Free Republic

President Donald Trump has announced he is seeking $1 billion in damages from Harvard University, accusing the institution of attempting to avoid a settlement through a job training proposal he described as “wholly inadequate” and alleging that its actions rise to the level of criminal misconduct. […] Trump’s administration has maintained that Harvard acted with “deliberate indifference” toward Jewish and Israeli students and has cited a series of incidents—including physical altercations during anti-Israel protests and the hiring of individuals previously involved in such events—as grounds for punitive action. The Department of Justice’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, led by Leo...

A January survey from Harvard University and The Harris Poll found that a slight majority of respondents believe that former President Biden was more effective than President Trump. The poll, released Monday, found that 51 percent of respondents said Trump is doing a worse job than Biden, while 49 percent said the president is doing a better job than his predecessor. The same survey conducted in December found that 53 percent of respondents said Trump is faring better than Biden did. The latest results also mark a stark reversal from February 2025, when 58 percent of respondents to the Harvard-Harris...

Jennifer Mnookin, the chancellor of UW-Madison, has been selected as the newest leader of Columbia University. The university made the announcement on Sunday. Mnookin will leave UW-Madison at the end of the academic school year. Mnookin, a legal scholar, has served as chancellor since 2022 after serving as the dean of the University of California, Los Angeles Law School. "During her leadership tenure, the university has risen in important national rankings, improved student outcomes, achieved record fundraising success and helped make a UW–Madison education affordable and accessible for more Wisconsin students," the university said in its announcement. “It has been...

Ranya Brooks will serve as the inaugural director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Office of Belonging, Community, and Connection, Dean Jeremy M. Weinstein announced Friday afternoon in an email to students, faculty, and staff. Brooks, who most recently served as director of workforce engagement for Harvard University Campus Services, will begin her new role on Jan. 26. The appointment follows a six-month search launched after the departure of Robbin Chapman, who previously led the school’s diversity office. Chapman left during the broader rebranding of the Kennedy School’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts into what is now the OBCC. During the...

President Donald Trump has assured the people of Venezuela that his undertaking to restore the country’s oil infrastructure will be mutually beneficial to both them and the U.S. Ricardo Hausmann, professor of the practice of international political economy at the Harvard Kennedy School, isn’t convinced. “There’s a reason why there’s no profit motive in government,” Hausmann told Fortune, referring to the U.S. controlling the Venezuelan oil market. “Profit motive in government is what we call corruption.” Trump has unveiled lofty plans to revive Venezuela’s troubled oil industry, just days after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro over the weekend....

In July, researchers using the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System survey telescope in Chile made an exceedingly rare discovery: a mysterious object passing through the solar system at far too high a speed to be bound by the Sun’s gravity. As the visitor made its closest approach to Earth, coming within just 167 million miles on December 19, an international team of researchers from the alien-hunting astronomy project Breakthrough Listen pointed the Green Bank Telescope — the largest single-dish radio telescope in the world — at 3I/ATLAS. In a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper, they revealed sobering — albeit probably expected —...

Harvard professor torches Ivy League school over woke anti-white, anti-male culture in blistering essay A professor who spent 40 years teaching at Harvard University torched the Ivy League institution over its “exclusion of white males” in a searing essay announcing his retirement. In the piece titled “Why I’m Leaving Harvard,” history professor James Hankins said his decision to retire “was not a sudden one” and was made back in 2021 after two volatile years on campus, marked by the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown and George Floyd riots — the latter of which he said dramatically changed the school’s graduate admissions process....

Charlie Kirk’s murder proves free speech absolutism cannot withstand lies turned lethal—America must confront hate and incitement with lawful strength, not naïve trust.The murdered Charlie Kirk was a martyr to free speech and the belief in the power of reasoned argument to overcome lies and evil. “Hate speech does not exist legally in America,” he wrote on X in May of 2024. “There’s ugly speech. There’s gross speech. There’s evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment.” There is much to admire in Charlie’s devotion to those principles, but his murder put those principles to...

Once again, the United States is using lethal force off its shores. In recent weeks, American drones and warships have sunk or disabled a string of speedboats in international waters off Venezuela. Washington says the vessels belonged to narcoterrorist networks tied to the Maduro regime and Tren de Aragua and that they were carrying cocaine and fentanyl precursors bound for the United States. At least 83 alleged traffickers and others are dead. Caracas calls this extrajudicial murder. Human-rights groups call it assassination. Cable-news panels and UN press releases are already rehearsing the same ritual question: Is this legal under international...

A Brazilian Harvard Law School professor who pleaded guilty last month to illegally firing an air rifle outside a Boston-area synagogue — and told police he was “hunting rats” — has agreed to leave the US following his arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement this week. Carlos Portugal Gouvea, 43, copped Nov. 13 to a single charge of illegal use of the air rifle in connection with the Oct. 2 incident outside of Brookline’s Temple Beth Zion, which took place on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism. The scholar was arrested by ICE Boston Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO)...

Earlier this week, in ‘Easy A’s for Ivy League Idiots’ I wrote about the massive level of grade inflation in the Ivy League. In 2005, a quarter of Harvard students received A’s. In 2025, it’s over 60%. At Yale, A’s went from 67% of grades in 2010 to 78% of grades in 2023. The prestigious university has had awkward moments like before, such as when 91% of students graduated with honors in 2001, and these days it tries to keep the number of honors graduates in the 50s. But much like shopping in a supermarket, it’s hard to avoid the...

Harvard University’s Office of Undergraduate Education is raising concerns about mounting grade inflation, reporting that the school’s grading system is “damaging the academic culture of the College.” The office sent a 25-page report to faculty and students, stating that 60 percent of all undergraduate grades are now As. This is a 35 percent increase compared to 20 years ago, according to The Harvard Crimson. Veronica Bryant, academic affairs fellow at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, told The Fix that if Harvard allows grade inflation to skyrocket, the problem will worsen at other schools. “‘As goes Harvard, so goes...

Does 3I/ATLAS have interstellar headlights? Harvard scientist Avi Loeb speculated that NASA’s recently released photos of 3I/ATLAS could potentially point to its artificial origins — and even wondered if the so-called comet was purposely targeting and sweeping meteorites out of its path. He posited his theory in a viral new blog post on Medium. “The extended glow is ahead of the object, not trailing it as expected for a cometary tail,” the astrophysicist told The Post. “In the case of a technological object, it could be a beam of particles or light illuminating the path forward to avoid the hazards...

Kirill Dmitriev — Vladmir Putin’s special envoy and head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund — is suddenly ubiquitous. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has been largely quiet since his maximalist negotiating approach with Team Trump failed. Moscow, presumably largely guided by Lavrov, after winning a concession on Tomahawk missiles, opted to continue Putin’s hardline demands for ending the war in Ukraine ahead of the proposed Trump-Putin summit in Budapest. NATO would have to admit that it was the root cause of the war. Kyiv would have to cede all of the Donbas, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine would...

Disgraced former Harvard President Larry Summers spent his honeymoon on billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's private island after marrying one of the school's English professors. The professor, Elisa New, flew to Little Saint James on Epstein's infamous 'Lolita Express' with Summers, who left the school earlier this week over embarrassing emails where he referred to Epstein as his 'wingman.'The couple flew from Bedford, Massachusetts to the island on December 11, 2005, ten days after their wedding and while Summers was still president, according to publicly available flight logs obtained by The Harvard Crimson.The logs show Summers and New flew alongside Epstein's...

When former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers was pursuing a romantic relationship with a woman he described as a mentee, he turned to a longtime associate for guidance: convicted sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein.

At many of the country’s most prestigious universities, an “A” has become a default instead of a distinction. It used to be a mark that indicated academic excellence and proficiency, yet lately it seems like almost everyone is “exceptional.” Now, Harvard’s much-remarked-upon grade-inflation report, released late last month, confirms what many have suspected for years: Grades at elite colleges have lost their meaning. According to the report, in 2005 “A’s” accounted for 24 percent of all grades given at Harvard College. In 2025, that number jumped to over 60 percent. Even the cutoff mark for summa cum laude status has...

Bill Clinton’s Administration was infested with creeps who reportedly visited Epstein Island. President Trump is right. It is time to investigate the Clintons and the entire Democrat Party for their connections to Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Clinton We know that the Clintons are closely tied to Jeffrey Epstein. We reported in 2019 that investigative reporter Conchita Sarnoff, the author of “Trafficking” on the Jeffrey Epstein case, joined Shannon Bream and said Bill Clinton flew on Epstein’s plane 27 times and ALMOST EVERY TIME that Clinton was on the plane there were underage girls on the plane. Sarnoff also said Bill Clinton...

Emails revealed that Summers sought advice from Epstein on romantically pursuing a woman he referred to as his mentee.Summers’ comment comes after a senior Trump administration official and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) each called on institutions to sever ties with Summers.The statement leaves question marks hanging over the fate of several positions Summers occupies, which include a board seat at OpenAI, a tenured position at Harvard, an unpaid nonresident fellow position at the liberal Center for American Progress think tank and a paid contributor role at Bloomberg News. A Summers spokesperson declined to answer a direct question about those roles.Earlier...

Mysterious interstellar object 3I/ATLAS has reemerged from behind the Sun, allowing astronomers to once again get a glimpse at the rare visitor...and is expected to make its closest pass of the Earth just days before Christmas on its way back out of our star system.... .. judging by the latest data, ...Loeb suggests that if 3I/ATLAS really is a visitor from a technological civilization — a possibility he’s floated repeatedly — then it may be trying to boost its exit from the solar system to a breakneck pace. (Let’s face it: getting away from Earth as rapidly as possible makes...