Free Republic

Higher education is approaching a period of profound disruption, and many colleges may not survive, Arthur Levine, the newly appointed president of Brandeis University, said during a recent event. Levine estimated that between 20 and 25 percent of colleges will close in the coming years, while community colleges and regional universities move increasingly online. He made these remarks during a recent American Enterprise Institute event titled “Tackling Higher Education’s Challenges: A Conversation with Frederick M. Hess and Brandeis University President Arthur Levine.” Wealthier institutions may have the resources to withstand the transition, but many others do not. Levine said that...

If ever a case made plain the clash of values between freedom of speech and the desire of college administrators to compel everyone to support their “progressive” beliefs, Reges v. Cauce is it. This is an important First Amendment case, one in which the Martin Center joined in an amicus brief in support of a professor who was targeted with official retaliation because he spoke out against his university’s “land acknowledgement” policy and substituted his own views for the school’s. What nerve! Before getting into the details of the case, let’s examine the background. Specifically, why do so many college...

In an August City Journal piece, my former colleague John Sailer wonderfully quoted an anonymous professor: “Every day, the universities wake up and break the law.” Just about every faculty-hiring process in America’s colleges and universities discriminates—sometimes barely legally, when it’s just political discrimination to ensure that only radical professors get hired. The education-establishment discriminators do that by drafting job advertisements with specializations that ensure only radicals need apply: a preference for environmental history, human rights, and/or social movements when they’re subtle, a specialization in genderqueer Palestinian sociology with a concentration on community engagement in Dubuque when they’re not. Political...

Students at the University of Nottingham are upset after a history course labeled J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings as racially offensive. The controversy comes from a module called Decolonising Tolkien et al, taught by historian Dr. Onyeka Nubia, which examines how British literature has historically reflected racial bias. According to course materials, darker-skinned characters in Tolkien’s works, including orcs and other groups, are depicted as morally corrupt, while lighter-skinned characters are shown as virtuous. The module argues these depictions tie into a long tradition of racial stereotyping. The course also examines how Tolkien’s Eastern characters, such as Easterlings,...

Ideology has seized our universities, Cary Kogan says: ‘We can't have this kind of identity-based hate movement being taught in classrooms’ “Bondi was a warning shot,” cautions Cary Kogan, professor of psychology at the University of Ottawa. “If Western governments aren’t going to deal with the issue (of antisemitism), this is what we’re going to end up with. And I worry; the intelligence community has told us very clearly that there are bad actors here in Canada, and you know, the government needs to listen.” Offended, both as a Jew and an academic, by faculty union manoeuvres to constrain the...

Should we trust the research published by professors? The scholars who write books and papers have impressive degrees and teach at respected universities, and their work has to undergo rigorous scrutiny before it can be published, so the answer would seem to be that we should. The safeguards against deception and fraud appear strong. Decades ago, they were strong, but that’s not true today. In recent years, deception and fraud have been proven in quite a few instances. Some of the guilty professors have admitted their wrongdoing, one even confessing that he didn’t have the patience for rigor. Clearly, academic...

MA State Police found the car believed to be connected to the killing of Nuno Loureiro; the suspect might be connected to shootings at Brown SALEM, NH — Massachusetts and New Hampshire police believe they have a vehicle of a person of interest connected to the murder of a professor from MIT in his home in Brookline. Fox 25, as well as posts on X-Twitter report the vehicle, a gray Nissan Sentra, which was associated with a person of interest in the murder, was found in Salem earlier today. Investigators also believe the killing of Loureiro is connected to the...

His colleagues described him as a beacon of hope. Portuguese newspapers stumbled upon his story by chance. The scientific community was shaken to its core. The political establishment in Portugal set aside a minute for him — a single, paltry minute. Something doesn’t add up. Call me paranoid. Call me what you will. I’ve worked in security long enough to trust my instincts. They’re not always right, I admit, but I’ll take that chance. Last night, over dinner, when I heard the news of the acclaimed scientist’s death — a fellow Portuguese — I voiced my suspicions to everyone at...

As the manhunt for the perpetrator of a deadly mass shooting at Brown University enters its 5th day, the prestigious institution’s president, Christina Paxson, is facing mounting criticism for her response to the crisis. In a Tuesday press conference, law enforcement and university officials had very little to tell the public in regard to any leads or potential motives revealed by their investigation into the shooting that left two students dead and Paxon sparked criticism online over an answer where she discussed gun violence. "The primary point that I wanted to address before we get to questions is that Brown...

One of my consistent themes is that in the post-Christian West, sexual pleasure and hedonism have been elevated to the highest human good. Human beings are driven to ask, "What is the meaning of life," and when God exits stage left, what usually replaces Him is "pleasure." That's natural, of course, since pleasure by its nature is self-reinforcing. "If it feels good, do it" is hardly revolutionary, despite what the hippies said. Without religion, human beings struggle to come up with reasons to deny our darkest desires without appealing to moral standards that are generally rooted in religion, or at...

Jonathan Franklin, a current University adjunct professor & former NPR correspondent who built his career on issues of race, culture, & justice, was recorded making openly racist remarks during an undercover date with James O’Keefe. Franklin, scheduled to teach a Georgetown course on interviewing & sourcing, labeled Black conservatives such as Candace Owens, Lawrence Jones, & Clarence Thomas as “coons,” & mocked his colleagues, saying he “works with stupid white people.” During the confrontation, Franklin attempted to assault an OMG cameraman before fleeing. Georgetown University records confirm Franklin is currently teaching students how to “interview sources effectively,” even as he...

Higher-education reform has a new hero, and he hails not from the self-styled patrician environs of the Ivy League but from Texas. We all know how tough it is to reform higher education given the ideological capture that permeates many universities. But the chancellor of the Texas Tech University System has exerted himself in a way that should establish him in the official pantheon of friends of higher education. If such a pantheon does not exist, well, let Chancellor Brandon Creighton be the first illustrious inductee. What did the good chancellor do to merit this honor? In one fell swoop,...

On the evening of November 11, 2025, University College London provided a lecture theatre and official student-society imprimatur for an event at which Dr. Samar Maqusi, a former fixed-term researcher at UCL and previously employed by the UNRWA for Palestine Refugees, delivered the opening lecture in a five-part series entitled “Palestine: From Existence to Resistance”, organized by the university’s recognized Justice in Palestine Society. From the very beginning, there was no hesitation or pretense. On the contrary, the darkest prejudices of the past were brought to life. The lecturer was undaunted. In the course of her talk, “The Birth of...

A graduate assistant was removed from her position amid investigations into a contested discrimination report filed by a disgruntled student who repeatedly referenced the Bible in an essay response to an article about gender stereotypes — for a course taught by a transgender instructor. In her essay, which was supposed to cover “how people are perceived based on societal expectations of gender,” University of Oklahoma student Samantha Fulnecky presented a Biblically-fueled tirade against the notion that there are multiple genders. The psychology course’s professor, graduate student Mel Curth, who uses “she/they” pronouns, failed Fulnecky on the grounds that she neglected...

Malevolent kooks at the University of Minnesota are not the only educators in this Somali colony who really don’t like the native population. The state’s largest teachers union, Education Minnesota, offers professional development courses on such topics as Interrupting Whiteness: The “racial equity trainings” can be brought “to your building” when requested by Education Minnesota members, the union website explains, and offer instruction on topics like “Culturally Responsive Teaching With a Racial Justice Lens” and “Cultural Competency.” “Racial justice” is Liberalese for antiwhite race hate. “Cultural competency” entails subordinating American and European culture to less successful ones. In a state...

DETROIT — A professor at Ferris State University was arrested in Detroit on Tuesday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, the agency said. Sumith Gunasekera was living in the U.S. illegally, according to ICE. He also was convicted of sex crimes in Canada and Nevada, per a release by the agency. In 1998, Gunasekera was arrested twice over a three day period: first for allegedly uttering death threats on August 28, 1998; then again on August 31 for allegedly inviting a minor to sexual touching. He was convicted of both charges that November and spent 1 month behind...

A criminal illegal immigrant sex offender who worked as a college professor in the U.S. is in custody thanks to the continued efforts of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to track down and remove criminal threats from America. ICE said in a statement that on Nov. 12 it arrested Sri Lankan national Sumith Gunasekera in Detroit, Michigan. Gunasekera reportedly worked as a professor of data science and analytics at Ferris State University, public school in Big Rapids, Michigan. 🚨 BREAKING: ICE agents arrested an illegal alien who was working as an associate professor at Ferris State University in Michigan,...

OPINION/ANALYSIS The Battalion student newspaper at Texas A&M university does not seem to be a fan of conservative student thought. An analysis of the 60 opinion pieces focused on politics published since November 2024 found that nearly all of them — 50 — leaned liberal (35), left-leaning (5), far-left (5), and liberal satire (5). Only 7 of the opinion political pieces were moderate or neutral, and a total of three were conservative, or a ratio of almost 17 to 1 liberal to conservative. The research was conducted by student Justino Russell, who was inspired to dig into the analysis after...

A retired Colorado professor angrily branded Turning Point USA supporters 'Nazi's' in an fiery exchange after the university reversed its decision to block a chapter from its campus. On November 7, former Fort Lewis College professor David Kozak was seen on footage calling conservatives 'Nazi's' and 'fascists' and flipping off the camera recording him. The display came after the college reversed its decision to block a Turning Point USA chapter on campus - before eventually approving it at the November 7 meeting. In a clip by Libs of TikTok on X, the video showed Kozak being blocked by a woman...

She then called both @TPUSA and the chapter racists. Video credit: @Emmamote22 (Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Oh, you want to know what fascism means? Because I'll tell you. Do you guys want to know? Yeah. So you have a situation here where you want to go into classrooms and you want to tell the faculty that they're not allowed to speak the truth about the history of this country. You want them to be, what's the word for slaves now? Volunteer. Involuntary employees. Or involuntary workers. We can't even say slavery. That's ridiculous. We're not...