Free Republic

University of Chicago English Department graduate programs will only be open to applicants who plan to study “Black Studies” this year. According to its admissions information webpage, the department is only accepting graduate applications from those who are “interested in working in and with Black Studies" for this academic year. "For the 2020-2021 graduate admissions cycle, the University of Chicago English Department is accepting only applicants interested in working in and with Black Studies. We understand Black Studies to be a capacious intellectual project that spans a variety of methodological approaches, fields, geographical areas, languages, and time periods," the university's...

The president of Evergreen State College is slamming the University of Chicago’s fight against political correctness, arguing that trigger warnings and safe spaces on campus are “critical” to students’ academic and personal success. George S. Bridges, who has led the Olympia, Washington, college since October of last year, wrote in an op-ed for The Seattle Times that the University of Chicago’s recent letter to incoming freshmen blasting safe spaces and trigger warnings revealed “a profound indifference to concerns that many students now bring to colleges and universities.” “Either the university is completely tone deaf to the academic and developmental needs...

We have gotten so used to seeing college presidents and other academic "leaders" caving in to so many outrageous demands from little gangs of bullying students that it is a long overdue surprise to see a sign that at least one major university has shown some backbone. Dr. Robert J. Zimmer, president of the University of Chicago, has spoken out in the plainest language against the stifling of opinions that differ from political correctness, on campuses across the country. "Free speech is at risk at the very institution where it should be assured: the university," Dr. Zimmer said. "Invited speakers...

White House aide Susan Sher earned more than half a million dollars from the University of Chicago Medical Center in 2009, when she left to join the Obama administration only a few weeks into the year, according to a newly released financial disclosure. Sher was general counsel and vice president for community and external affairs at the medical center before taking a job as Michelle Obama's chief of staff on Jan. 19, 2009. In that calendar year, the medical center gave Sher $511,000 — $49,000 in unused holiday and vacation pay, $149,000 in salary and bonus pay and $313,000 in...

The nation's largest group of emergency doctors this afternoon is condemning a University of Chicago Medical Center initiative to divert patients from its emergency room saying it was "dangerously close" to violating federal laws. The American College of Emergency Physicians said the University of Chicago Medical Center is "failing in its obligation to treat emergency patients, citing drastic reductions in inpatient beds for emergency patients." The Washington-based organization cited Tribune coverage last week that included a story about a 12-year-old boy attacked by a "pit bull who was sent to another hospital for surgery." The emergency room doctors expressed "grave"...

The University of Chicago Medical Center will cut costs by $100 million, or almost 7 percent of its budget by 2010, and may reduce its staff significantly, the Center announced last week. It attributes the restructuring to falling investment and endowment values. It also reaffirmed its commitment to the $700-million hospital pavilion planned for 2012. Under the plan, which took effect last Monday, the Medical Center will enact several cost-saving measures in an effort to bring down its budget, including the elimination of four vice presidents and 11 other senior executive positions. Though they could not disclose the specific positions,...

Over 3,000 educators nationwide, including six Brown professors, have signed a statement supporting the man Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain called a "washed-up terrorist" at the third presidential debate last Wednesday. In recent months, the McCain campaign has criticized Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama for his connection to William Ayers. McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, have accused Obama of being "friends" with Ayers and claimed Obama has hidden the extent of their relationship. Both residents of the Chicago area, Ayers and Obama first met in 1995 when they served on the board of the Chicago...

Sen. Barack Obama's wife and three close advisers have been involved with a program at the University of Chicago Medical Center that steers patients who don't have private insurance -- primarily poor, black people -- to other health care facilities. Michelle Obama -- currently on unpaid leave from her $317,000-a-year job as a vice president of the prestigious hospital -- helped create the program, which aims to find neighborhood doctors for low-income people who were flooding the emergency room for basic treatment. Hospital officials say such patients hinder their ability to focus on more critically ill patients in need of...