Free Republic

Reams have been written about the latest revelations in the Russian collusion hoax that so hamstrung President Trump’s first term. I will summarize below the most important revelations. It’s clear the Administration is taking its time to reveal the investigation’s conclusions for maximum impact -- an impact that I, like Scott Adams, believe will result in arrests of a number of people who pulled off this fraud. But first I want to discuss something which has not received the kind of attention it deserves -- the death of the legal consequences for disparate outcomes and credentialism. The Death of Disparate...

A high school in Minnesota was forced to cancel a field trip scheduled only for students who 'identify as a person of color' after a civil rights complaint was filed. Mark Perry, a community member and retired professor in Twin Cities in Minnesota, saw information on the field trip, which allegedly only was available to students who identified as students of color, on social media. The trip for Highland Park High School offered a chance for students to be exposed to digital marketing and advertising careers, according to Perry. Perry told the Star Tribune that the event, which has been...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal judge has weakened the Biden administration’s effort to use a historic civil rights law to fight industrial pollution alleged to have taken a heavier toll on minority communities in Louisiana. U.S. District Judge James David Cain of Lake Charles handed down the ruling Thursday, permanently blocking the Environmental Protection Agency from imposing what are known as “disparate impact” requirements on the state.... In its lawsuit, the state argued that the Biden administration’s plans went beyond the scope of Title VI.... The state also said the policy is discriminatory because it would allow regulation of...

In the post just below, Steve notes that the liberal media are trying to make some kind of hero out of new Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson. Good luck with that: based on what we have seen so far, I would assess her as incompetent.Her dissent in the UNC race discrimination case was awful. It was one long political screed, devoid of legal argument and oblivious to the standards (the 14th Amendment and Title VI) that she was supposed to be applying. Also, she can’t deal honestly or competently with data.At Liberty Unyielding, Hans Bader disassembles Jackson’s dissent:[A]ccording to the dissent by...

A photo emerged Thursday of a chart comparing freshman admissions rates at the University of Maryland between two categories, “White or Asian students” and “Students of Color minus Asian.” The photo has the University of Maryland’s logo attached at the bottom. The chart compared admissions and enrollment rates among freshmen in the fall of 2017 to admissions rates in the fall of 2021. The data showed that general admissions have gone up as have average weighted GPAs, according to the chart posted by journalist Christopher Rufo. The chart classifies students by race, though the university opted to create a new...

On Monday in federal court, Harvard denied charges that it discriminates against Asian-Americans in the same way it once discriminated against Jews. Race, its lawyer insisted, was just one of many factors considered, and it could only help an applicant’s chances of admission, not hurt them. On the substance, this is a dubious proposition. Students for Fair Admissions, which brought the lawsuit, has produced considerable evidence that Harvard uses various means to exclude Asian-Americans even when they are more qualified academically and have better records of extracurricular activities than other accepted students. These means include suspiciously lower ratings given Asian-Americans...

Letter says programs 'being misused to promote biased, one-sided, anti-Israel' views Fourteen advocacy organizations are calling for federal funding to Middle East studies centers to be pulled if the programs do not end their anti-Israel and anti-American "indoctrination." The letter to the Senate HELP Committee charge that the 16 Middle East studies centers receiving funding under Title VI of the Higher Education Opportunities Act are "being misused to promote biased, one-sided, and anti-Israel programming," in violation of a requirement for the programs to "reflect diverse perspectives and a wide range of views." Title VI funding was rolled out in 1958,...

How you can stop anti-Israel incitement on campus. When President Trump presented his budget, he defunded Title VI from $72 million to zero. But it’s up to Congress to make it happen. What’s Title VI? Title VI of the Higher Education Act set out to fund international studies that would promote our national security. But on many campuses, Title VI centers undermine our national security by supporting Islamic terrorists. The Higher Education Opportunity Act mandated that Title VI centers reflect a “wide range of views”. Instead when it comes to the Middle East, Title VI centers have only one point...

We’ve reported on the movement on college campuses to apply boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against entities that invest in the state of Israel. As well, we’ve shown the anti-Semitism in this campaign. Now, a former intern of our sister organization, Accuracy in Media, has connected the dots and shows that you are paying for the BDS campaign in federal taxes. "In October 2014, more than $3.3 million of federal grant money was awarded to Middle East 'National Resource Centers' (NRCs) at 16 universities throughout our nation under a statute called Title VI of the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA),"...

A community college in Illinois is trying to defend itself after it decided to offer special classes only available to black people. “College: Changes, Challenges, Choice” is a one-credit introductory course at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, and is intended to help new students “assess your purpose for college, assess your study strategies, set college and career goals, examine your values and decision-making skills, and develop an appreciation for diversity.” But while the class may want students to appreciate diversity, the school doesn’t practice what it preaches. Two sections of the class are specifically set aside exclusively for...

After the holidays, when Congress prepares to reauthorize Title VI of the Higher Education Act, legislators should take a cold, hard look at the case of UCLA’s Center for Near East Studies (CNES), a recipient of millions of dollars of federal funding under Title VI, and ask if such programs truly serve our national security interests. Or, are they rather serving the selfish interests of politically motivated faculty and enabling them to promote their anti-Israel activism at the taxpayer’s expense? UCLA’s Center for Near East Studies has a long history of presenting biased, unambiguously anti-Israel positions that go far beyond...

The divide between academics’view of the world and actual events on planet earth is a wide one. “The United States is beset by acute foreign policy crises, from the Middle East to Russia to its own border,” Mike Gonzalez writes in a study for the Heritage Foundation. “While the Obama Administration bears its share of the responsibility for mishandling events and for the policies that led to these crises, looming behind the Administration’s record of failure is an influential progressive academic consensus that has been tragically wrong on many key global questions.” From the crime wave on our southern border...

College and universities have one thing in common with the federal government, along with the cash that flows from the latter to the former: They seem to be following Einstein’s definition of insanity. They keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Under the National Defense Authorization Act of 1958, the federal government gives colleges and universities $120 million a year to train students to study languages that might be useful to America’s national security: Not many students receive such training under the law. Sarah Stern of the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) gave the...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The federal government has dismissed allegations that three University of California campuses failed to effectively respond to claims of anti-Semitism that arose out of pro-Palestinian events at the schools. The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights said in letters sent last week to leaders at UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz and UC Irvine that the protests, teach-ins, lectures, graffiti and heated confrontations that gave rise to the claims didn't constitute harassment of Jewish students. In its Aug. 19 letters to the universities, the Education Department said in most cases the activities at issue were...

December 12, 2007, 7:00 a.m. Taking Sides on Title VIMiddle East Studies reform goes partisan. By Stanley Kurtz In “Saudi in the Classroom,” I explained how the Saudis are using federal subsidies to university programs of Middle East Studies (under Title VI of the Higher Education Act) as a kind of Trojan horse to gain influence over American K-12 education. Unfortunately, House Democrats seem willing to let the Saudis get away with it. Although the Senate has already passed a very reasonable bipartisan compromise on Title VI (crafted by Senators Kennedy and Enzi), the House appears to have buckled...

July 25, 2007, 7:00 a.m. Saudi in the ClassroomA fundamental front in the war. By Stanley Kurtz Unless we counteract the influence of Saudi money on the education of the young, we’re going to find it very difficult to win the war on terror. I only wish I was referring to Saudi-funded madrassas in Pakistan. Unfortunately, I’m talking about K-12 education in the United States. Believe it or not, the Saudis have figured out how to make an end-run around America’s K-12 curriculum safeguards, thereby gaining control over much of what children in the United States learn about the Middle...

A widely-publicized attack on supporters of Israel by two leading academics commits a fair number of inaccuracies not the least of which is their characterization of controversies surrounding the Israel Lobby as they manifest themselves on American campuses. “In September 2002, for example, Martin Kramer and Daniel Pipes, two passionately pro-Israel neoconservatives, established a website (Campus Watch) that posted dossiers on suspect academics and encouraged students to report comments or behavior that might be considered hostile to Israel,” John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt wrote in a recent report which also appeared in abbreviated form in the London Review of Books....

Congress is back to business in Washington. That business includes H.R.3077, the International Studies in Higher Education Act, which the House of Representatives passed unanimously last autumn. Now the bill is in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), chaired by Senator Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican. The bill, it will be recalled, would establish an International Advisory Board for the Title VI program, which subsidizes foreign area studies in U.S. universities. The board would advise the Department of Education and the Congress on how Title VI might best meet national needs. I've written a great...

Nonsense on Title VI in the L.A. Times Monday, November 24, 2003. Nonsense on Title VI in the L.A. Times. The International Studies in Higher Education Act (H.R. 3077) would create an advisory board for Title VI, the federal subsidy program for area (and Middle Eastern) studies in universities. As I've argued before, such a board is the very least Congress can do to assure some return on the taxpayers' investment in these programs. I spoke in defense of the bill on a panel in Washington on November 20, and I post my remarks here. In my address, I dispel...

"...an education based solely upon one-sided condemnations of American policy will fail to be effective..." Since John Adams helped draft the Constitution of Massachusetts, which included Chapter V, Section II obligating the state to provide education to its citizens, the importance of an educated citizenry to democracy has never been in doubt. Relying upon the participation of educated and engaged citizens to fill the many jobs that composed each branch of federal and state government, it was vital to ensure the best and broadest range of education for each citizen. Following September 11, 2001 and the war in Iraq, federal...