Free Republic

FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (7News) — On Monday, Fairfax County Public Schools placed a teacher, who reported information about school staff allegedly arranging abortions for students, on paid administrative leave. The Centreville High School teacher’s leave is effective immediately, pending the conclusion of FCPS’s ongoing investigation focusing on concerns that she “may have engaged in serious professional misconduct.” On Tuesday, Zenaida Perez told 7News that she believes FCPS is retaliating against her for going public with the abortion story, which has received national media attention. “They are now suspending me with pay indefinitely," Perez told 7News on Tuesday. "Who knows until...

The idea of autism as a single spectrum has shaped thinking for decades, but the metaphor is misleading, says this public health expert.The phrases “autism spectrum” or “on the spectrum” have become part of everyday language. They are often used as different ways of referring to someone who is “neurodivergent”. The term was coined in the 1980s by psychiatrist Dr Lorna Wing, whose work transformed how autism was understood in the United Kingdom. At the time, her “autism spectrum” concept was groundbreaking. Instead of seeing autism as a rare, narrowly defined condition, she recognised a wide range of traits and...

In October 2024, pro-Palestinian activists marched on Columbia University’s campus, on New York’s Upper West Side, chanting “Resistance is glorious! We will be victorious!” They held up signs that read “LONG LIVE THE AL-AQSA FLOOD,” commemorating Hamas’s murderous assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7. One of my professors, struggling to make herself heard over the cacophony, told us that students had been emailing her, telling her that they did not feel safe and would be absent. Another professor told us that we’d be welcome to leave for “personal reasons.” Such turmoil had become a routine part of campus life....

Team Trump sent several leading U.S. universities a proposed one-sided deal. They’re balking at the offer, and it’s worth understanding why.Donald Trump and his administration have spent much of the year targeting American higher education in a multifaceted campaign, but the story took an unexpected turn earlier this month when the Republican White House unveiled a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.”The document, sent to nine leading U.S. universities, offered the schools a deal of sorts. The institutions would become eligible for preferential treatment in the distribution of federal grants, but in exchange for this special status, the universities...

Controversial UPenn transgender swimmer Lia Thomas is unrepentant that he took several college swimming records away from female competitors. Thomas says that he would not do anything differently despite having his college erase his women’s swimming records, and even in the face of the school’s apologies to his female opponents for allowing him to compete on the women’s swim team. Thomas said he tries to avoid thinking negatively about swimming after he went from the height of being a record-breaking success in women’s sports, to being erased from his school’s records in an interview with Pennsylvania Public Radio station WHYY.

They rewired what you believe.This film exposes the hundred-year experiment that turned psychology into a weapon—how war-era mind research evolved into advertising, media manipulation, and now…the algorithm running your nervous system.You’ve felt it your whole life: the dread, the noise, the endless chase for validation. It isn’t random. It was built.Watch until the end—and decide what’s really yours.What’s Inside • Tavistock Institute — where population psychology began • Edward Bernays — the man who sold desire • Operation Mockingbird — the press turned puppet • MK-Ultra — the erasure of identity • The Algorithm — digital conditioning in real time

As we grow out of intellectual adolescence, religion’s popularity soarsRichard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens recorded a two-hour conversation in 2007 deriding religion that got millions of YouTube views and was said to have sparked an atheist revolution. “Not believing in God was no longer just fashionable,” as journalist Peter Savodnik put it. “It was, for those on campus, for best-selling authors, for those who dominated our most rarefied intellectual spaces, the only rational position worth having.”No longer. In the fall of 2025, it sometimes feels as if every influencer in good standing has gotten religion. David...

The controversial President-elect of the Oxford Union has been dramatically sacked following outrage over his remarks over the death of right-wing US influencer Charlie Kirk. A resounding vote of no confidence by the membership of the prestigious debating society in George Abaraonye resulted in a more than 2:1 majority, with 1,228 votes in favour and only 501 against, well beyond the two-thirds majority needed to force his resignation. The 70 per cent no confidence majority means he will be deemed to have resigned, effectively having been sacked after calling the vote himself to try and shore up his support.

Wikipedia, a popular online encyclopedia millions of people treat as an authoritative source of information, is systemically biased against conservative, religious, and other points of view, according to the site’s co-founder, Larry Sanger.Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia and former philosophy professor, among stacks of reference books at a library in Columbus, Ohio, on March 26, 2007. Kiichiro Sato/AP PhotoSanger, 57, who now heads the Knowledge Standards Foundation, believes Wikipedia can be salvaged either by a renewed emphasis on free speech within the organization or by a grassroots campaign to make diverse viewpoints heard.Failing that, Sanger said, government intervention may be...

This story isn’t complicated. A teenage girl in Fairfax County became pregnant, her guardian told the school, and days later she was bleeding and terrified—no one from the school had called, no consent was sought, and the guardian learned she was no longer pregnant only when doctors in the ER told him. FCPS insists it ran a “comprehensive investigation,” but this newly surfaced recording proves they either never found or never wanted to find the truth. It obliterates the official narrative that whistleblower Zenaida Perez fabricated evidence and shows exactly what the district tried to bury: a frightened minor, a...

The diagnostic categorisation for autism is so broad that families of profoundly autistic children are being left behind, says the mother of a 7-year-old nonverbal daughter. When I tell strangers that my daughter is autistic, their questions are often so far from my reality, it’s painful. Does she have a unique talent? Special interests? They picture a child who excels at puzzles. But my daughter hasn’t shown an interest in toys since she was 20 months old and is unable to tell me what she wants to be for Halloween or when she grows up. I fear illnesses like strep...

This is the best all-time Trump I have ever seen (Unfotunately, it's for Spanish-speakers.). It features Trump as lead Cuban-style singer, Hegseth and Rubio on guitars and Cruz on the drums and backup singer. The gals may be Bondi, Noem and I can't recognize the third one. The message is that illegals, Democrats and Maduro have been pulling all kinds of garbage and Trump arrived to put a stop to it. Click here.

Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin said Monday he has one goal when it comes to hiring the next football coach: Find someone who can win championships. During a news conference in Gainesville, Florida, Stricklin said his decision to fire Billy Napier on Sunday following a 3-4 start to the season was ultimately because "we didn't win to the level we needed to." Napier went 22-23 in four seasons with the Gators, including 12-16 in SEC play. Although Stricklin credited Napier for leaving Florida in a much better place than he found it -- including modernizing the football program structure --...

Where I work in Austin, I deal with a LOT of Hispanic customers, primarily Mexicans. They have been telling me for some time that there is almost no construction work available. Today, two in a very short space of time said they have no work. Furthermore lemons, avocados, poblano peppers or other produce into the U.S. due to tariffs and are unloading tons of it on the side of rural highways for the locals to pick up for free. We are about to see major economic problems as the Trump Administration attempts to fix YEARS of problems caused by Godless...

Wirt’s statement was read into the record as the basis on which he would be interrogated. Because it deserves deep and detailed study much of it is reproduced here. The techniques Wirt was told would be used to discredit business, to entice labor, management, school officials, and farmers to ‘go along’ are frighteningly similar to those which have been used in the ensuing 30 years. Wirt stated: “Brain Trusters” insist that the America of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln must first be destroyed so that on the ruins they will be able to construct an America after their own pattern. They...

The national body of Students for Justice in Palestine backed Hamas’s grisly public executions of fellow Palestinians in Gaza on Sunday, posting “Death to the Occupation, Death to Collaborators” on Instagram. The call for executions followed the murder of “journalist” Saleh Al-Jafarawi, known to critics as “Mr. FAFO” because he would post complaints about Israeli counterattacks after posting happily about Hamas attacks.

Both attacks on free speech are devastating for academia, but in different ways.Crispin Sartwell retired as a philosophy professor in 2023. His most recent book is “Beauty: A Quick Immersion.”It didn’t take long for professors to point out that the right-wing wave of restrictions on expression, spurred by the Trump administration, is far worse than those characteristic of “the woke era.” After all, the woke restrictions were primarily internal, a matter of academic practice, as students, administrators and professors tried to eliminate any shred of skepticism toward diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. It was annoying — and devastating if you...

Tension between Indiana University and its student newspaper flared this week with the elimination of the outlet’s print editions and the firing of a faculty adviser, who refused an order to keep news stories out of a homecoming edition.Administrators may have been hoping to minimize distractions this homecoming weekend as the school prepares to celebrate a Hoosiers football team with its highest-ever national ranking. Instead, the controversy has entangled the school in questions about censorship and student journalists’ First Amendment rights.Advocates for student media, Indiana Daily Student alumni and high-profile supporters including billionaire Mark Cuban have blasted the school for...

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — On a scorching hot Saturday in San Antonio, dozens of teachers traded a day off for a glimpse of the future. The topic of the day’s workshop: enhancing instruction with artificial intelligence.After marveling as AI graded classwork instantly and turned lesson plans into podcasts or online storybooks, one high school English teacher raised a concern that was on the minds of many: “Are we going to be replaced with AI?”That remains to be seen. But for the nation’s 4 million teachers to stay relevant and help students use the technology wisely, teachers unions have forged an...

A graduate student at Illinois State University has been arrested after he was caught on camera toppling a Turning Point USA table. The vandal, who has been identified as 27-year-old Derek Lopez, was seen confronting student members of the conservative organization at the school as they were promoting YouTuber and comedian Alex Stein's October 20 event at the university. 'Well you know, Jesus did it, so you know I gotta do it right?' Lopez, wearing bright red pants and a red flannel with his hair up in a bun, could be seen telling one of the student activists. He then...