Free Republic

Utah Valley University will cancel classes Thursday as the campus marks one year since Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was assassinated there. The university said it is closing its public campus in Orem, Utah, to give students, faculty and staff time for reflection on the anniversary of his murder. TPUSA will return to the campus Thursday evening for its “Freedom Built to Last Memorial” at the UCCU Center. The event is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. and will also be livestreamed online. “The gathering will honor Charlie as a faith-filled husband, father, and defender of free speech with a memorial...

Recently, Luke Burgis, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Catholic University of America, posed a provocative question: “What is the strongest argument from the political Right AGAINST Great Books programs?” In my view, the Great Books is a fine program for lifelong learning. 15,000 people a year participate in discussion groups affiliated with the Great Books Foundation. By contrast, a parallel lifelong learning project—the daily two-pages-a-day study program of the Babylonian Talmud known as Daf Yomi—drew over 90,000 people (almost all of them men) to the official completion celebration of its seven-year cycle at MetLife Stadium, with a further 7,000 at the major...

The Trump administration is drafting a rule that would allow certain married couples with a stay-at-home parent to qualify for federal child care assistance of about $9,000 per child annually, according to people familiar with the discussions who spoke with The New York Times. The reported proposal would expand eligibility under the Child Care and Development Fund, a roughly $12 billion Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) program that currently subsidizes care for children from low- and moderate-income parents while their parents work, attend school, or participate in job training.Under the draft rule, a new category of “parent-based child...

“You better get ready for … war.” Across the country, radicals are openly planning for the next stage of their movement, and notably, the Democratic establishment is not part of their plans. Despite the talk of a “Big Tent Party,” socialists are riding high on a surge of support and talking purges and revolution. In Chicago, radicals gathered for a conference on Marxism during what many view as the heyday of socialism in the United States. The Democratic Socialists of America is now larger and more powerful than at any time in our history. Socialist candidates are winning elections across...

I was working in a public space when a nearby conversation caught my attention. One student told a colleague that she would be taking several difficult classes the next semester. He responded, “just use AI, and the classes will be really easy.” I sighed in disappointment. Approximately 80% of undergraduate students worldwide use generative artificial intelligence to help with their coursework. AI can be a powerful tool for students in higher education, but only if they have already developed the ability to read and write effectively and to think critically. These fundamental skills are best developed independent of generative AI...

FReepers just found this short on YouTube. Don't know what college it happened at or which prolife group this is. Point is a very unhinged, childish, embicle of a woman attacks the man because what he said offended her. This is the adults we are now dealing with. Yes the man called the police 🚓

The School of Civic Life and Leadership (SCiLL). At UNC, students hear this name in one of a few ways. One is “eww, that uber-conservative program that’s a waste of money and is trying to indoctrinate everyone.” A rare few respond with, “I haven’t heard of that.” But the vast majority just say, “oh…nice,” and immediately assume you’re a complete nerd. In all fairness, the last one might not be completely off. Yet none of these opinions completely describe the SCiLL program. SCiLL itself is intended to help students learn how to critically engage in civil discourse with people on...

The public exposure, resignation, and subsequent death of the British fabulist Jason Arday have reignited the longstanding (if not eternal) debate about the purpose of higher education in our society and whether it is fulfilling that purpose. On the one side, conservatives are frustrated because, to them, the Arday case is emblematic: universities today are overwhelmingly leftist; leftists dominate the humanities and liberal arts faculties, and leftists are rewarded for poor or even fraudulent scholarship simply because it reinforces the preexisting beliefs of their contemporaries and superiors. On the other side, progressives and other leftists insist that the pursuit of...

You’ve no doubt heard the expression, “That’s an idea so ridiculous only an academic could believe it.” It kept coming to mind as I read Professor John Staddon’s new book Inevitable Differences: An Inquiry into Human Variation. That individuals vary enormously in their talents and desires is an obvious fact, and yet many academics have become famous by declaring that individuals and especially groups must be treated as though they were equal. Staddon, an emeritus professor of biology at Duke University, takes a critical look at the obsession among “progressives” for engineering equality, particularly with regard to race. Why, he...

Anybody who still believes in the liberal arts believes that higher education exists for a higher purpose than putting graduates in jobs. At the same time, even the truest believer has to grapple with the real harm done to graduates who can’t get the jobs they need to pay for that education. In the face of perpetually rising costs and ballooning student debt, it’s hard to keep the faith. One response is to decouple higher education from the liberal arts tradition and reduce it to professional preparation. Several state legislatures have recently passed bills pushing public universities to cut programs...

Southern Methodist University will not allow a CAIR-Texas-promoted Muslim youth leadership symposium branded “Unapologetically Muslim: Youth in Action” to take place on its campus after reviewing the planned event and citing what the university called the State of Texas’ “current designation of the symposium’s organizer.” SMU announced the decision in a statement to The Dallas Express after DX requested comment about the September 19 Muslim Youth Leadership Symposium, which CAIR-Texas had advertised for the SMU campus. SMU says event will not take place SMU described the symposium as unaffiliated with the university and said allowing it to proceed on campus...

The mainstream media and leftist government bureaucrats are at it again, pushing panic, fear, and unverified headlines to control the public narrative, only to get caught red-handed when local officials demand basic transparency. During a high-profile press conference on Tuesay, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, alongside state health officials and Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health, announced that two “measles-associated deaths” occurred in Lancaster County. The legacy media immediately ran with the headlines. Two people died FROM measles. Case closed. Get the shot. Blame the unvaccinated. Blame RFK Jr. There’s just one major problem: Local authorities have ZERO record of these alleged...

In 2009, an anonymous university support staff member wrote to C.K. Gunsalus—a prominent academic who specializes in the study of higher education administration—looking for advice and, frankly, a little bit of kindness. The staffer claimed that many of the faculty members at their institution, including a number heavily involved in campus activism, refused to treat them with any respect. Their collective attitude towards non-academics, even those who worked for the university, was akin to that reserved for “a servant or a child.” Gunsalus’ answer, which Inside Higher Ed published as an advice column, amounted to little more than word salad....

Today we are seeing in real time a coordinated and concerted effort to undermine our Country’s history, traditions and institutions. It is part of the war waged in the “long march through institutions” that is the core of the campaign, in Barack Obama’s words, to “fundamentally transform[] the United States of America.” Nothing less than the total destruction of this country will be tolerated by those who are disciples of both totalitarian murderers from Mao Zedong to Che Guevera, and of the Ivy League sociologists, Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. A comprehensive discussion of this existential threat to Western...

Have you ever seen a medical professional, or do you anticipate seeing one in your life? For most of us, the answer is yes. For all of us, the quality of education provided to medical professionals is of vital importance because we live in a world where public health professionals can rule over us in many respects. So something like this should scare the hell out of you:Jeffrey Flier @jflier · Follow The editorial standards of the @NEJM must be questioned for deciding to publish this article as it is presented below. Such terrible judgement. Jason Arday and the Perils...

The Democratic Socialists of America have been growing in power within the Democratic Party, most notably by capturing a number of Democrat nominations in the 2026 primaries, though it’s important to remember that they already hold plenty of seats in public office. They aren’t a new phenomenon in 2026, it’s just that they are now receiving substantial public notice in 2026. A very different thing. In fact, the Democratic Socialists of America – essentially the borderless movement of global communism – have been making inroads in the Democratic Party for generations, but only recently have they felt comfortable dropping the...

No state matches Florida in higher education reform. Its landmark Senate Bill 266, passed during the 2023 legislative session, abolished DEI offices. It also requires general education reform in state universities and colleges. Few reforms simply implement themselves. The rubber of implementation started hitting university roads in 2023. Florida’s Board of Governors (BOG), which oversees the entire university system, put forward a rule to remove Sociology 1000: The Principles of Sociology as part of general education reform. Final BOG approval came in early 2024. Then Florida’s college system removed Sociology 1000 from its 28 schools in April 2024. Beginning in...

Michigan activist Robert Davis joined investigative reporter Charlie LeBuff on his “No BS Newshour” podcast that was released on Wednesday. During their discussion, Davis argued that Jocelyn Benson is ineligible to run for public office in Michigan after she allegedly made false statements on her campaign forms for governor. Michigan election law can be very strict, preventing candidates who make minor errors in their paperwork from getting on the ballot. Robert Davis claims Jocelyn Benson was not truthful on her forms and should be removed from the ballots. Davis went further, saying Benson should also lose her current position as...

Massachusetts District Court Judge Richard Stearns dismissed the Trump administration's lawsuit asserting that Harvard University was not doing enough to quell antisemitism on its campus. Stearns acknowledged that "while there have been incidents of Jews being threatened, intimidated, and discriminated against, who's to say that the University must take action? It seems to me that any actions that could be taken would run afoul of the First Amendment's prohibition of interference in the 'free exercise' of Muslim religious beliefs. The Quran contains many passages explicitly calling for the persecution, subjugation, and killing of Jews. The Trump Administration's demand that University...

It turns out that a controversial University of Chicago professor arrested last year for alleged felony aggravated battery on a police officer is the sister of Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for a U.S. Senate seat in Michigan. Eman Abdelhadi, an assistant professor focused on religion, gender, identity, and demography, is El-Sayed’s maternal half-sister, the Washington Free Beacon reported. “A self-described ‘Queer Muslim’ and ‘community organizer’ who uses the pronouns ‘she/they,’ she has been at the center of far-left protests on campus,” the Beacon reported. Abdelhadi, a signatory to an open letter pledging “solidarity” with the “Palestinian resistance” shortly after...