Free Republic

Two New York representatives are considering a bill that would send “antisemitism monitors” to visit college and university campuses that receive federal funding. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) and Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) are set to introduce the College Oversight and Legal Updates Mandating Bias Investigations and Accountability (COLUMBIA) Act, according to Jewish Insider. Under the bill, the Department of Education would be allowed to send a third-party antisemitism monitor, paid for by the colleges and universities, to university and college campuses that receive funding from the federal government.

If you are up on the latest trends in academia, you’ll know that “institutional neutrality” is in the news as more universities consider or adopt it. In my view, this is a good thing, as it maintains the role of the university as a neutral arena in which faculty and students can freely express and debate a wide range of viewpoints constructively rather than feel stifled when their university takes a public stance on a political or social issue. However, there is confusion within academia on what institutional neutrality means and how to implement it. The free-speech organization FIRE (Foundation...

The White House punted on Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) demand for President Biden to call in the National Guard to college campuses amid mass protests over the Israel-Hamas war on Thursday. Johnson visited Columbia University on Wednesday, the first of major pro-Palestine protests that have spread to dozens of college campuses around the country, and said that Biden should call in the National Guard to quell the peaceful demonstrations.

With the 2024 NFL Draft set to begin tonight at 8 p.m. ET from Detroit, here's my second and final attempt at projecting how Round 1 will play out.

The recent wave of violent protests and arrests at elite universities like Yale and Columbia have only confirmed for Scott Katz that he made the right decision to attend Elon University. The North Carolina college, where he is currently wrapping up his sophomore year, is a long way from his hometown of Lafayette Hill, the predominantly liberal Philadelphia suburb where the average home costs $610,000. Katz, who is Jewish, says the antisemitism that’s increasingly visible at colleges nationwide—especially in the Ivy League, and other elite institutions like Stanford and Berkeley—hasn’t even touched his campus. “I haven’t been affected by it...

Harvard College suspended the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and ordered the group to “cease all organizational activities for the remainder of the Spring 2024 term” or risk permanent expulsion, according to an email obtained by The Crimson. The suspension comes amid a wave of pro-Palestine student demonstrations across the country, with students staging occupations at universities including Columbia and Yale Universities. Though there have not been occupations at Harvard this semester, the University restricted access to Harvard Yard on Sunday in anticipation of student protests. The PSC was one of several student organizations, including some unrecognized student organizations, to...

University says it does not cover abortion even though plan says so Xavier University’s health insurance plan not only appears to cover abortion – it looks like the school specifically added it into the coverage. But the Catholic Cincinatti university denies its student health insurance plan covers abortion. A “policy endorsement” on the plan appeared to delete an “exclusion” of abortion. The plan lists abortion as a “Non-EHB [Essential Health Benefit] benefits added to plan via additional endorsement.” It includes, like other covered benefits, the amount the plan pays for in-network and out-of-network providers. The following page shows the “policy...

Columbia University has canceled all in-person classes amid escalating anti-Israel protests that have sparked fear in Jewish students - and a warning from a rabbi. President Minouche Shafik on Monday said she was 'saddened' by the situation and that the school 'needed a reset'.

The University of Southern California has cancelled all of the speakers scheduled to speak at the commencement ceremony amid controversy. On April 15, the prestigious private university announced its decision to ban the valedictorian from speaking at this year's graduation on May 10. Asna Tabassum, 21, was banned for being outspoken in her pro-Palestinian support, which has led her to be labeled anti-Semitic.

The Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH) recently issued its 2023 Annual Report. It presents an abundance of dire information about the therapy-addicted young people now trying to make their way through the wasteland of undergraduate education. I have read it so you don’t have to. But before I turn to its diagnostic particulars, let me indulge with the broader picture that appears nowhere in CCMH’s report. Virtually everyone, including CCMH, agrees that American college students are suffering an epidemic of mental illness. But why? Among the recent books on the topic is The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring...

West Virginia has no time to lose. Its 55-percent labor-force participation rate is better only than Mississippi’s. Life expectancy is under 73 years, again placing West Virginia in second-to-worst place among U.S. states. Median family income is also near the bottom, whatever family size we compare. Economic development is our best way out, and the surest path to that result is education reform. It’s not a matter of sending more high schoolers to a four-year college program. While it’s true that completing college—indeed, having any college education regardless of completion—is positively correlated with higher income, artificially increasing access is not...

In the aftermath of Hamas’s attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, campuses across the country erupted with intense, heated protests. Except the protests weren’t against the brutality of Hamas’s massacre of innocent civilians. No, students had come to the conclusion that such actions were justified, and it was Israel’s military response to the attacks that needed to be stopped. In one of many such instances, pro-Palestinian student groups at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill used a paraglider, one of Hamas’s modes of attack, in fliers promoting the event. As UNC provost Chris Clemens said: “There is no doubt...

For Joe Biden, it's got to be maddening.Day after day, he cooks up another legally questionable student loan forgiveness program, announces it to much fanfare to a fawning media, and all he gets for it is young people moving to vote for President Trump.According to Politico:Polls show former President Donald Trump is ascendant with the youngest bloc of the electorate, even leading President Joe Biden in some surveys, as less-engaged young voters spurn Biden. Meanwhile, Biden is stronger with seniors than he was four years ago, even as his personal image is significantly diminished since he was elected last time.That...

The University of Texas at Austin is laying off dozens of employees who previously worked in diversity, equity and inclusion roles in response to a state law that banned such programs, according to the Texas chapter of the American Association of University Professors. Employees who had previously worked in DEI roles received layoff notices Tuesday. That came months after the university had reassigned them from those positions to comply with the legislation, which went into effect Jan. 1. The school declined to provide a specific tally of the number of people affected, though the AAUP said 60 is a “conservative...

Yesterday afternoon, Joe Biden visited Wisconsin and announced a new student loan bailout program, “a proposal that would cancel at least some debt” for more than 30 million borrowers.Then, last night, Alexandria Ocasion-Cortez joined Stephen Colbert on the Late Show to discuss the move, applauding Biden’s gift of “hope” for college graduates who will now have the opportunity to… “travel abroad” on trips they would have been otherwise unable to afford if they were held to the original stipulations of the loan.By passing the debt onto people who didn’t incur it—er, I mean, by implementing loan “forgiveness,” Biden is buying...

A national college athletics association has banned biological males who claim to be females from competing in women’s sports, a win for women’s rights.As the number of injuries inflicted and titles stolen by men competing in female sports and events continues to climb, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) made the right decision, becoming the first national college governing body to make it mandatory for athletes to compete based on their biological sex, according to CBS Sports.NAIA president Jim Carr admitted to CBS Sports that there are “different opinions” about transgenders competing in women’s sports, but fortunately, his organization...

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris offered a “history lesson” Thursday to explain the recent resurgence of popularity in women’s college basketball. The only problem? Her “history” is very, very wrong. In a conversation with Spectrum News’ Tim Boyum, Harris stridently and confidently claimed that women’s basketball was gaining popularity because, in the past, the women’s tournament didn’t have brackets. Do you know? Okay, a bit of a history lesson. Do you know that women were not. The women’s teams were not allowed to have brackets until 2022. Think about that. And what? That. Talk about progress. You know better late...

On January 5, 2024, Western Oregon University (WOU) announced a bold change to its grading regime: “The letter grades of D- and F” have been axed in favor of a mark of “No Credit (NC)” for undergraduates. WOU’s provost, Jose Coll, clarified that this new system will not lower the university’s academic standards but, rather, “increase retention and graduation rates.” The university will no longer “mask” students’ “demonstrated abilities” with a slew of poor marks, following the likes of Brown University and Hampshire College, which have already exchanged letter grades for alternative measures in some instances. By removing troublesome grades,...

Caitlin Clark, who is to basketball what Taylor Swift is to pop music and culture, albeit with far more talent, scored 42 points and added 12 assists while leading her Hawkeyes to a 94-87 victory over Angel Reese and the LSU Tigers.

More than 150 students, staff and alumni have reportedly been diagnosed with cancers and other diseases linked to a university building teeming with toxins. Cases of lymphoma and thyroid and breast cancers have been reported among patients who spent time at Poe Hall, a class building at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. The building closed in November 2023 amid reports of exposure to concerning levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), toxic chemicals linked to cancer. An investigation the month before found that PCB levels in five rooms were more than 38 times the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) building limit. The...