Free Republic

An Oregon middle school was exposed by furious parents after likening her colleagues to pedophiles and warning them they'd be fired if they refused to teach critical race theory. Katherine Watkins, an 8th grade humanities teacher at Cedar Park Middle School in Beaverton, Portland, told colleagues during a Zoom 'equity conference' that if they were 'going to keep up those old views of colonialism, it's going to lead to being fired'. Watkins also equated teachers who 'do racist things' with pedophiles, during an inflammatory statement that her colleagues were forced to listen to. She said: ''If you're not evolving into...

Princeton University will no longer require students to take Latin or ancient Greek to earn a classics degree, a change that comes as part of a larger effort “to address systemic racism” on campus. Princeton faculty approved the elimination of the Classic’s Department’s “classics track,” which required students to have an intermediate proficiency in one of the two languages before entering the track. Classics professor Josh Billings, director for undergraduate studies, said faculty believe the change will improve the Classics Department because it will add “new perspectives” to it. “Having people who come in who might not have studied classics...

...Parental consent is something children have to contend with across the country, but it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach as states have differing rules. Nearly all states require consent from a parent or guardian to administer a Covid-19 vaccine shot to children ages 12 to 15, the group the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved for shots this month, according to a recent CNN analysis. There are exceptions in just five states: In North Carolina, teenagers can receive vaccinations without parental consent; in Tennessee and Alabama, teenagers 14 and older don’t need consent; in Oregon, the age is set...

Professor David Decosimo is part of the theology department at Boston University. His online bio says the studies “theology, ethics, religion and politics, and philosophy and theory of religion.” Monday, Decosimo announced that it had been two years since he was granted tenure after what he described as 15 years of “exhausting” labor. He promised that to mark the occasion he would be offering some thoughts about what he learned. Two years ago this week I learned I had earned tenure. It was the culmination of an exhausting, incredibly demanding journey of over 15 years. I never would have finished...

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has signed into law a bill that incorporates the doctrine of “equity, cultural competency, and dismantling institutional racism” into the training for all K–12 educators across the state. Under Senate Bill 5044 (pdf)—which passed the state legislature in April—school districts in Washington must use one of three professional learning days to specifically train all staff in the topics of “cultural competency, diversity, equity, or inclusion.” Those topics were among several listed in the bill’s text: “The legislature plans to continue the important work of dismantling institutional racism in public schools and recognizes the importance of increasing...

Jane Ward, Sexuality Studies Professor at the University of California-Riverside, was recently featured in an Insider article in which she stated, "It really looks like straight men and women don't like each other very much, that women spend so much time complaining about men, and we still have so much evidence of misogyny. From an LGBT perspective, [being straight] looks actually very tragic." The article, titled “Why heterosexual relationships are so bad for us, according to a sex researcher,” cites an increase in relationship problems among straight couples since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown --...

America’s elite schools are either toxic nests of racism, or insufferably woke indoctrination camps. As the saying goes, Why not both? The last few weeks have seen the first wave of real pushback against radically dumb wokification at formerly prestigious private schools—and this time it’s coming from inside the school. Much has been written recently about the war taking place on America’s premiere private school campuses. A teacher at Grace School in New York wrote a brutal takedown of the woke regime. A parent at Brearley went viral with a scathing letter to his daughter’s school. Bari Weiss covered some...

While the University has made a concerted effort across the past decade to promote gender and racial diversity among its faculty, Harvard has not made any explicit attempts to bolster representation from across the ideological spectrum. Government professor Harvey C. Mansfield Jr. ’53 is widely known on campus as the default example of a conservative faculty member at Harvard. According to Mansfield, this is not because his views possess any sort of “superiority” to others’ perspectives, but simply because a professor with his political stance is “rare” on Harvard’s campus. “Every class you enter, you have to work out your...

A progressive friend and I were discussing higher education this morning. The topic was, of course, the political leanings of professors. She told me she thought there was a “lean” towards progressivism at most colleges but that it was likely closer to even between conservatives and progressives at elite schools like Harvard. I laughed, saying it’s probably even worse at schools like Harvard because the lifetime academia who find their way there work through a network of which I am very familiar. Only the brightest radical leftist minds can get a full-time gig as a professor at Harvard, I told...

A California professor who confronted a student about his view that police officers are heroes has taken a leave of absence.The adjunct professor was recorded arguing with Braden Ellis, a 19-year-old student, at Cypress College in California. The recording and transcript of the Zoom class were first published by The Daily Wire.“Cypress College takes great pride in fostering a learning environment for students where ideas and opinions are exchanged as a vital piece of the educational journey. Our community fully embraces this culture; students often defend one another’s rights to express themselves freely, even when opinions differ. Any efforts to...

Many American parents may assume that culture-war battles over critical race theory and “wokeness” are fought on legitimate terrain, involving such matters as how high school students can best grapple with our nation’s complex past. Perhaps they think that the suddenly ubiquitous topics of gender identity and preferred pronouns rankle only those parents who are old-fashioned in their thinking. If only. America’s youngest students are being bombarded with classroom activism and indoctrination that is inappropriate not only developmentally but for public school systems in general. The contemporary obsession with identity has made its way into elementary school policy, curricula, and...

The Biden administration this week proposed a rule that would encourage public schools to adopt radical, racially driven curricula in American history and civics classes. The Department of Education on Monday proposed a rule that would prioritize federal funding for education groups that help schools develop and implement antiracist teaching standards. If the rule takes effect, the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education would increase grants to woke groups across the country. School districts in recent months have increased their efforts to weave critical race theory—the idea that America's political and economic systems are inherently racist—into K-12 curriculum standards. The...

The Biden education department proposed a rule Monday urging the development of “culturally responsive teaching” in American History and Civics and holding up the widely discredited New York Times’ “1619 Project” as a model for schools to teach children the United States is fundamentally a racist nation. The U.S. Education Department states the proposed rule is in keeping with President Joe Biden’s executive order titled “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.” “[T]here is growing acknowledgement [SIC] of the importance of including, in the teaching and learning of our country’s history, both the consequences of...

Tucker Carlson slammed Utah's Republican governor Spencer Cox on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" for supporting a college scholarship program created by the NBA's Utah Jazz, that discriminates prospective students based on race. CARLSON: We have talked a lot about identity politics on the show. Not because we want to talk about an ugly subject. Race is an ugly subject. It’s not resolvable. There is a lot to say about it. It’s just a fact. Obsessing over it gets you nowhere. The left is obsessed with tribalism—dividing people in little groups by what they look like, dehumanizing them and treating them not...

“The scapegoating of a children’s fantasy author for fabricated claims of racism is a very bad sign at a university, even if she’s very wealthy and secure in her livelihood, as Rowling is,” he wrote. “But I’m not worried about protecting a billionaire; I’m worried for the students who are expected to learn in an environment where false claims of bigotry are not just acceptable, but official policy.” “We are now witnessing the mass hallucination of racism,” he wrote. Meyer also pointed out what he contends is “the most chilling part of the house theme statement: the implied threat that...

Last month a professor at Georgetown Law named Sandra Sellers was fired after video came to light of some comments she made about the black students in her classes. Adjunct professors Sandra Sellers, who taught at the prestigious Washington, D.C., law school for nearly 20 years, claimed her Black students routinely grade lower than others in a conversation with colleague David Batson. “I hate to say this. I end up having this angst every semester that a lot of my lower ones are Blacks, happens almost every semester,” she said in the recorded conversation posted to Twitter last week. “And...

About 80 New Hampshire businesses and other organizations are seeking to block a bill that would ban public schools and other entities from teaching that America is a fundamentally racist nation, warning the measure would be bad for business in the state. The coalition sent a letter to Gov. Chris Sununu (R) and lawmakers, stating the bill would “have a chilling impact on our workplaces and on the business climate in New Hampshire,” reported New Hampshire Public Radio (NHPR), which further noted the letter warned the measure, “would not only harm the ability of New Hampshire businesses to be competitive,...

Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research is bringing back its “National Antiracist Book Festival.” The event will host leading “antiracist” authors and scholars, including one of Black Lives Matter’s co-founders. Tickets range from $10 to $250 and will support the Center for Antiracist Research.

Today Reason published a piece by Jesse Singal about an English professor named Elisa Parrett. Parrett teaches at a public technical college outside of Seattle called the Lake Washington Institute of Technology. Last June 19, in the wake of the death of George Floyd, the school held an event called Courageous Conversations which was based partly on Robin DiAngelo’s book White Fragility. The event was mandatory in the sense that the school’s president sent an email asking every professor to attend unless they had a conflict with their teaching schedule. It was also segregated by race, meaning whites in one...

California's Board of Education voted unanimously to approve a new, multi-million-dollar Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, which will be offered statewide with many of the state's largest school districts making it a requirement for graduation. According to National Review, the curriculum is "probably the most radical, polemical, and ideologically loaded educational document ever offered up for public consideration in the free world." POLL: What scares you the most? On the radio program Tuesday, Glenn Beck reacted to the newly approved curriculum, calling it "the craziest, most terrifying story I have ever had to report." Glenn read an excerpt from the National...