Free Republic

The Department of Homeland Security will grant millions of dollars in funding to outside organizations focused on combating far-right extremism and white supremacy. The department's program, called Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention, agreed to provide $10 million in grants to organizations including Life After Hate, which was founded by reformed white supremacists and helps people trying to leave the far right, the School of Communication at American University to develop a strategy for combating disinformation circulated by the far right online, and others, according to the Wall Street Journal. A Homeland Security spokesman said the funding is meant to help...

Video at link. Fidel Castro’s recent death evoked conflicting assessments of his legacy from world leaders, but college students are no more prepared than prime ministers to justify their support for the Cuban dictator. A number of students at American University acknowledged the brutality of Castro's regime, but insisted that he was a better leader than Trump because he did "good things" for the Cuban people. Fidel Castro’s recent death evoked conflicting assessments of his legacy from world leaders, but college students are no more prepared than prime ministers to justify their support for the Cuban dictator. President-Elect Donald Trump,...

In the age of safe spaces and trigger warnings comes another new trend to the college repertoire: coloring books. This fall, campuses nationwide are offering coloring books to students to help them de-stress. At American University on Monday, its counseling center provided coloring sheets in honor of Healthy Campus Week, noting on its Facebook page that adult coloring books “can help with a number of emotional and mental health issues.” Conditions cited include obsessive-compulsive, eating, anxiety and depressive disorders, as well as anger management and substance abuse issues. “The time and focus that adult coloring takes helps the individual remove...

Once again U.S. special operations forces attempted to rescue two American University professors kidnapped in Kabul last month. The Mission was unsuccessful because the White House withheld its approval despite Intelligence reports pinpointing the location at which the hostages were being held. The Two professors – one American, the other Australian were kidnapped during the Taliban attack on the American University. Disguised as police, the attackers killed twelve people and likely kidnaped the educators for ransom. After the release of Bergdahl and the ransom payment to Iran, the Taliban or the Haqqani network seized on the opportunity to grab a...

In a special appearance at American University, a former porn star made use of academic freedom in a manner that college officials can live with. A passage from an alternative college newspaper helps to illustrate the boundaries that colleges and universities are willing to place on free speech. “Ann Coulter is an enigma,” The Stanford Review’s Taylor Cox writes of the frequently heckled conservative columnist university officials welcome grudgingly. “So much so, that I think she deserves to become the topic of Stanford’s next PWR [Program in Writing and Rhetoric] class.” “It would be even better and more outrageous than...

Professors are never more revealing than when they are trying to deny that higher education and those who deliver it have any bias whatsoever. Dr. John Doolittle of American University offered several such insights in a debate with me at the AU campus earlier this month. Dr. Doolittle pointed out that when he studied at the University of Wisconsin in the early 1970s, “I knew for a fact that three professors voted for Richard Nixon.” He did not say what happened to the political balance on the university faculty when that Republican trio retired. Moreover, UWI has hundreds of professors...

Early this month, the incomparable Ruth Malhotra and I debated the state of academic freedom with two professors from American University in a forum on campus. It’s interesting that the debate organizers could find two liberals in their own backyard but had to go off campus to line up two conservatives. Ruth, our readers may remember, is the Georgia Tech senior given a failing grade by her professor for attending the Conservative Political Action Conference two years ago. The two professors—John Watson and John Doolittle—were civil enough but, I must confess, I had a much more pleasant encounter with the...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Nearly five years ago, the U.S. government exerted high-profile diplomatic pressure on China to secure the return of scholar Gao Zhan, a researcher at American University whom Beijing believed was a spy for Taiwan. Now, the Department of Homeland Security is pushing with equal vigor to have her deported back to China. Gao's case, set for a hearing Monday on the latest twist, became international news in February 2001 when she and her family were arrested by the Chinese on suspicion of espionage. Her husband, Xue Donghua, and the couple's 5-year-old son were released after a month...

It was the end of my first semester teaching journalism at American University. The students had left for winter break. As a rookie professor, I sat with trepidation in my office on a December day to electronically post my final grades. My concern was more about completing the process correctly than anything else. It took an hour to compute and type in the grades for three classes, and then I hit "enter." That's when the trouble started. In less than an hour, two students challenged me. Mind you, there had been no preset posting time. They had just been religiously...

War Waking Activist Spirit of U.S. Youth By MARTHA IRVINE .c The Associated Press CHICAGO (AP) - The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq is awakening the activist spirit in America's youth, with many adding their voices to the war debate and taking to the streets for the first time in their lives. Bob Nardo is one of them. He and other young Republicans from American University recently gathered to wave U.S. flags outside the French embassy in Washington - a show of displeasure for that country's lack of support. ``Some of us feel like all we're hearing is 'All students are...

The D.C. Chapter of Free Republic has received an invitation to join the American University College Republicans in a protest at the French Embassy in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, February 13, 2003 from 4 to 6 p.m. We in turn invite all metro area FReepers and Lurkers to stand with the AUCR and the D.C. Chapter outside the French Embassy. The email message received from the American University College Republicans is as follows: The American University College Republicans, in cooperation with the CRNC, are staging a Protest at the French Embassy in Washington, DC, for their foreign policy of appeasement,...

French Get Taste of American Hostility at DC Rally By Robert B. Bluey CNSNews.com Staff Writer February 14, 2003 (CNSNews.com) - The French Embassy in Washington, D.C, was the site of protests Thursday, as dozens of American college students asked France to end its obstructionism at the U.N. Security Council regarding how to deal with Iraq and its dictator, Saddam Hussein. The students, mostly from nearby American University and Georgetown University, waved flags, held signs, sang patriotic songs and led chats. Several people driving by honked their horns and yelled out their support, although the students were met with some...