Free Republic

Sometimes schools do silly things, particularly in the name of racial diversity, that, more frequently, only deepen racial division. When Jason Mattera, a student at Roger Williams University, offered a controversial “whites only” scholarship to students at the school, the project drew national criticism. “Fifty radio stations had me on with the local director of the NAACP,” Mattera remembered in an appearance before Accuracy in Academia’s Conservative University conference in July. Mattera, who heads the College Republicans at Roger Williams, remembered that even the state GOP wanted no part of the project, which he said was intended to parody government...

<p>Recently, students at a Colorado university were told to write an essay on why President Bush (search) is a war criminal. When one student wrote instead that Saddam Hussein was the war criminal, she received a failing grade.</p> <p>In fall, 2002, at University of California at Berkeley, the course description for "The Politics and Poetics of Palestinian Resistance" warned, "conservative thinkers are encouraged to seek other sections."</p>

If you want a good example of the "long march through the institutions" undertaken by sixties leftists after they left school, look no further than the career of Orville Schell, dean of Berkeley's School of Journalism. Since the political program of the left was unlikely to prevail through democratic means — given the innate good sense of most Americans, who can smell a totalitarian rat a mile away — those like Schell endorsing various socialist nostrums could realize their utopian schemes only "by insinuation and infiltration rather than confrontation," as Roger Kimball has put it. Thus they settled in the...

The university professor began the first class of the semester by announcing that she was an "anti-imperialist, anti-heterosexist Marxist-feminist." She read us the famous quote from Robin Morgan, the leading feminist and former editor of Ms. Magazine, who said "kill your fathers, not your mothers."  Seeing the students' shocked faces, she added "Kill is too strong.  Hate your fathers, not your mothers."  I guess she was a moderate. One of the male students in the class, obviously feeling chastised, said the defense I've heard young men say hundreds of times--"don't blame us for what happened to women in the...

Perspective from Another Planet - A Strange Take on Stay-at-Home Moms Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. Gretchen Ritter, a women's studies professor at the University of Texas, has a problem with stay-at-home moms—actually, several problems. Stay-at-home motherhood, she explains, is bad for men, women, and children alike. It damages our society as a whole and makes lesbian mothers feel bad. Ritter made all these charges in an opinion piece titled, "The messages we send when moms stay home," published in the Austin American-Statesman. The diatribe was her attempt at starting what she called "an...

YOUNG CONSERVATIVES OF TEXAS University of Texas at Austin Chapter _________________________________________________ News Advisory: New Book by YCT Leader Gives Secrets of Success to Student Activism—Calls for a “Conservative Revolution” Across College Campuses For Immediate Release Contact: Brendan Steinhauser, YCT-UT advisor, 361-772-5175 (Austin, Texas) Brendan Steinhauser, a member of The Young Conservatives of Texas, has recently announced the publication of his book, The Conservative Revolution: How to Win the Battle for College Campuses. The book is a how-to guide for conservative students who want to build powerful political groups on their respective college campuses. It provides detailed advice on how to...

July 11, 2004 -- State University of New York Chan cellor Robert King has a major scandal on his hands at upstate SUNY-Brockport: The campus thought-cops have repealed the First Amendment. King needs to reinstate it — fast. Freshman Robert Wojich and senior Patricia Simpson have sued in federal court, claiming the school's racial- and sexual-harassment codes unconstitutionally restrict free speech. In the name of battling "harassment," SUNY-Brockport takes aim at such actions as name-calling, "discussing sexual activities" — gee, did the '60s free-sex crowd become Victorians when they grew up? — insulting cartoons and, yes, "ethnic jokes." Violators of...

Under the Radar Political correctness never died. Cathy Young These days, talking about political correctness in academia makes you sound like a quaint throwback to the 1990s. It seems utterly irrelevant to the post-9/11 era, a threat dwarfed by (depending on whom you listen to) either terrorism or losing our liberties to the war on terrorism. Eric Wasserman, executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), says many people have a knee-jerk reaction to the very phrase political correctness, seeing it as an old story. But in fact, says Wasserman, the phenomenon is very much alive. On...

A federal judge has enjoined Shippensburg University from enforcing key provisions of a speech code that bars all "acts of intolerance" -- including racist, sexist and homophobic speech -- after finding that the Pennsylvania university failed to show that the code was needed to protect students' rights or to avoid disruption of the educational process. In his 32-page opinion in Bair v. Shippensburg University, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III of the Middle District of Pennsylvania found that while the speech code was "obviously well-intentioned," it simply went too far in attempting to regulate the speech of adult students....

An encounter at Harvard illuminates the true ignorance of liberal scholars at universities across the country, and the danger they pose to the good fight against terrorism. The professor narrowed his eyes, leaned back in his chair and yawned. "You don't really believe that do you?" I stared back perplexed. "What?" "That there is really some terrorist conspiracy poised against the United States." There was a short silence. I took a deep breath, not sure if he was serious. But when I looked in his eyes, I detected no trace of humor. "Well ... the events of 9/11 would certainly...

Campus Conservative Hits Academia June 10, 2004 Ben Shapiro isn't the only conservative railing against liberalism on America's college campuses. But right now -- thanks to a marketing campaign taking place mostly in cyberspace -- he's the one getting the most attention. At 20, Shapiro graduates later this month from UCLA, where he has been best known for caustic columns in the campus paper. But Shapiro also took careful notes in class, chronicling what he viewed as a pervasive liberal bias by professors who fed mostly unwitting students a steady diet of anti-Americanism. Now, Shapiro has assembled those notes in...

Enjoy perilous work? Try being a conservative on a college campus in Massachusetts. This is a story of how I was--almost--done in by the politically correct crowd. In April 2000 my career as an economics teacher at Smith College looked bright. Despite my having published only one academic article in four years, my department liked my teaching and "strongly" recommended me for reappointment. I was extremely productive over the next two and a half years, publishing five additional academic articles and a book. In 2002, however, my department voted to fire me by denying tenure. Why? I believe it was...

“WE EXPECT THAT 25 YEARS FROM NOW, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.” Thus wrote Justice Sandra Day O’Connor for the 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court majority that on June 23 upheld use of reverse racism by the University of Michigan Law School in selecting which students it would admit. But until then, a “compelling state interest” should for another generation transcend the Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantee of “equal protection of the law,” wrote O’Connor. (The first female Justice, she is sometimes described as an “Affirmative Action” appointee.) This state interest...

"I remain flaggergasted [sic] that a professor at a major university could advocate absolutism as you did recently. . . . If there is anything that marks an uneducated and narrow minded person, thinking in absolutes is that mark." So began an e-mail from an erudite fan. Fourteen years of op-ed writing have taught me that insults have their origins in the pricked conscience. This particular insult has become near universal. Soros Inc., the new financial and philosophical liberal epicenter, must have issued a talking point: "Just call them stupid." Given their antiwar stance, the more creative "Your mother wears...

USTIN, Tex., June 8 — Texas lawmakers thought they had found the ideal alternative to race-based affirmative action.Seven years ago, after a federal court outlawed the use of race in the admissions policies of the state's public universities, the Legislature came up with an answer: It passed a law guaranteeing admission to the top 10 percent of the graduating class from any public or private high school. After a few years of hard work, diversity was restored and other states, including California and Florida, adopted similar approaches. The law looked like a success.But the 10 percent rule, which seemed to...

Recently, I wrote an article called “Summer Reading,” which was intended to motivate my readers to take some time to read classic literature over the summer. While mostly apolitical, it did close with the following line, which was deemed offensive by one of my readers:  “(Go out and) pick up a great work of classic literature and enjoy the reading. You know, like the kind they used to assign in college when English professors taught English instead of homosexuality and feminism.”The offended reader, from Ithaca, New York, called my above assertion “sexist, heterosexist, and gratuitous.” So, naturally, I apologized. No,...

<p>For 15 years, Patrick Washburn has displayed a Reconstruction-era rifle on the wall of his office at Ohio University (OU). The firearm, a family heirloom passed down from his great-grandfather, seemed to be an appropriate antique for Mr. Washburn to hang there: Mr. Washburn is a journalism professor specializing in the history of wartime press.</p>

Campus culture wars A handful of Christians on UNC college campuses are winning the culture war in increments; but some aren’t fighting it at all By Jamie Dean The Charlotte World Wilmington--Dr. Mike Adams says it’s “horrible.” He says it’s “appalling.” He says it’s “worse than it’s ever been.” That’s how the conservative UNC-Wilmington professor, and national columnist, describes the climate for Christians on public university campuses – particularly North Carolina public universities. Adams has made it his business to expose the liberal, anti-Christian bias that he says is prevalent on his own campus and many others. He teaches criminology...

AUSTIN, TEXAS — The University of Texas is considering requiring students to study another culture, and some students are upset. "It absolutely is political correctness gone amok," said Mark Tait, director of internal affairs for  the Young Conservatives of Texas. Arguing that the University of Texas is already culturally inclusive, Tait said, "Students don't need bureaucracy to tell them to increase and broaden their cultural perspective."

Letter From A College Student By Aindriu Colgan FrontPageMagazine.com | May 26, 2004 As graduation and the freedom of college advance rapidly, I have an additional accomplishment, in which to rejoice: I have successfully resisted the agenda of the liberal left. It is no coincidence that the overwhelming majority of educators are Democrats; Democrats so far to the left of left that it is difficult to determine their exact planet of origin. The academic elite is overtly attempting to subvert American democracy by brainwashing students and academic hopefuls alike. Except for the salvation of the occasional Milton Friedman, educators drown...