite universities was so precious to the nation's elite movers and shakers that they could always do almost anything they wished. By the 1970s, non-profit universities had dropped pretenses that they were apolitical and non-partisan. Instead, they customarily violated the corpus of iconic civil rights legislation by weighing race, gender, and sexual orientation in biased admissions,...

Another radical leftist has been caught calling for violence against President Trump. As TGP readers know, leftists across America have issued countless calls for violence against members of the Trump Administration for weeks, including the president himself. This situation has gotten so dire that agitators are now accosting the children of these officials. On Saturday, UCLA Criminal Law Professor Peter Arenella posted a tweet saying that the U.S. Military must launch an insurrection against Trump in order to stop America from becoming an ally of Russia. Yes, he actually said the U.S. military must destroy democracy to prevent America from...

Courts have repeatedly ruled that colleges and universities violate the First Amendment rights of professors when they retaliate against them for having said things administrators dislike. Nevertheless, such cases continue to arise. Victories for freedom of speech have not stopped the abuse of power by intolerant officials. The reason why is that those officials don’t have to fear personal liability for their actions. The school might lose, but the officials won’t have to pay for the costs they caused. The money to pay damages comes from the school, not from them. And why is that? The answer is “qualified immunity.”...

I want to read you an email that I was asked to keep confidential because I think it explains some of my worries about academia. The Nature Physics comment is here: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbDJsQ0w2TWlKT2lraDVvOWlkaUNJcXk4SUU4Z3xBQ3Jtc0tuRF8xYXN5cjhXMktuWHcwdGZneXJyR3VKYU9PeG9WNnFGWDJCWEFGS2ZTWEtKTk5FdlY4QzN1WWU5dVJ5NGNPOU1fSHdIT1ZjR01sV3FnYW5qZEpQVzBIZkFvNUNwUWNsXzRBMzhvMGVYSWRWc1FsYw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fnphys4079&v=shFUDPqVmTg I knew that physicists would go on to argue I should have tried to solve the problem internally (within the community) before drawing public attention to it. The reason I published this comment was so that I could later demonstrate that I did this. This is why it's a paywalled publication that you don't find on the arxiv. But just by accident and totally unrelated here is another...

The science community is clapping back at President Donald Trump’s efforts to cut facilities and administrative costs that go out to institutions when the federal government disperses money for publicly funded research projects. A cohort of academic unions around the country has called on scientists, researchers, clinicians, academics and “allies” to protest in front of the Health and Human Services Department building and at different universities across the country on Wednesday, calling it a “National Day of Action.” The Feb. 19 event follows protests outside the HHS building Friday, during which demonstrators locked arms in front of the building and...

Universities occupy a uniquely privileged position in American life. They enjoy tremendous prestige and billions in public subsidies, even as their costs have exploded, saddling the country with $1.7 trillion in outstanding student debt. Do universities deserve their status? A growing number of Americans don’t think so. Far from delivering on their promises, most universities have devolved into left-wing propaganda factories. Nearly 60 percent of Republicans say that universities have a negative effect on the country, and only one in three independents has “quite a lot” of trust in higher education institutions. The trendlines suggest that the disillusionment has yet...