Free Republic

Young people, women, and Democrats reported the largest drops.Confidence in higher education has plummeted to its lowest level ever according to the results of two new national polls commissioned by FIRE and conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. In two AmeriSpeak panels representative of the U.S. household population, we asked Americans: “How much confidence, if any, do you have in U.S. colleges and universities?” This question was first asked in February and then again in May, and its wording is similar to a question posed by Gallup in Summer 2023 when Americans were asked about their confidence in...

A respected philosophy professor who plunged to his death amid an investigation over historical sexual assault allegations led an “extremely kinky, illicit drug taking” double life behind closed doors, according to an escort who entered into a “sex contract” with the 77-year-old promising to “make her daddy happy.” Dr John Forge, an honorary professor at the University of Sydney who authored numerous books on morality and ethics, was found dead at the base of Cataract Gorge in Launceston, Tasmania on May 2, hours after a detective knocked on his door to request he attend a police station for questioning. It’s...

We learned about the complexities and mysteries of artificial intelligence, the uses of innovative statistical analyses that could improve policing, and the Confucian roots of Xi’s totalitarianism. We discussed the early modern origins of ideological movements, Milton’s translation of Homeric epic into a Christian drama of rebellion and salvation, and Moby Dick’s critical analysis of corporatism. We explored the religious roots of modern politics and the influence of Hebraic constitutionalism on the Founding Fathers. We reflected on Shakespeare’s dialectical examination of politics in his Roman dramas. This was no academic conference. It was a job interview. Faculty searches often take...

Law school deans from over 100 higher learning institutions across the country signed a letter calling on students to disagree with people respectfully, while upholding the rule of law and championing the U.S. Constitution. The American Bar Association’s (ABA) Task Force for American Democracy unveiled the letter, which was signed by 119 deans, including Kerry Abrams of the Duke University School of Law; Paul Brest of Stanford Law School; Jennifer Gerarda Brown of Quinnipiac University; Jens David Ohlin of Cornell Law School; Heather K. Gerken of Yale School of Law; Risa Goluboff of the University of Virginia School of Law;...

For almost 400 years America has seen its citizens educating their children and themselves, though both the scope, structure and quality of education has changed somewhat during that time. For much of the history of the United States, education of children took place primarily at home, often along with private schools for some, and locally managed and supported schools for others. Education included the general ethos of Christianity and Biblical morality as well as academic subjects. The New England Primer and later, the nation-wide McGuffey's Readers (120+ million copies) were the primary instruments of education, and in helping to form...

A Columbia Law Review article that argues Jews "capitalized on the Holocaust to create a powerful narrative that monopolizes victimhood" was subject to an atypical editing process that omitted "a large number of Jewish students," according to sources familiar with the process. While prospective pieces are typically available for the Law Review's roughly 100 members to assess ahead of publication, the "Nakba" piece was handled behind closed doors by a group of roughly 30 student editors, according to Columbia Law School professor Joshua Mitts. While that group edited the piece "over several months," Mitts said, other editors—including Jews—were unaware even...

On Friday, May 31, alumni descended on Columbia University's Manhattan campus to celebrate their class reunions. In addition to eating and drinking, the festivities included several panel discussions featuring professors and administrators...In the audience, according to two attendees, were several top members of the Columbia administration. Given the sensitivity of the subject—the eruption of anti-Semitism on campus in the wake of Hamas's Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel put a national spotlight on the school, and Columbia recently settled a lawsuit with a Jewish student who accused the school of fostering an unsafe learning environment—the administrators' presence made sense.The administrators...

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...

When this endeavor becomes obvious to everyone, some will complain that there was no one who ever warned them. Actually, there was, but the warners were vilified, smeared, demonized, demonetized, blocked, shadowbanned, and silenced. “Executive Director Of ‘American Muslims For Palestine’ Osama Abuirshaid At George Washington University Encampment: We Will Take Back America, Just Like We Will Take Back Palestine; You Will Be The Past, We Will Be The Future,” MEMRI, April 25, 2024: Executive Director of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) Osama Abuirshaid said at an April 25, 2024 speech at the George Washington University encampment that protesters will...

The ‘iDIVERSE’ program bars white and Asian researchers from applying.. The University of California, Los Angeles, medical school was hit last week with whistleblower allegations that its admissions office has for years discriminated on the basis of race, in violation of California law, by holding black and Latino applicants to lower standards than their white and Asian counterparts. The allegations triggered an email message from the dean of the medical school, Steven Dubinett, who denied the claims and said that students and faculty "are held to the highest standards of academic excellence." He subsequently told an obscure Los Angeles Times...

On Tuesday, Harvard officials announced that the university would adopt a formal stance of ideological neutrality on political events and other controversial issues. The decision comes after months of tumultuous campus protests over the war between Israel and Hamas. Earlier this month, a faculty-led working group published a report that strongly recommended adopting a neutral stance on topics that do not directly concern the university itself. "The university has a responsibility to speak out to protect and promote its core function. Its leaders must communicate the value of the university's central activities. They must defend the university's autonomy and academic...

Harvard University announced yesterday (Tuesday) that it would no longer comment as an institution on issues that do not relate to its “core function” following the controversies surrounding the school's statements on the massacre of October 7 and the subsequent war between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization. Interim Harvard President Alan M. Garber wrote in an email that Harvard would adopt the recommendation of a working group that the school not “issue official statements about public matters that do not directly affect the university’s core function.” “There will be close cases where reasonable people disagree about whether a given...

Student negotiators and university officials reached an agreement to end the pro-Palestine encampment on the University of Oregon campus after 24 days. Five UO Coalition for Palestine representatives emerged from Johnson Hall, where the encampment was moved on May 16, after meeting with UO administrators including President John Karl Scholz. According to Michael Dreiling, a sociology professor and facilitator between the coalition and the university, encampment members have 24 hours to leave after signing the agreement. By the end of the night, some demonstrators were already packing up their tents, and cheers rang out from the site of the encampment...

Welcome to Gaza Graduation. Let's see how much students know what they actually stand for.

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...

I have been reading "The Thrid Reich in the Ivory Tower" by Stephen Norwood. It is a well researched book about the relationship between Ameriocan universities and the German NSDAP (NAZI's) in the thirties. It is especially interesting in light of recent events.

The University of North Carolina’s 16 campuses spend no less than $90 million per year in pay and benefits on no fewer than 686 staffers under the “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) umbrella. On Wednesday, the system’s governing board may end the controversial program that institutionalizes bias and prejudice based on neo-Marxist principles and falsehoods. Our audit team at OpenTheBooks.com reviewed official university payrolls after filing records requests and searched university websites for DEI committees and their membership lists. Here’s how the UNC program breaks down: 288 are employed in DEI-related roles listed on the UNC system’s payroll. Another 398...

Just as 9/11 and the space shuttle disasters showed failures at the relevant agencies, the 10/7 pogrom has exposed a failure of leadership at all levels of government and society.Derek Hunter often writes to the effect that when one thinks that Democrats could not go any lower, they whip out their shovels and keep digging deeper and deeper. I was reminded of his insight when I saw a headline this morning. It’s not enough that the US chose not to send ammunition to Israel during a hot war. It was still not enough to threaten not to send certain critical...

These infantile campuses have a rendezvous with adult accountability, both public and governmental. And they won’t like what is coming. Anti-Israel/pro-Hamas campus protests have engulfed hundreds of college campuses. But the more coastal, blue-state, and supposedly elite the campus was, the more furious the violence that sometimes followed these demonstrations. Even rowdier and more vicious street analogs shut down key bridges, freeways, and religious services. Protestors often defaced hallowed American monuments, national cemeteries, and iconic buildings. Visa-holders were among the worst perpetrators, adding ingratitude to their criminality. The vast majority wore masks, not to protect from infection but to hide...

In a Wednesday statement, California State University Chancellor Mildred Garcia wrote: “On Tuesday evening, Sonoma State University President Mike Lee sent a campuswide message concerning an agreement with campus protesters. That message was sent without the appropriate approvals ... because of this insubordination and consequences it has brought upon the system, President Lee has been placed on administrative leave.” ... Among the four “points of agreement” he described was for the school to disclose university vendor contracts and seek “divestment strategies.” In another section, under the heading “Academic Boycott,” Lee detailed how the school will not pursue formal collaborations that...