Free Republic

The University of Houston canceled a course this month on social injustice and oppression that was required for students in the Graduate College of Social Work. “As part of upcoming changes to the curriculum and degree plan, this course will not be offered at this time,” university officials wrote in a message to students, according to Inside Higher Ed. “We understand that this adjustment may raise questions, and we want to assure you that it will not affect any student’s ability to successfully progress through the MSW program or meet graduation requirements on time,” they wrote. The school did not...

In one of America’s most popular novels, seven-year-old Scout has been reading “ever since she was born.” She and her father read the newspapers together every evening. Late in the summer, she realized she would be starting school in a week. “I never looked forward more to anything in my life. Hours of wintertime had found me in the treehouse, looking over at the schoolyard, spying on the children there. ... I longed to join them.” But everything changed by lunchtime! Scout’s older brother Jem asked how she was getting along on her first day of school. “I told him....

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) announced that the Florida Civics and Debate Initiative (FCDI) will rename its statewide championship scholarship the Charlie Kirk prize in honor of the late Turning Point USA founder’s “zealous advocacy for civic dialogue and freedom of speech,” with Florida recognized as “#1 for high school civics and debate.” "Today, we announced that April’s debate competition winner of the Charlie Kirk prize will receive a $50k scholarship, with runner-up ($25k), semi-finalists ($15k) and quarterfinalists ($10k). We expect more than 600 students in the competition and look forward to awarding the newly-named Kirk prize to the winner,” DeSantis...

The U.S. Department of Education recently announced a reorganization of its Federal Student Aid (FSA) ombudsman’s office into a broader “Office of Consumer Education and Ombudsman.” The aim is twofold: to provide clearer, more proactive information to prospective borrowers and their families before they sign promissory notes and to issue a new “common manual” for loan servicing and collections that standardizes practices across vendors. At first glance, the reform seems sensible. After all, with federal student-loan debt at $1.8 trillion and millions of borrowers delinquent or in default, something must change. Yet a closer look reveals that, while better information...

Picture this: You’re a high-school senior who just scored early admission into your dream university. You’re elated … until you realize you’ve also locked yourself into whatever financial-aid package the school decides to offer, with no ability to shop around or negotiate. Congratulations, you’ve just become Exhibit A in a new class-action lawsuit (well, not literally) that accuses America’s most elite universities of running what amounts to an admissions cartel. Four students filed a federal lawsuit in a Massachusetts federal district court in August, targeting Duke University and other top-tier institutions, as well as the Consortium on Financing Higher Education....

A plan at Utah Valley University (UVU) to create a memorial to Charlie Kirk has been met by protests and a petition signed by thousands to block the effort. One protester declared, “We don’t want his likeness on campus.” That is hardly a new sentiment since Kirk was assassinated on the campus on Sept. 10, 2025. However, the protest shows the sense of license that many have in opposing anyone with conflicting views, including those represented in memorials. I have a long history with UVU and was pleased to receive the Madison award from the university, and was declared an...

“From the hood” shouldn’t be a license to threaten people. This is emotional performance art wrapped in street talk. They’re not representing the struggle. They’re cosplaying for clicks. ================================================================= BRIEFING ...There’s a strange new trend in politics. Young Black female politicians are branding themselves as “hood queens” and leaning into violent, ghetto-style rhetoric. Let’s get into it. It’s one thing to grow up in a tough neighborhood and speak from lived experience. Like it or not, that’s what “gangsta rappers” do, and they make millions while they’re at it. But what we’re seeing now are these privileged Black career women...

For over 75 years, geography departments have been nearly nonexistent at so-called elite colleges in the United States. Most Ivy League schools, as well as Stanford and the University of Chicago, once had geography departments. Now, the only one with a geography department is Dartmouth. Having taught college geography for over eight years, I can attest that most American college students never take a geography course. They graduate without ever having to demonstrate that they know anything about the physical or cultural landscapes of other countries, let alone their own. American geographic education took a massive step backward in the...

The Gateway Pundit reported that students manning a Turning Point USA (TPUSA) table at Illinois State University (ISU) watched as an angry man flipped their table over and tore down flags ahead of an event featuring Alex Stein. WATCH: A teacher assistant at Illinois State University flipped over a @tpusastudents table and tore down flyers promoting an upcoming @alexstein99 event.🎥 @jessburback @tpusastudents pic.twitter.com/ydhIfcEa24— FRONTLINES TPUSA (@FrontlinesTPUSA) October 17, 2025The hater of free speech, 27-year-old graduate student Derek Lopez, was identified as a teaching assistant(TA) at the university. Following the incident, Lopez was arrested on charges of Disorderly Conduct and Criminal...

Fox News @FoxNews WATCH: A school teacher at an anti-ICE protest warns federal agents that they're "not the only ones with guns."

The weekend’s “No Kings” protest is turning into a royal pain for one Chicago elementary school. Nathan Hale Elementary has gone social media dark after one of its teachers was identified as the woman who made a mockery of the assassination of conservative organizer Charlie Kirk, according to the U.K.’s Daily Mail. But social media critics have been swarming. According to the Daily Mail, a British-based news outlet with a significant U.S. presence, a teacher at Nathan Hale, Lucy Martinez, was participating in a “No Kings” demonstration — organized internationally by progressives railing against the Trump administration — when a...

If you really want to understand the horrors of war, don’t just read accounts written years after a battle, but instead read first-hand accounts by soldiers who were on the front lines. Similarly, to understand what has happened in the hostile takeover of American college English departments, it’s best to read a description by a professor who fought to preserve them as places where students are taught to write well by studying books by great authors. Fought and lost. His story is at once enlightening and depressing. The book at hand is Broken English Departments: The Repair Manual by Reynolds...

The land I reside on, where I sit as I write these words, has a long history of human habitation, going back to the most recent major glaciation. Before Europeans came to Alaska, this general area, the Susitna Valley, was occupied by one subgroup or another of the Dena'ina linguistic grouping of the Athabascan people. The area started being settled by people of European descent in the late 19th century, when gold was discovered in the area (gold is a really powerful draw, it turns out). At some point, the land on which I reside was taken up under the...

Over the past several years, a common refrain in education has been that educators need to “meet students where they are.” Equally common is the promise to do just that—and we’re hearing it more and more in North Carolina. The idea of “meeting students where they are” is most commonly invoked in non-academic contexts. For example: DeVetta Holman Nash, assistant director of student wellness services and coordinator of student academic success at UNC, proclaims, “I meet students where they are individually.” UNC Charlotte touts a new “all-pathways [‘collegiate recovery’] program model to meet students where they are.” After partnering with...

A Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) teacher is under fire after shocking allegations surfaced that she labeled a third-grade student an “extremist” and coordinated with a neighbor to spy on him outside of school. Even more disturbing, this is the same teacher who reportedly celebrated the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on social media. In a heartbreaking video testimony shared by Libs of TikTok, a third grader shared his disturbing experience with Donna Javinett, a 3rd-grade teacher at Anasazi Elementary School: “I was a third grader at Anasazi, but in a different class than Mrs. Donna Javinett....

Vice President JD Vance appeared on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on Sunday, where he schooled the far-left host before Stephanopoulos abruptly ended the interview. Vance called him out for continuing to push hoaxes despite losing credibility with the American people, and ABC pulled the plug on the interview. “Here’s, George, why fewer and fewer people watch your program, and why you’re losing credibility, because you’re talking for now five minutes with the Vice President of the United States about this story regarding Tom Homan, a story that I’ve read about, but I don’t even know the video that...

This summer, Oklahoma’s then-superintendent Ryan Walters announced a new test for would-be teachers from New York and California, promising that it would keep out “woke indoctrinators” from those states (and only those states). The 50-question test was developed by PragerU and covered American government, religious freedom, gender issues, and the teacher’s role. Walters described his as a “very America-first approach,” promising, “Oklahoma classrooms will be safeguarded from the radical leftist ideology fostered in places like California and New York.” As a one-time high-school civics teacher who’s spent decades battling progressive groupthink in teacher preparation, I think Walters’ concerns are valid....

Let’s talk about the deal. For two years, Gaza’s position was that it won’t release the hostages without a full withdrawal and a permanent ceasefire. Today they gave up on both key objectives. The IDF is still in Gaza and negotiations will start only after the release of the hostages. An unkind voice would call it surrendering and I’ve never been accused of kindness towards the enemy. So what happened? Israel dropped a few bombs on Qatar. Suddenly, the puppet master behind Hamas discovered that he was not immune. Qatar was just another Arab country that Israel bombed at will....

If contrariness were an academic discipline, American colleges would lead the world in its study. Such is the lesson of the Trump administration’s higher-ed “compact,” a 10-point bargain offered to nine elite universities earlier this month. Citing American colleges’ “extraordinary relationship with the U.S. government,” the document asks universities to practice admissions fairness, encourage civil discourse on campus, tackle grade inflation, and undertake several other modest but conservative-coded reforms. In exchange, signatories would receive “priority access to federal funds and looser restraints on overhead costs,” as the New York Times and other outlets have reported. Trump might as well have...

So strong is the desire for “diversity” (at least racial diversity) in higher education that school and college officials often turn a blind eye to the law against racial discrimination in employment. The 1964 Civil Rights Act forbids racial discrimination in employment. It does not read that racial discrimination is illegal unless you think you have a good reason for doing so. Unfortunately, education leaders often act as if it does, engaging in blatant discrimination against candidates who don’t have the desired ancestry. A complaint recently filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Cornell University shows how audacious its...