Free Republic

WASHINGTON — At the height of the 2008 economic collapse, then-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the elimination of a discriminatory housing practice known as “redlining” was responsible for instigating the meltdown. “It all started back when there was a lot of pressure on banks to make loans to everyone,” Bloomberg, now a Democratic presidential candidate, said at a forum that was hosted by Georgetown University in September 2008. “Redlining, if you remember, was the term where banks took whole neighborhoods and said, ‘People in these neighborhoods are poor, they’re not going to be able to pay off their mortgages,...

Georgetown University is one of the country’s top-ranked schools and has a roughly $1.6 billion endowment. But in 1838, the university was facing financial ruin. So the Jesuit priests, who ran Georgetown, sold 272 enslaved people to three plantations in Louisiana for $115,000 — or the equivalent of about $3.3 million in today’s dollars to keep their doors open. That’s how the ancestors of DaVita Robinson, Valerie White, Maxine Crump — all descendants of the 272 and featured in the Video Op-Ed above — ended up in Louisiana. And now, they may become the first people in the history of...

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Georgetown, Texas – population 75,000 – was to be the new poster child of the green movement. Environmental interest in Georgetown’s big push to generate all of its electricity from wind and solar power was amplified by three factors: the town and its mayor were nominally Republican; Georgetown is in an oil- and natural gas-rich state; and that state is deep-red Texas. Former Vice President Al Gore and other climate change luminaries feted Georgetown Mayor Dale Ross, and Ross was featured prominently at renewable energy conventions.

Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Live,” Georgetown University sociology professor Michael Eric Dyson compared the Betsy Ross American flag with the 13 stars representing the original colonies to the Nazi swastika and a burning Ku Klux Klan cross. While discussing Nike canceling a release of shoes featuring the Ross flag after former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick objected, Dyson said, “It hails from the revolutionary period of this nation’s founding which was deeply embroiled in, you know in enslavement, of the owners of slaves, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and the like. But also it’s the recent use of this flag that has been...

LIVE TRAFFIC ALERT: All southbound lanes of I-35 shut down in Georgetown near Inner Space Caverns for suspicious package investigation

Forget about how we’d pay for reparations or who would be eligible. The point isn’t to make things right, but to re-make America. What do we mean by reparations? Writing recently in the Washington Post, Sheryll Cashin, a law professor at Georgetown University, argues that “reparations should repair what white supremacy still breaks. Atoning for the legacy of chattel slavery is simply not enough.” That is, reparations must be broad enough to encompass the many crimes and injustices perpetrated against black Americans throughout our history, from slavery to Jim Crow to mass incarceration. The effects of these injustices, says Cashin,...

Fresh off a legislative victory for the billboard industry at Nationals Park, Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans’ attempt to preserve a loophole for digital sign companies doing business in the District seemed inevitable—especially given his close ties with the vendor that stands to benefit the most. Evans recently introduced an emergency bill that would provide a permit exemption in certain cases—a boon for Digi Media Communications LLC, which already has installed numerous signs in violation of city rules and is looking to install dozens more throughout the District.

The Department of Education has launched an investigation into foreign cash secretly flowing into U.S. universities and sent letters to Georgetown University and Texas A&M Thursday. A Senate report found that 70 percent of colleges that took money from a Chinese propaganda program broke the law by not disclosing it. Almost all of the colleges contracted to shape U.S. textbooks on the Middle East received massive funding from countries in the region. The Department of Education is going after U.S universities over supposed ties to foreign governments, after some allegedly took huge quantities of foreign cash and hid it from...

Granger Smith is grieving the loss of his youngest child. The country singer shared the “unthinkable” news on Twitter and Instagram Thursday that his and wife Amber’s 3-year-old son River Kelly died “following a tragic accident” where “despite doctor’s best efforts, he was unable to be revived.” A rep for Smith confirms to PEOPLE River “died in a tragic drowning accident at home.” “Amber and I made the decision to say our last goodbyes and donate his organs so that other children will be given a second chance at life,” Smith wrote, sharing along with a smiley photo of himself...

... [C]ollege tuition is not an act of God, beyond human control. It is a result of decisions taken by colleges themselves—above all, decisions to bulk up their bureaucracies. Bureaucratic outlays rose at nearly twice the rate as teaching outlays from 1993 to 2007, according to the Goldwater Institute. From 1997 to 2012, colleges hired new administrators at twice the rate of any student-body increase, the New England Center for Investigative Reporting found. Colleges inevitably claim that government mandates force this administrative bloat upon them. But the vast majority of administrative hires are voluntary: for every dollar in mandated bureaucratic...

There is a new twist to the neverending Operation Varsity Blues saga. A Georgetown student caught up in the college admissions scandal is suing the university over his expulsion. To be more specific, he wants to be able to keep his college credits and transfer to another school. A rising senior, his lawsuit claims he is being denied due process by Georgetown University and he seeks to stop the expulsion.Adam Semprevivo, 21 years old, is the son of a wealthy Los Angeles business. Stephen Semprevivo pleaded guilty to paying $400,000 to get his son admitted to Georgetown University. That...

Non-Muslims must “reject the feelings of cultural, racial, and religious superiority that drive false narratives of barbarous Muslims versus civilized Westerners or peaceful Christians,” pontificated Luther College Professor Todd Green. His April 8 Georgetown University presentation attempted to induce guilt in non-Muslims over real and alleged historical atrocities, while whitewashing modern Islamist and jihadist threats. Green lectured about thirty listeners in the conference room of Georgetown’s Saudi-funded Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU). With Georgetown Professor Tamara Sonn as moderator, he presented his recent book, Presumed Guilty: Why We Shouldn’t Ask Muslims to Condemn Terrorism, under the...

Students at Georgetown University may soon see a new $27.20 fee pop up on their bill each semester, and it's one they voted to add. ABC News reports that undergrads at the Jesuit college voted Thursday, by an almost 2-to-1 margin, to approve a referendum that would mandate the fee, which would benefit descendants of slaves that Georgetown sold in 1838 to fend off financial ruin. CNN notes that the collected fees would amount to about $400,000 annually and, per the bill, would "be allocated for charitable purposes directly benefiting the descendants ... and other persons once enslaved by the...

Georgetown University students voted overwhelmingly on Thursday in favor of creating a new student fee to benefit descendants of slaves sold nearly 200 years ago to benefit the school. Two-thirds of students voted yes to a non-binding referendum that says students “wish to at least partially repay our debts to those families whose involuntary sacrifices made these privileges possible” through a $27.20 fee each semester. It would generate nearly $400,000 a year for programs in communities where direct descendants of the 272 people sold in 1838 now live, such as Maringouin, Louisiana. A board of trustees, half of which would...

Georgetown University students overwhelmingly voted to increase their tuition to pay reparations to the descendants of slaves once owned by the school. The move comes as reparations are increasingly being discussed on the campaign trail for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. The Georgetown University Student Association held the referendum this week, with students supporting the measure by a two-to-one margin. The fee would increase tuition at the nation's oldest Catholic university by nearly $28 per semester for every student. The money would go into a fund for descendants of the 272 slaves the Jesuits sold in 1838 to keep the...

Students at Georgetown University voted on Thursday to increase their tuition to benefit descendants of the 272 enslaved Africans that the Jesuits who ran the school sold nearly two centuries ago to secure its financial future. The fund they voted to create would represent the first instance of reparations for slavery by a prominent American organization. The proposal passed with two-thirds of the vote, but the student-led referendum was nonbinding, and the university’s board of directors must approve the measure before it can take effect. “We value the engagement of our students and appreciate that they are making their voices...

Is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi losing her grip on the Democratic Party? Students at Georgetown University apparently think so. Campus Reform's Cabot Phillips visited the campus in Washington, D.C., to ask people about the intra-party struggle between the old guard, like Pelosi (D-Calif.), and more progressive, far-left lawmakers like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and her outspoken freshmen colleagues. Students were asked: “Between Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who do you view as the face of the Democrat Party?” The results went overwhelmingly in the freshman congresswoman's favor. “She’s got the people. We’re in a time of extremes, she’s pulling pretty...

Hollywood actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin and a slew of chief executives are among 50 wealthy people charged in the largest college cheating scam ever prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice, federal officials said Tuesday. Those indicted in the investigation, dubbed "Operation Varsity Blues," allegedly paid bribes of up to $6.5 million to get their children into elite colleges, including Yale, Stanford, Georgetown and the University of Southern California, federal prosecutors said.

(UPDATED with information from law enforcement press conference) Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin knowingly broke the law trying to get their kids into top tier colleges, according to the FBI and the U.S Attorney’s office for the district of Massachusetts. The Desperate Housewives and Fuller House actors were named among a group of 33 parents who paid millions in bribes to coaches at Ivy League schools like Georgetown University, Stanford University, UCLA, Yale and USC so their children could gain admission as recruited athletes – even if they weren’t actually athletes. The just unsealed March 6 indictment notes that the...

Actresses and chief executives are among 50 people arrested in a nationwide college admissions cheating scam, authorities announced Tuesday. According to charging documents, actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin are among those involved facing charges. The suspects allegedly paid bribes of up to $6 million to get their kids into elite colleges, including Yale, Stanford, Georgetown and USC. In most cases, the students did not know their admission was contingent on a bribe. University athletic coaches and administrators of college entrance exams were also among those arrested. The alleged scam centered around a man in California who ran a business...