Free Republic

A bill that would compel Illinois public universities to provide, prescribe, and even promote abortion drugs is now one signature away from becoming law. House Bill 3709 passed the state senate May 31 and is now awaiting action from Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker. If signed, the bill would require schools to refer students to abortion providers and, where pharmacies are available on campus, directly distribute abortion drugs like mifepristone, according to a May 20 press release from Illinois Right to Life. The bill would also mandate that universities include information about chemical abortion on their websites, elevating the practice to...

A Romanian national pleaded guilty on Monday to charges related to his role in a “swatting” ring that targeted dozens of public officials, including a former US president. Going by the aliases “Plank,” “Jonah” and “Cypher,” 26-year-old Thomasz Szabo took part in a years-long conspiracy to place bogus 911 calls, claiming emergencies were taking place at the homes of top government officials, and make bomb threats against government buildings and houses of worship, according to Justice Department. Szabo and a co-conspirator, 21-year-old Serbian national Nemanja Radovanovic, allegedly targeted about 100 people, including members of Congress, governors, cabinet-level executive branch officials...

Yesterday, I [Turley] was notified by the Justice Department confirming that a recent swatting indictment includes the person or persons responsible for my own swatting a year ago. One of the defendants, Thomasz Szabo, was arrested a couple weeks ago. The indictment below charges two foreign nationals: Thomasz Szabo, 26, of Romania, and Nemanja Radovanovic, 21, of Serbia. Szabo and Radovanovic are each charged with one count of conspiracy, 29 counts of threats and false information regarding explosives, and four counts of transmitting threats in interstate and foreign commerce. Their alleged conspiracy began as early as December 2020. It continued...

A renowned Harvard University professor was stripped of her tenure and fired after an investigation found she allegedly manipulated data to support multiple studies she conducted. Francesca Gino, a celebrated behavioral scientist at Harvard Business School whose work has focused on dishonesty, was let go after the school’s top governing board determined she tweaked observations in four studies so that their findings boosted her hypotheses, GHB reported. Harvard administrators notified business faculty that Gino was out of a job in a closed-door meeting this past week, the outlet reported. Harvard did not detail the professor’s firing or tenure being stripped...

Three activists banned from campus for three years A professor was among several climate protesters who during commencement defaced the statue of Andrew Dickson White, one of Cornell University’s founders, as a message to stop the school’s “fossil fuel complicity.” Early Saturday morning, the group Cornell on Fire, a “coalition of Cornellians and community members calling for a just and comprehensive university-wide response to the climate emergency,” put a blindfold over White’s face along with a poster protesting Cornell’s association with the fossil fuel industry, The Cornell Daily Sun reports. According to a press release from the group, Scientist Rebellion...

The Department of Education has retracted a $37.7 million fine against Grand Canyon University after accusations of misleading tuition practices were challenged. The fine was reportedly the largest of its kind ever imposed by the Biden administration’s Education Department on any university. ... The U.S. Department of Education has retracted a $37.7 million dollar fine levied against Grand Canyon University (GCU) in Arizona following wrongful accusations that the school had misled students regarding the cost of tuition. GCU President Brian Mueller, celebrating the department’s May 16 reversal of its earlier decision, described the school as “a leader in innovation, transparency...

I never thought I’d end up in handcuffs and a jail cell for something I didn’t say. But last May, police in New Haven, Conn., arrested me — because a parking attendant falsely claimed I had used a racial slur against him nearly a year earlier. I denied it. I asked the cops to check the parking lot’s surveillance video. They didn’t — and the state charged me first with disorderly conduct, then with three counts of breach of peace in the second degree. It took almost a year, tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and endless stress...

The University of Oregon has long faced controversies over the alleged political bias on its campuses, including celebrating the career of a professor who physically attacked pro-life students as a model of activism. It has been criticized for monitoring off-campus speech and unconstitutionally censoring dissenting faculty. Now, Law Professor Ofer Raban is accusing the Law Review and school administrators of discriminating against an Israeli professor who was allegedly rejected for publication because of his association with an Israeli university. Prof. Raban offered the following account: The events unfolded in 2024, after an Oregon Law Review editor recommended the publication of...

A bombshell report out of Stanford University shed light on the influence of spies from the Chinese Communist Party that the student newspaper says have likely infiltrated the prestigious institution and other universities nationwide to gather intelligence. The report, published by the Stanford Review, tells the story of a Stanford student working on sensitive research at the school – and given the name "Anna" to protect her identity – receiving unexpected messages from a man with the alias Charles Chen asking about seemingly harmless topics like networking opportunities. Those messages soon took a "strange turn," according to the outlet when...

You and I have to pay more taxes so elite universities that willfully break the law discriminating against Jews, whites and Asians can get tax exemptions. It's a slap in the face. Yet Harvard alum Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is trying to turn the tables, accusing the Trump administration of "weaponizing" the IRS to strip Harvard of its 501c3 tax exempt status. Truth is, Harvard should lose its tax-exempt status because it's guilty of illegally allowing the civil rights of Jewish students to be trashed. The case against Harvard is a slam dunk. Numerous other universities where Jewish students are...

Billionaire investor Bill Ackman on Tuesday said Harvard University, one of the nation’s oldest and wealthiest, should not be entitled to taxpayer funds when the school wastes money on what he calls “administrative bloat.” Ackman, who earned undergraduate and business degrees from Harvard more than three decades ago, was speaking hours after the Trump administration said it was freezing future grants to Harvard. He also criticized the school’s investment policies, saying the Ivy League university is facing a financial crisis and that its $53 billion endowment is “poorly invested.” ... “They have lost all future grants, their tax exemptions are...

Harvard University has renamed its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) office following the Trump administration’s decision to freeze billions in federal funding to the school. The university made the announcement on Monday; the name adjustment was announced by Sherri A. Charleston, the school’s former chief diversity officer. ... Harvard University has renamed its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) office following the Trump administration’s decision to freeze billions in federal funding to the school. The DEI center, which was previously called the Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, has been renamed to the “Office of Community and Campus Life,” as...

Gabrielle Wimer’s suspension ‘effectively is an extended vacation,’ one person who spotted her says ... Columbia University medical students accused the Ivy League school of pushing a double standard after a classmate who was suspended following her arrest for storming a Barnard College building returned to campus. The student, Gabrielle Wimer, appears to be on course to graduate later this month. Wimer was one of the four anti-Israel Columbia students arrested for storming Barnard’s Milstein Library in March. The Ivy League university promptly suspended the quartet and restricted them from campus, though officials didn't say how long the punishments would...

Director of Middle East Forum @greggroman reveals Columbia University Palestine activists reactivated their social media account just hours before the Oct 7th attack on Israel. “Columbia activists…reactivated the Students for Justice for Palestine social media accounts, which had been dormant for months prior to October 7th, 3 hours before the October 7th attacks took place.” Roman made the revelation while speaking with a panel of military experts at the @JNS_org International Policy Summit in Jerusalem today. .... Palenstine activists knew about the October 7th massacre hours before it happened should frighten every American citizen & every parent with children in...

Ancient rhinos in Nebraska lived in large local herds and died slowly from volcanic ashfall, not sudden disaster. Credit: John Haxby/The University of Nebraska State Museum ************************************************************************* Volcanic eruption from 12 million years ago preserves a snapshot of extinct animal life. Rhinos that once roamed much of North America 12 million years ago likely lived in large herds, according to a new study by the University of Cincinnati. Researchers examined isotopes in the teeth of rhinos found in what is now northeast Nebraska. At this site, more than 100 rhinos died at a single water hole and were buried in...

There is controversy at George Mason University after Nicholas Decker, an economics PhD student published an essay asking “When Must We Kill Them?” in reference to Trump and his supporters. The essay captures the growing violent ideation on the left, fueled by rage rhetoric from politicians and commentators. The danger is that, for some on the extremes of our society, the question is not “when must we kill them?” but “when can we kill them?” On his Substack “Homo Economicus,” Decker warns that “evil has come to America” and that Trump is “engaged in barbarism” and seeking “to destroy the...

For the last few weeks, many foreign students living in the US have watched as a sequence of events has repeated itself on their social media feeds: plain-clothes agents appearing unannounced and hauling students off in unmarked cars to detention centres. The combination of targeted detentions and reports of wide-scale visa revocations have left campuses on edge, from the biggest public universities to elite Ivy League institutions. "I could be next," said one student visa-holder attending Georgetown University, who has written articles about Israel and the war in Gaza. Another student in Texas said he's afraid to leave his apartment,...

The left’s embrace of violence has reached the edge of the cliff. “The ultimate source of political power is, and always will be, violence,” George Mason University graduate student Nicholas Decker posted, promoting his recent Substack titled “When Must We Kill Them?” Decker is working on his PhD in economics, but his post had nothing to do with President Trump’s economic policy. Instead, it was a fantasy piece about the left murdering Trump administration officials, including Trump, over some perceived attack on Americans’ freedom. “Evil has come to America,” Decker said. “The present administration is engaged in barbarism; it has...

Harvard risks $2.2B in federal funds as it defies anti-discrimination mandates, drawing comparisons to Hillsdale's stand-alone model of rejecting government strings. Harvard University has rejected various demands of a presidential commission on anti-Semitism. The task force wants to persuade Harvard to ensure Jewish students on its campus are no longer harassed, or else lose its federal funding. Harvard retorts that it won’t be bullied by Washington. Among its other requirements, the Trump administration also warned Harvard to cease using race as a criterion in its admissions, hiring, and promotion, contrary to law. And it also directed the campus to ban...

The Internal Revenue Service is making plans to rescind the tax-exempt status of Harvard University, according to two sources familiar with the matter, which would be an extraordinary step of retaliation as the Trump administration seeks to turn up pressure on the university that has defied its demands to change its hiring and other practices. A final decision on rescinding the university’s tax exemption is expected soon, the sources said. The administration already has blocked more than $2 billion in funding from the nation’s oldest university, which is fighting the White House’s policy demands, citing the constitutional right of private...