Watchdogs Sue U.S. Government over Qatar’s Billions in University Funding

“Qatar is a human rights abusing regime. They enslave migrant workers…caused thousands of them to die. They support the Taliban. They support Hamas. They support terrorism. They have an egregious human rights record.”
Qatar must be stopped. In addition to being a key supporter for Hamas, Qatar is funding the horrific anti-Israel propaganda and protests on university campuses across the United States. The shameful Biden Administration designated Qatar as a major non-NATO ally, without demanding that it stop supporting Hamas and other pro-jihadist groups. President Trump must revoke this designation ASAP.

Watch Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs, Amichai Chikli discuss Qatar’s anti-Semitic propaganda campaign.

Watchdogs sue US government over Qatar’s billions in university funding

Watchdog groups are suing the US government to uncover Qatar’s multibillion-dollar funding of top universities, raising concerns over foreign influence in academia.

By Jerusalem Post, Feb 2nd, 2025

A new legal battle is unfolding over Qatar’s financial influence on prominent American universities, as watchdog organizations seek transparency about billions in foreign funding flowing into US higher education institutions.

The Zachor Legal Institute, in conjunction with Judicial Watch, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the US Department of Education a couple of weeks ago, seeking records related to Doha’s funding and operations at five prestigious American universities: Georgetown, Northwestern, Cornell, Harvard, and the University of Michigan.

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Democrats Voted NOT to Inform Parents if a Child is Sexually Abused by School Employee

Washington State Democrats voted not to inform parents if a child is sexually abused by a school employee.

You don’t hate them enough.

WA Democrats pulled a fast one on voters as they undo parental rights initiative

By: Jason Rants, KKH, Jan 23, 2025:

Washingtonians overwhelmingly supported Initiative 2081, establishing a parental bill of rights. But now it’s being threatened.

The initiative was so popular that the Democrat-controlled legislature passed it outright rather than putting it to a public vote, knowing they’d lose if they did. But it turns out that this was nothing more than a ruse.

Now, Democrats are attempting to dismantle the very heart of the initiative through new legislation, deceptively framing it as a simple “clean-up” bill. It’s nothing of the sort.

More from Jason Rantz: Teachers end suspensions, boot police, but now complain about school safety

What did the parental rights initiative establish in Washington?

I-2081 provided parents with a new series of rights while codifying and clarifying existing ones. At its core, the initiative was twofold.

First, it grants parents the explicit right to know about any medical care a school or district is offering to — or arranging for — their minor child. This provision was prompted by reports of left-wing educators having private conversations with students they identify as transgender and providing recommendations or resources without informing parents.

Second, it requires schools to immediately inform parents if their child is the victim of a crime or is questioned by police on school grounds. This measure was driven by concerns over disciplinary reforms that allowed problematic students to remain in schools. Parents want to be notified if their child is victimized by someone who should not have been on campus due to these politically motivated reforms. They fear such incidents could be downplayed or covered up to protect the reputation of these controversial policies.

State Senator Claire Wilson (D-Federal Way) did not support I-2081. It’s precisely why she’s trying to gut it, reversing hard-fought battles to keep parents abreast of what schools are doing to their kids.

Sen. Claire Wilson tries to undo the parental rights initiative

In response to the initiative, Sen. Claire Wilson introduced Senate Bill 5181. She framed the legislation as merely a “clean-up bill” to make sure the changes from I-2081 are consistent across other state laws.

“This is not an overhaul,” Wilson emphatically declared during a committee hearing.

Wilson is not being honest. SB 5181 fundamentally guts the purpose of the initiative by removing key priorities for parents and supporters.

The legislation removes rights around access to medical records and gives schools the right to withhold from parents knowledge of a crime against their child for up to 72 hours. How is this not an overhaul?

Democrats threaten the entire initiative process

Sen. Claire Wilson and her Democratic colleagues behind SB 5181 have pulled a fast one on voters, threatening the integrity of the voter-approved initiative process. Democrats have long complained about initiatives that challenge their political agenda, whether by passing new measures or repealing their legislation.

The intent of the parental rights initiative is crystal clear: to give parents access to vital medical information about their children and ensure transparency around crimes committed against them. Yet, when Wilson claims her bill is a mere “clean-up” to resolve conflicts, it’s hard not to be tricked into thinking she’s aligning other laws to reflect the voters’ will. In reality, she’s doing the opposite, undermining the very essence of the initiative.

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President Trump Ends Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schools

Saving the children. A revolution of common sense.

Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling

EXECUTIVE ORDER

January 29, 2025

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:

Section 1. Purpose and Policy. Parents trust America’s schools to provide their children with a rigorous education and to instill a patriotic admiration for our incredible Nation and the values for which we stand.

In recent years, however, parents have witnessed schools indoctrinate their children in radical, anti-American ideologies while deliberately blocking parental oversight. Such an environment operates as an echo chamber, in which students are forced to accept these ideologies without question or critical examination. In many cases, innocent children are compelled to adopt identities as either victims or oppressors solely based on their skin color and other immutable characteristics. In other instances, young men and women are made to question whether they were born in the wrong body and whether to view their parents and their reality as enemies to be blamed. These practices not only erode critical thinking but also sow division, confusion, and distrust, which undermine the very foundations of personal identity and family unity.

Imprinting anti-American, subversive, harmful, and false ideologies on our Nation’s children not only violates longstanding anti-discrimination civil rights law in many cases, but usurps basic parental authority. For example, steering students toward surgical and chemical mutilation without parental consent or involvement or allowing males access to private spaces designated for females may contravene Federal laws that protect parental rights, including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA), and sex-based equality and opportunity, including Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX). Similarly, demanding acquiescence to “White Privilege” or “unconscious bias,” actually promotes racial discrimination and undermines national unity.

My Administration will enforce the law to ensure that recipients of Federal funds providing K-12 education comply with all applicable laws prohibiting discrimination in various contexts and protecting parental rights, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI), 42 U.S.C. 2000d et seq.; Title IX, 20 U.S.C. 1681 et seq.; FERPA, 20 U.S.C. 1232g; and the PPRA, 20 U.S.C. 1232h.

Sec. 2. Definitions. As used herein:

(a) The definitions in the Executive Order “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” (January 20, 2025) shall apply to this order.
(b) “Discriminatory equity ideology” means an ideology that treats individuals as members of preferred or disfavored groups, rather than as individuals, and minimizes agency, merit, and capability in favor of immoral generalizations, including that:
(i) Members of one race, color, sex, or national origin are morally or inherently superior to members of another race, color, sex, or national origin;
(ii) An individual, by virtue of the individual’s race, color, sex, or national origin, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously;
(iii) An individual’s moral character or status as privileged, oppressing, or oppressed is primarily determined by the individual’s race, color, sex, or national origin;
(iv) Members of one race, color, sex, or national origin cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to their race, color, sex, or national origin;
(v) An individual, by virtue of the individual’s race, color, sex, or national origin, bears responsibility for, should feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress because of, should be discriminated against, blamed, or stereotyped for, or should receive adverse treatment because of actions committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, sex, or national origin, in which the individual played no part;
(vi) An individual, by virtue of the individual’s race, color, sex, or national origin, should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment to achieve diversity, equity, or inclusion;
(vii) Virtues such as merit, excellence, hard work, fairness, neutrality, objectivity, and racial colorblindness are racist or sexist or were created by members of a particular race, color, sex, or national origin to oppress members of another race, color, sex, or national origin; or
(viii) the United States is fundamentally racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory.
(c) “Educational service agency” (ESA) has the meaning given in 20 U.S.C. 1401(5), and the terms “elementary school,” “local educational agency” (LEA), “secondary school,” and “state educational agency” (SEA) have the meanings given in 34 C.F.R. 77.1(c).
(d) “Patriotic education” means a presentation of the history of America grounded in:
(i) an accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling characterization of America’s founding and foundational principles;
(ii) a clear examination of how the United States has admirably grown closer to its noble principles throughout its history;
(iii) the concept that commitment to America’s aspirations is beneficial and justified; and
(iv) the concept that celebration of America’s greatness and history is proper.
(e) “Social transition” means the process of adopting a “gender identity” or “gender marker” that differs from a person’s sex. This process can include psychological or psychiatric counseling or treatment by a school counselor or other provider; modifying a person’s name (e.g., “Jane” to “James”) or pronouns (e.g., “him” to “her”); calling a child “nonbinary”; use of intimate facilities and accommodations such as bathrooms or locker rooms specifically designated for persons of the opposite sex; and participating in school athletic competitions or other extracurricular activities specifically designated for persons of the opposite sex. “Social transition” does not include chemical or surgical mutilation.

Sec. 3. Ending Indoctrination Strategy. (a) Within 90 days of the date of this order, to advise the President in formulating future policy, the Secretary of Education, the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, in consultation with the Attorney General, shall provide an Ending Indoctrination Strategy to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, containing recommendations and a plan for:
(i) eliminating Federal funding or support for illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology; and
(ii) protecting parental rights, pursuant to FERPA, 20 U.S.C. 1232g, and the PPRA, 20 U.S.C. 1232h, with respect to any K-12 policies or conduct implicated by the purpose and policy of this order.
(b) The Ending Indoctrination Strategy submitted under subsection (a) of this section shall contain a summary and analysis of the following:
(i) All Federal funding sources and streams, including grants or contracts, that directly or indirectly support or subsidize the instruction, advancement, or promotion of gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology:
(A) in K-12 curriculum, instruction, programs, or activities; or
(B) in K-12 teacher education, certification, licensing, employment, or training;
(ii) Each agency’s process to prevent or rescind Federal funds, to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, from being used by an ESA, SEA, LEA, elementary school, or secondary school to directly or indirectly support or subsidize the instruction, advancement, or promotion of gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology in:
(A) K-12 curriculum, instruction, programs, or activities; or
(B) K-12 teacher certification, licensing, employment, or training;
(iii) Each agency’s process to prevent or rescind Federal funds, to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, from being used by an ESA, SEA, LEA, elementary school, or secondary school to directly or indirectly support or subsidize the social transition of a minor student, including through school staff or teachers or through deliberately concealing the minor’s social transition from the minor’s parents.
(iv) Each agency’s process to prevent or rescind Federal funds, to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, from being used by an ESA, SEA, LEA, elementary school, or secondary school to directly or indirectly support or subsidize:
(A) interference with a parent’s Federal statutory right to information regarding school curriculum, records, physical examinations, surveys, and other matters under the PPRA or FERPA; or
(B) a violation of Title VI or Title IX; and
(v) A summary and analysis of all relevant agency enforcement tools to advance the policies of this order.
(c) The Attorney General shall coordinate with State attorneys general and local district attorneys in their efforts to enforce the law and file appropriate actions against K-12 teachers and school officials who violate the law by:
(i) sexually exploiting minors;
(ii) unlawfully practicing medicine by offering diagnoses and treatment without the requisite license; or
(iii) otherwise unlawfully facilitating the social transition of a minor student.
(d) The Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy shall regularly convene the heads of the agencies tasked with submitting the Ending Indoctrination Strategy under subsection (a) of this section to confer regarding their findings, areas for additional investigation, the modification or implementation of their respective recommendations, and such other policy initiatives or matters as the President may direct.

Sec. 4. Reestablishing the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission and Promoting Patriotic Education. (a) The President’s Advisory 1776 Commission (“1776 Commission”), which was created by Executive Order 13958 of November 2, 2020, to promote patriotic education, but was terminated by President Biden in Executive Order 13985 of January 20, 2021, is hereby reestablished. The purpose of the 1776 Commission is to promote patriotic education and advance the purposes stated in section 1 of Executive Order 13958, as well as to advise and promote the work of the White House Task Force on Celebrating America’s 250th Birthday (“Task Force 250”) and the United States Semiquincentennial Commission in their efforts to provide a grand celebration worthy of the momentous occasion of the 250th anniversary of American Independence on July 4, 2026.
(b) Within 120 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Education shall establish the 1776 Commission in the Department of Education.
(c) The 1776 Commission shall be composed of not more than 20 members, who shall be appointed by the President for a term of 2 years. The 1776 Commission shall be made up of individuals from outside the Federal Government with relevant experience or subject-matter expertise.
(d) The 1776 Commission shall have a Chair or Co-Chairs, at the President’s discretion, and a Vice Chair, who shall be designated by the President from among the Commission’s members. An Executive Director, designated by the Secretary of Education in consultation with the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, shall coordinate the work of the 1776 Commission. The Chair (or Co-Chairs) and Vice Chair shall work with the Executive Director to convene regular meetings of the 1776 Commission, determine its agenda, and direct its work, consistent with this order.
(e) The 1776 Commission shall:

(i) facilitate the development and implementation of a “Presidential 1776 Award” to recognize student knowledge of the American founding, including knowledge about the Founders, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitutional Convention, and the great soldiers and battles of the American Revolutionary War;
(ii) in coordination with the White House Office of Public Liaison, coordinate bi-weekly lectures regarding the 250th anniversary of American Independence that are grounded in patriotic education principles, which shall be broadcast to the Nation throughout calendar year 2026;
(iii) upon request, advise executive departments and agencies regarding their efforts to ensure patriotic education is appropriately provided to the public at national parks, battlefields, monuments, museums, installations, landmarks, cemeteries, and other places important to the American founding and American history, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law;
(iv) upon request, offer advice and recommendations to, and support the work of Task Force 250 and the United States Semiquincentennial Commission regarding their plans to celebrate the 250th anniversary of American Independence; and
(v) facilitate, advise upon, and promote private and civic activities nationwide to increase public knowledge of and support patriotic education surrounding the 250th anniversary of American Independence, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law.
(f) The Department of Education shall provide funding and administrative support for the 1776 Commission, to the extent permitted by law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(g) Members of the 1776 Commission shall serve without compensation but, as approved by the Department of Education, shall be reimbursed for travel expenses, including per diem in lieu of subsistence, as authorized by law for persons serving intermittently in the Government service (5 U.S.C. 5701-5707).
(h) Insofar as chapter 10 of title 5, United States Code (commonly known as the Federal Advisory Committee Act), may apply to the 1776 Commission, any functions of the President under that Act, except that of reporting to the Congress, shall be performed by the Secretary of Education, in accordance with the guidelines issued by the Administrator of General Services.
(i) The 1776 Commission shall terminate 2 years from the date of this order, unless extended by the President.

Sec. 5. Additional Patriotic Education Measures. (a) All relevant agencies shall monitor compliance with section 111(b) of title I of Division J of Public Law 108-447, which provides that “[e]ach educational institution that receives Federal funds for a fiscal year shall hold an educational program on the United States Constitution on September 17 of such year for the students served by the educational institution,” including by verifying compliance with each educational institution that receives Federal funds. All relevant agencies shall take action, as appropriate, to enhance compliance with that law.

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RELATED VIDEO: Middle East Expert : Education reform needed in Gaza to stop indoctrination

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From Tehran to Columbia: Inside America’s Student Intifada

Introduction

This report shows how foreign terror organizations – all proxies of Iran – and their American affiliates transformed Columbia University into a gateway hub for Hamas’ activism in the United States.​ It further reveals the complicity of Columbia University’s administration and faculty in this endeavor.

The report also exposes the key players at Columbia promoting foreign terror and the massacre of Jews, from faculty to students as well as the outside agitators to whom Columbia opened its gates.


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Executive Summary

While the world was reeling in shock at the brutality of Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023, Columbia’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) saw an unprecedented opportunity to carry out the wishes of its ideological mentors, Iran and its proxy, Hamas.

On October 5, just two days before the massacre and after months of inactivity, Columbia SJP began posting on its social media pages again. By October 7, it was primed and ready to go, with National SJP (NSJP) choosing Columbia as the ideal place to launch its nationwide strategy in support of Hamas’ terror campaign.

National SJP

Since its inception in 2010, NSJP has unfalteringly echoed the goals of Hamas’ founding charter, which calls on its supporters to take all of “Palestine” from the Jews and destroy the State of Israel.

It is not surprising that the organization that founded National SJP, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), is comprised of former members and supporters of Hamas.

In 2011, Columbia University hosted the first NSJP conference.

At the conference, SJP adopted “points of unity,” including “ending Israel’s occupation” and calling for the right of return (i.e., the destruction of Israel). Columbia professors participated, with Rashid Khalidi giving the opening remarks and Mahmood Mamdani a keynote address.

Columbia as a National Model

Immediately following the Hamas massacre, NSJP turned to its Columbia chapter to promote its national strategy. That strategy consisted of:

  • Framing the attack as Israel’s fault and terrorism as legitimate “resistance”
  • Contextualizing the attack in the language of revolutionary Marxism and colonial oppression
  • Espousing anti-war rhetoric (this was later abandoned)

Columbia SJP flawlessly executed the strategy, orchestrating campus protests and normalizing Hamas’s antisemitic and violent rhetoric and imagery.

Administration and Staff

There was little or no pushback from Columbia’s administration, which chose to disregard the group’s open support for terror as well as the pleas of Jewish students and faculty who were harassed, threatened and isolated on campus.

In contrast, anti-Israel students were backed by members of the Columbia group Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) as well as the university’s senate, Middle East Institute and Center for Palestine Studies, among numerous other departments.

At one point, pro-Hamas faculty members even served as “security officers,” excluding Jewish students from entering the encampment and protecting protesting students from any consequences from the administration.

Although the administration suspended SJP in November 2023 for an “unauthorized” protest and “threatening rhetoric and intimidation,” it allowed the group to rebrand as Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD).

CUAD proceeded to amp up SJP’s antisemitic rhetoric and violent intimidation tactics to pressure the university to divest from Israel. CUAD was also in full collaboration with other terror-supporting groups, including AMP, NSJP, SamidounWithin Our Lifetime (WOL)Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM)Al-Awda and more, all of which supported SJP’s activities at Columbia.

The Gateway Hub to North America

By April 2024, CUAD launched what would become the template for anti-Israel protests across the country: an encampment on university grounds to establish the “Popular University of Gaza.” Through the encampment, NSJP’s stated plan was to “seize control of our institutions, campus by campus, until Palestine is free.”

The encampment cemented Columbia as the most infamous pro-terror hub, while Columbia activists subsequently helped drive the movement nationwide.

Columbia students marked the one-year anniversary of Oct. 7 by publishing “The New York War Crimes,” in which they declared “Glory to the Martyrs,” and “Revolution Until Victory” and their allegiance to terror orgs.

Key Findings

  • National SJP and SJP’s Alignment with Hamas
  • SJP Chapters as Student Arms of Hamas
  • Alignment with Hamas’ Agenda
  • National SJP’s Activation of Campus Protests Post-October 7
  • Columbia’s SJP Ban as a Public Relations Move
  • Faculty Support for Anti-Israel Activities
  • Facilitation of Unlawful Encampments
  • Columbia’s Role in Launching National SJP’s Strategy

See below for Canary Mission profiles of the key players supporting Hamas

Canary Mission thanks Documenting Jew Hatred on Campus, which helped provide essential data for this report. See more information about Columbia here.

Hamas Forms the Global Youth Network

Hamas, which refers to itself as the “Islamic Resistance Movement,” is a terrorist organization dedicated to destroying Israel and killing Jews.

Hamas was formed as the Gaza branch of the International Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamist group founded in Egypt before World War II.

The Hamas Covenant, released in 1988, calls for global support and facilitation of its terror agenda:

  • “It is necessary that scientists, educators and teachers, information and media people, as well as the educated masses, especially the youth… should take part in the operation of awakening (the masses). It is important that basic changes be made in the school curriculum…” (Article 15)
  • The Arab world as well as intellectuals should work towards rallying support for it [Hamas]” and “supplying it with strategic depth in all human material and informative spheres, in time and in place.” (Article 29)
  • “Jihad is not confined to the carrying of arms and the confrontation of the enemy. The effective word, the good article, the useful book, support and solidarity…all these are elements of the Jihad…” (Article 31)

Hamas revised its charter in 2017. The new charter pinpointed what proved to be a winning strategy for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), one of Hamas’ most prominent and effective propaganda arms in America:

  • Identify Israel as a racist, colonial “Zionist project” [Article 14]
  • Separate Judaism and Jewish identity from Zionism [Article 16]
  • Frame the “liberation of Palestine” as a “duty” for Palestinians, Muslims and Arabs and a “humanitarian obligation” for all others [Article 24]
  • Declare violent armed resistance as a “legitimate right” that can be accomplished “by any means necessary” [Article 25]

By April 2024, Hamas was explicitly expressing solidarity with anti-Israel protesters at Columbia and on college campuses across America who were advancing the group’s terror agenda on U.S. soil.

The Hamas-Iran Alliance

In October 2024, the George Washington University (GWU) Program on Extremism published a report titled “How Hamas’ Early Ties with Iran Were Brokered from the US.”

The report cited a document introduced in the 2008 federal case against the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), an organization that was found guilty of funneling money to Hamas in the largest terror funding trial in American history.

The document revealed that the very first meetings of Hamas and the Iranian regime took place in September 1990 in the United Arab Emirates and were led by Mousa Abu Marzook, the current deputy chief of the Hamas Political Bureau. At the time, Marzook was a student at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, Louisiana.

The report described that while Marzook worked to gain Iran’s commitment to financially support Hamas, he was “busy establishing and overseeing the US-based HAMAS infrastructure which included the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), and the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR).”

“Marzook was a master strategist and understood the need to use his resources in the US, along with allies like Iran, to achieve its goals of annihilating Israel.”

Marzook was the head [p.7] of the U.S. Palestine Committee, which was founded in 1988 as a “subgroup” of the Muslim Brotherhood in America for the purpose of aiding the newly formed Hamas terror organization. Marzook was “instrumental” in the foundation and development of IAP, the precursor [p.15] to American Muslims for Palestine (AMP – see below).

In October 2024, the New York Post reported that Marzook was designated as a Specially Designated Terrorist (SDT) in 1995. He was deported from America in 1997 and currently lives in Qatar.

Iran’s Agenda

Iran’s agenda can be summarized in a speech by Masoud Aali, an Iranian religious scholar, which aired on IRINN (the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network), a regime channel, on October 24, 2024.

Speaking about Iran’s ultimate goal, Aali declared, “If you manage to conquer [Israel], you can conquer the West. Israel is the executive arm of Western hegemony. If you cut off this arm, Western hegemony will collapse.”

Iran fundamentally views Israel as the impediment to their goal of world domination as per their End Times theology. This theology states that the “12th Imam” (also known as the Final or Hidden Imam) will arrive to herald this era.

As Aali explained: “From the beginning of the Revolution, our Imam [Khomeini] presented the destruction of Israel as a religious idea and strategy, and not as a political idea … He knew that Israel has to be annihilated for [the Hidden Imam] to appear. He knew that the Western hegemony was meant to collapse. He knew that the West is the backbone of Israel. If this arm [Israel] is cut off, the West will be shaken.”

To this end, Iran funds terror groups – most prominently Hamas and Hezbollah – as their proxies to destroy Israel and thus, ultimately, the West.

Hamas Organizes in America

In 1988, the year after the formation of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood convened the “Palestine Committee” with the goal of “increasing the financial and the moral support for Hamas” in America.

In 1993, the FBI wiretapped a meeting in Philadelphia of top Hamas activists in the United States where discussions were held on how to improve activities in support of Hamas within America and shield Hamas from being designated a terrorist organization.

By 1997, the United States had all the information it needed and designated Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization.

American Muslims for Palestine

American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) founded NSJP in 2010. AMP continues to manage and control NSJP’s organizational structure, which in turn directs the messaging, financing and management of SJP chapters on college campuses across America.

AMP was founded in 2005 by Hatem Bazian. The group spawned from the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), which was founded in 1981 by Khaled Mashal, one of the current Hamas leaders.

IAP, whose representatives attended the wiretapped Philadelphia meeting, served as the main propaganda arm for Hamas in the United States and raised money and provided material support for Hamas in America until the group was found civilly liable in a federal district court for supporting Hamas and disbanded.

There is “significant overlap between AMP and people who worked for or on behalf of organizations that were designated, dissolved, or held civilly liable by federal authorities for supporting Hamas,” according to the congressional testimony of Jonathan Shanzer, senior vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

While many of those people were jailed, deported or otherwise brought to justice, Shanzer noted that “many high-level and mid-level figures…remained in the United States” and “gravitated” to AMP.

The AMP board includes Salah Sarsour who was listed in a 2001 FBI memo as an American fundraiser for Hamas through the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) charity. HLF and its leaders were convicted in 2008 of providing funds to Hamas in the largest terror funding case in America. Sarsour also served eight months in an Israeli prison in 1995 for his connection to Hamas.

Shanzer characterized AMP as “a leading driver of the BDS campaign” in America, providing “speakers, training, printed materials, a so-called ‘Apartheid Wall,’ and grants to SJP activists.”

Osama Abuirshaid, AMP’s executive director, participated [slide 10] in Columbia’s encampment and was seen at other encampments “literally driving the protests and the chants.”

Taher Herzallah, the associate director of outreach and community organizing for AMP, serves as AMP’s liaison to SJP and as a liaison between SJP chapters across the country.

Students for Justice in Palestine Launches

In 1993, Hatem Bazian, then a graduate student at the University of California Berkeley, co-founded the first chapter of SJP. The group floundered in its first few years but was reactivated in 2000 during the Second Intifada.

Ten years later, in 2010, Bazian’s organization AMP launched the National Students for Justice in Palestine organization (NSJP).

In 2011, Bazian predicted at an AMP conference, “The universities – it’s gonna be the front line moving forward, the front line. Why? Because this is the next generation.”

The next year at an NSJP conference, Bazian called SJP “the story of Palestine activism on U.S. college campuses.”

Two months after the October 7, 2023 attacks, even NSJP co-founder, Osama Qasem, admitted, “he has watched with apprehension as SJP flirts with support for Hamas.”

“There is resistance right now and we want to support that resistance,” he said, “[But,] if you’re going to be an advocate for justice, you have to take a very moral position.”

One year later, it is clear that this “flirtation” has become a reality.

NSJP Readies for October 7

Hama’s Network in America

The Spring 2024 issue of Hammer & Hope, a quarterly online magazine of “Black politics and culture,” featured an interview with representatives of five campus “Palestinian solidarity groups.”

The representative of SJP at GWU disclosed, “This is not widely known, but in the spring of 2023, National SJP voted to create a centralized structure, which has allowed us to begin coordinating more not only across campus and our regional context but all over the country. That has allowed us to maintain a unified strategy, as opposed to disjointed actions.”

This centralization has played a crucial role in NSJP’s control of the narrative, from printing toolkits post-October 7 for chapters to coordinate campus strategy based on communications from Hamas.

NSJP was founded at the 2010 U.S. Social Forum, an ongoing gathering of social justice activists across the U.S. The conference was co-sponsored by the Boycott Divestment Sanction Movement’s National Committee (BNC), the Palestinian coordinating body for the worldwide BDS campaign.

The BNC’s primary member organization is the Palestinian National and Islamic Forces (PNIF), a group founded in 2000 by arch-terrorists Yasser Arafat and Marwan Barghouti.

PNIF is composed of five US-designated terrorist organizations: Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Front – General Command, the Palestine Liberation Front and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

NSJP’s founding at the US Social Forum formalized the goal of pro-terror Palestinian organizations in America to curry favor among Far Left groups under the banner of “social justice.”

Conference organizers expressed an intent to encourage “the US-based Left movement to integrate [into] the Palestinian struggle” to build a “united front” against Israel and the West.

“Students mostly get involved in S.J.P. in one of two ways…they feel connected to the cause because of their identity, or they’re looking for a leftist organizing space,” said Carrie Zaremba, a member of NSJP’s national steering committee in a December 15, 2023 article in The New Yorker titled, “How a Student Group is Politicizing A Generation on Palestine.”

In the same article, Sean Eren, another NSJP steering committee member, said that SJP educates its members “from apartheid to…settler colonialism…And then…we move to imperialism. And then, for example, what does Marxism have to do with Palestine?”

Eren explained, SJP “is oriented in a special way. The idea is to appeal to people who know nothing.”

On December 7, 2023, NSJP held an event titled, “Want to Build A Coalition” during which Columbia SJP organizer Maryam Iqbal shared the tactics used to form the CUAD coalition after SJP was suspended.

“At Columbia…the orgs that unconditionally supported us openly…were the leftist or socialist collectives on campus…it’s good to reach out to them first…,” Iqbal said.

Echoing Hamas’ revised covenant, a June 2024 National Post article about SJP aptly observed that the group’s founder, Hatem Bazian, “skirted such overt displays of antisemitism and injected an air of intellectualism and polish, embracing an academic vocabulary that made SJP sound like a disgruntled socialist student group fighting the tired enemies of colonialism, imperialism and capitalism.”

The National Post correctly noted, “The linguistic overhaul became Bazian’s greatest accomplishment…”

Mass Mobilization and Coalition Building

In a May 6, 2024, article in The Nation, anti-Israel activist Dylan Saba recalled how his SJP chapter at Tufts shifted its strategy from “issue-based public education to political organizing.” This redirection led the group to build connections with “social justice” groups as a way to engage and mobilize a larger audience for their anti-Israel objectives.

Saba wrote, following the October 7 Hamas attack, “After cutting their teeth on the 2020 George Floyd uprisings, they [SJP] are now prepared to organize for Palestine with political and tactical sophistication.”

As part of this tactical shift, SJP groups joined in the actions of activist groups with a common “struggle for justice,” linking anti-Israel activism to racial social justice activism, climate justice, gender equality and the like. SJP amplified the messages of these allied organizations across social media and on campus.

By rallying its cause under the “anti-racism” and “anti-war” banner, SJP built alliances and allegiances for its anti-Israel agenda. This was especially true during the 2020 George Floyd riots and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests that followed.

SJP chapters across America promoted and joined the fight against the “police state” as an expression of black-Palestinian solidarity in the streets, on college campuses and across social media networks. The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) issued an official solidarity statement in support of BLM.

In 2021, SJP and other anti-Israel organizations called in their cards with their allied organizations during Israel’s “Operation Guardian of the Walls,” which served as a flashpoint for protests on college campuses and in streets across the country.

Building With Allied Anti-Israel Groups

Other groups, such as Within Our Lifetime (WOL), the primary driver of the anti-Israel protests in New York City, have also recognized the importance of collaboration with allied groups. WOL played a major role in driving Hamas’ agenda both inside and outside Columbia’s gates.

Under the leadership of WOL founder Nerdeen Kiswani, WOL enacted a strategy of mobilizing its intersectional allies against “Zionists” in an effort to paralyze NYC by positioning the Palestinian cause as the key to the liberation of other indigenous and intersectional “struggles.”

Grooming Columbia

Columbia’s institutional anti-Israel ideology made it the optimal university campus from which to launch the pro-terror encampments.

For decades before October 7, radical anti-Israel faculty readied the campus for the explosion of antisemitic activity following Hamas’ attack and served as role models and mentors for pro-terror student activism.

Most notable were members of Columbia’s Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP), who glorified terrorism, celebrated the Hamas massacre, facilitated the unlawful encampments and protected students from disciplinary action.

The Columbia administration is equally to blame and utterly failed its duty to protect Jewish students by:

  • Hiring and promoting faculty who radicalize and indoctrinate students with hatred of Israel and who defend the antisemitism in their classrooms under the guise of academic freedom and free speech
  • Issuing weak and ineffective disciplinary measures against pro-terror students
  • Capitulating to faculty who obstructed the identification and discipline of students who violated university policies
  • Opening campus gates to pro-terror organizations and radical activists who normalized support for terror groups and called for violence against Jews and Israelis

Further, Columbia’s stance was intentional and pervasive and continues until the present. This is evidenced by:

  • Double standards applied to its Jewish and Israeli students
  • Apologetics and accommodations offered to pro-terror students
  • Continual refusal to outrightly condemn Hamas, the murder of Jews on October 7 and the students who are promoting Hamas’ agenda on campus
  • Antagonism and negligence in the university’s response to campus antisemitism and material support for terrorism
  • Failure to comply with document production requests in congressional investigations on antisemitism

Columbia’s Legacy of Student Activism

Columbia’s legacy of radical protest is widely identified with the 1968 anti-Vietnam student protests, during which more than 700 students took over five campus buildings, including Low Library and Hamilton Hall, and held the acting dean of Columbia College hostage for over 24 hours.

Takeover of Campus Buildings 1968
Blockade of Hamilton Hall 1985
Hunger Strike 1990s
Divestment Protests, Occupation of President’s Office 2015-19
Supportive Faculty and Programs

In May 2024, journalist Chris Rufo wrote an article in the New York Post titled, “Ideological growth of a poison Ivy: Columbia’s journey from scholarship to activism” addressing “the roots of Columbia’s intifada.”

“Columbia for decades has cultivated the precise conditions that allowed the pro-Hamas protests to flourish. The university built massive departments to advance ‘postcolonialism,’ spent hundreds of millions of dollars on ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion,’ and glorified New Left–style student activism as the telos of university life,” Rufo wrote.

“Terms like these might sound benign as euphemisms, but the reality is sinister. As the protests revealed, postcolonial theory is often an academic cover for anti-Semitism, DEI is frequently a method for enflaming racial grievances, and student activism can become a rationalization for violence and destruction,” he continued.

“For many Columbia students, it is enough that some Israelis look white to condemn them as colonial ‘oppressors’ and to call for the destruction of the Jewish state,” he wrote.

Rufo also noted that Middle Eastern regimes sponsored Columbia’s expanding postcolonial programs, “a fact that Columbia sometimes tries to hide.”

Postcolonial Studies

The Impact of Postcolonial Studies at Columbia

Center for Palestine Studies

Middle East Program

Faculty Teach Students to Support Hamas

On October 9, 2023, two days after the Hamas terror attack, Columbia SJP wrote an open letter supporting the massacre, rape and kidnapping of Jews and Israelis. They attributed their stance to the education they received at Columbia:

“As Columbia students, our classes regularly discuss the inevitability of resistance as part of the struggle for decolonization. We study under renowned scholars who denounce the fact that the media requires oppressed peoples to be ‘perfect victims’ in order to deserve sympathy.”

Thus, the students openly stated that it was due to their classroom experiences at Columbia that they were able to declare post-October 7 that “Resistance is Not Terrorism” and label the Hamas terrorists as “liberation forces.”

Faculty: From 1968 to Support for Hamas

Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine

Columbia’s Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) declared as its goal “achieving the end of Israeli occupation,” supporting the BDS movement and promoting the right of return, which is understood as the complete destruction of Israel as a Jewish state.

FSJP’s members include multiple Columbia faculty known for supporting and participating in the encampments, inspiring and protecting their student participants and opposing disciplinary action against them.

The group ratified its mission statement on November 20, 2023, just 10 days after Columbia suspended its SJP chapter.

According to Columbia’s Antisemitism Task Force report, “On April 19, 2024, FSJP issued a message calling on all faculty to hold classes, office hours, and meetings on the Columbia lawns, meaning on or near the encampments.

“This amounts to encouraging students to break the University’s rules in the name of ideology; it also discriminates against those who don’t want to enter the encampments because they don’t wish to endorse their political message.

“Students who decline to enter encampments when their professors request it are being forced against their will to make a political statement, that is, to publicly disagree with their professor. They are also being denied access to educational opportunity.”

A September 2024 AMCHA report titled, “Academic Extremism: How a Faculty Network Fuels Campus Unrest & Antisemitic Violence” listed Columbia/Barnard as in the top 10 of most active FJP chapters in America.

The report stated that following October 7, “Schools with FJP chapters…experienced a 7.3-fold increase in the likelihood of physical assaults on Jewish students and were 3.4 times more likely to witness death threats and other violent threats compared to campuses without such chapters.”

The report also noted, “FJP chapters also correlate with the extended duration of protests and encampments, as well as with the passage of BDS resolutions on their campuses.”

The report noted that such demonstrations lasted over four and a half times longer where FJP faculty — who spent 9.5 more days protesting than those at non-FJP schools — were free to influence and provide logistic and material support to students.

FSJP at Columbia, Barnard and Teacher’s College (FSJP-CBT) is a member of Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP), a national organization launched in February 2024 in response to a call from the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) to form groups “on campuses in order to support NSJP, protect local SJP organizers, offer faculty defense, organize teach-ins and other actions, and engage in Palestine solidarity work generally.”

The FJP principles state that FJP works in close collaboration with, and follows the lead, of calls from “our colleagues” in Palestinian universities, including collaborating with Birzeit University in the West Bank where the student council is dominated by Hamas supporters.

On January 22, 2024, FSJP at Columbia published an op-ed in the university’s newspaper promoting academic freedom as a “foundational” idea and “fundamental value” of the university and their intent to “take back our University.”

In the article, FSJP argued that calls for intifada and using phrases such as “from the river to the sea” have “complex histories and meanings” and are protected free speech regardless of the fact that “some Jewish students experience those words as antisemitic.”

On March 8, 2024, the Wall Street Journal reported that Columbia classics professor Joseph Howley, a member of FSJP, was the “spokesperson for academic freedom” and quoted Howley as saying, “Professors must be able to teach their classes from their perspective, informed by their research.”

After Columbia suspended SJP, Howley advocated for the group’s reinstatement and called on the university to apologize to the pro-terror student group.

Howley later denied the existence of antisemitism at Columbia’s pro-Hamas encampment and refused an invitation by Columbia’s Antisemitism Task Force to attend a “listening session” with Jewish students testifying about their treatment on campus.

Howley delivered an open letter written by Columbia faculty that sought to discredit the listening sessions as biased research and decried that there had been “no University effort of the same caliber” for Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian students.

Strategic Location

New York City is one of the most important and visible cities in the world, which amplifies the impact of any large-scale activism. The city is home to a strong and well-functioning anti-Israel network established over many years by such groups as Within Our LifetimeAl-Awda and Samidoun . These groups can fund, coordinate and mobilize their thousands of followers in short periods of time.

In addition, Columbia’s international reputation ensures that the radical events and movements launched from its campus will attract significant media attention.

READ More About Samidoun

Columbia Timeline: October 2023 – April 2024

Columbia’s Encampment Sparks a Nationwide Movement

On April 17, 2024, the same day that then Columbia president Minouche Shafik testified before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce about reports of antisemitism at the university, CUAD established the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on the campus’s main lawn.

The encampment took the protests to the next level: a student intifada.

Columbia’s encampment inspired a wave of at least 140 protest encampments across North American campuses and over 20 globally.

On April 21, 2024, NSJP issued a statement to “our universities” identifying themselves as the “Student Movement for Palestinian Liberation,” declaring their vision of a “Popular University For Gaza…[on] liberated spaces on our campuses.”

The statement said that NSJP had been “empowered” by “the strength of students and SJPs at Columbia…” and vowed to “seize control of our institutions, campus by campus, until Palestine is free.”

Soph Askanase, a Barnard College student who organized and was later arrested at the Columbia encampment, said,

The Columbia encampment lasted from April 17, 2024 until May 5, 2024. On April 18, Shafik ordered the NYPD to clear the encampment, but looked the other way while students rebuilt it the next day. Over the course of the next two and a half weeks, the university issued threats against the new encampment but took no action.

Even when protesters broke into and occupied Hamilton Hall on campus on April 30, 2024, Shafik failed to take action against the encampment for another five days.

A second encampment was established on May 31, 2024, to disrupt alumni weekend at Columbia. It was cleared 48 hours later.

SJP Transforms Into CUAD

On October 11, 2023, the day before the “National Day of Resistance,” NSJP posted “safety” protocols to ready students for violent protests and directives on how to obscure SJP’s connection to the event and its members’ identities. NSJP instructed its members to remove personal names and photos from SJP’s social media; to use encrypted platforms like Telegram to co-ordinate actions and promote events; to use aliases and avoid posting event photos “that could get you arrested or doxxed.”

On October 12, 2023, Columbia SJP began the rally on the university’s Butler Lawn before moving to the east side of the campus, where the Kraft Center for Jewish Life is located. During the protest, Jewish students locked themselves inside a building and were advised by security officers to “remain inside” for their own safety.

Less than a month later, on November 9, 2023, the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht, Columbia SJP, along with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), organized an unauthorized event, a walkout they called “Shut it Down.” This unauthorized event, along with the violent and inciteful language used by the groups, prompted Columbia to suspend both student groups.

Less than a week later, on November 15, 2023, Columbia faculty and alumni rallied for their reinstatement. Within Our Lifetime (WOL) joined in, protesting outside the university gates.

At the faculty rally, Premilla Nadasen, a history professor at Barnard College, said, “We are here to tell the students: They can suspend an organization, but they cannot suspend a movement.”

The suspension proved not to be an obstacle for Columbia SJP and JVP, both of which regrouped under the umbrella of CUAD (Columbia University Apartheid Divest), a coalition previously formed with the help of Columbia Professor Muhsin Al-Musawi to push divestment from Israel.

CUAD had been dormant since 2020 when it successfully passed a divestment referendum with the student body (which was later shot down by then-university president Lee Bollinger).

Maryam Iqbal, a Columbia SJP organizer, confirmed that after SJP’s suspension, anti-Israel groups on campus joined them to mobilize as a coalition. SJP successfully framed the conflict as a human rights issue and garnered broad support for the Palestinian cause.

In addition, the affinity groups that rallied with CUAD provided financial and logistical support unavailable to SJP due to its suspension.

On March 11, 2024, Maryam Alwan, a CUAD organizer, affirmed to the Supreme Court of the State of New York that “SJP and JVP are both a part of Columbia University Apartheid Divest…which is a coalition of student organizations that see Palestine as the vanguard for our collective liberation.”

CUAD initially claimed it was “a continuation of the Vietnam anti-war movement” with the ultimate goal of building “an entire world free from colonialism and imperialism.”

The “peace front” was designed to increase CUAD’s legitimacy and avoid alienating potential sympathizers who might take issue with the group’s pro-terror objectives.

Yet, from the reactivation of the organization, CUAD aligned itself with terrorists and pro-terror objectives. The group’s manifesto, which it published in the Columbia Spectator, opened with a quote from PFLP terrorist Ghassan Kanafani and declared CUAD’s belief in the “right of return” (one of many recognized strategies to destroy Israel as a Jewish state).

An article in the Columbia student magazine Sundial noted, “To the average Columbia liberal, this phrasing is otherwise innocuous and the morally correct position to take. But CUAD and Students for Justice in Palestine’s activism make clear that the language of ‘anti-colonialism’ and ‘anti-U.S. imperialism’ within the pro-Palestine movement are strategic fronts for supporting war and violence against America and her allies.”

CUAD consistently demonstrated its support for terror, writing on November 7, 2024, that they were seeking to “win divestment…thereby strengthening the resistance movements on the ground in their fight for a free Palestine within our lifetimes.”

The group also wrote that the “Great March of Return” was an “instructional display of mass action and protest that we continue to make use of here in the imperial core… The Palestinian people and their steadfast resistance remain our compass, and we continue to work towards our goals here at Columbia.”

The March of Return was an operation instigated by Hamas beginning in May 2018, where thousands of violent rioters attempted to breach Israel’s fence with Gaza. Some analysts contend it was a dry run for the October 7 attack.

Columbia Allows SJP, Terror Proxies to Operate on Campus

On December 18, 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives Antisemitism Staff Report (House Report) released its findings from a multi-faceted investigation into antisemitism on college campuses and in government following the April 2024 encampments.

The report noted [p.6]: “Columbia stands out for its egregious failure to combat antisemitism on its campus despite its president acknowledging that the University was in violation of its Title VI obligations.”

“These were not isolated incidents. Rather, they were part of an extensive pattern of Columbia’s failures to enforce University rules to address antisemitic conduct.”

In addition, Columbia allowed outside organizations, as well as the banned SJP, to infiltrate the campus and establish the encampments. The House report also established [p.40] that “AMP and SJP provided tangible support, including flyers, talking points, pamphlets, and other materials, to help support unauthorized and illegal encampments on college campuses across the country.”

The report continued, “AMP and AJP [Americans for Justice in Palestine, the fiscal sponsor of AMP] also financially sponsored SJP, helping to provide the funding necessary to organize illegal encampments and other events that have often resulted in violence and arrests.”

CUAD Trains with Pro-Terror Activists

In March 2024, CUAD co-organized an event titled “Palestinian Resistance 101,” where various pro-terror, anti-Israel activists were invited to deliver lectures on “the fight for liberation.”

The event was co-organized with Within Our Lifetime (WOL) and the PFLP-linked Samidoun Palestinian Prisoners Network (Samidoun), who proved to be allies and force multipliers for the encampment protests at Columbia that soon followed.

Despite the university banning the event, it took place on campus at the Q House, “the LGBTQ+ special interest community at Columbia University.”

Columbia student Catherine Curran-Groome (who also goes by Catherine Elias) was named as one of the “key organizers” of the event.

Aidan Parisi, an SJP activist and Columbia graduate student, was suspended by Columbia after participating in the event but refused to leave the campus and his university housing. As of December 2024, Parisi was still listed in the Columbia online directory as a student in the School of Social Work.

Catherine Curran-Groome

Student
State: New York
Org: BDS, CUAD, DSA, Samidoun, WOL, PSWG
Catherine Curran-Groome [Catherine Elias] was arrested twice at the pro-Hamas encampment at Columbia in April 2024. Curran-Groome also set up Columbia encampment.
See Profile Aidan Parisi
Student
State: New York
Org: BDS, CUAD, SJP, WOL
University: Columbia
Aidan Parisi expressed support for Hamas terrorism, celebrated intifada and spread hatred of Zionists, Israel and America.
See Profile

Columbia’s Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP-CBT) chapter promoted and supported the event, effectively endorsing the speakers and their pro-terror messaging to students.

Speakers at the event celebrated the October 7 massacre and highlighted the importance of armed resistance, guerrilla tactics and the role of various Palestinian terror organizations like Hamas, the PFLP and Islamic Jihad.

Speakers encouraged the students to continue their support of Hamas, which they characterized as the “democratically elected” government of Gaza “on the front lines defending Palestine and fighting for its liberation.”

Panelists at the event included a veritable “Who’s Who” of the top players linking Hamas and other terror groups to the student movement:

  • Charlotte Kates, the international coordinator of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoners Network
  • Khaled Barakat, Kates’ husband, a leader of the PFLP terror group and Palestinian member of the executive committee of Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement
  • A local organizer with Samidoun Palestinian Prisoners Network NY/NJ, who identified himself only as Michael
  • Nerdeen Kiswani, founder and leader of Within Our Lifetime and co-founder of CUNY4Palestine
  • Sean Eren, a member of the National Students for Justice in Palestine Steering Committee and head editor of “The Written Resistance”

At the event, Barakat told Columbia student activists, “Your work is so important to the resistance in Gaza.”

He continued, “It’s really important to see how the Al-Aqsa Flood operation have liberated the Palestinian inner strength…the new generations that today are getting involved in the struggle, and it’s so visible in the U.S., Canada…and elsewhere, of a new generation that is actually leading our struggle in the diaspora.”

Barakat openly spoke of the interplay between the Gaza terror group and the students, stating, “When I speak to my friends and brothers in Hamas Islamic Jihad, you know, the PFLP in Gaza these days, especially after October 7th … when they see students organizing outside Palestine, they really feel that they are being backed as a resistance and they’re being supported.

Kates told students [01:34:42], “There is nothing wrong with being a member of Hamas, being a leader of Hamas, being a fighter in Hamas.”

Eren outlined the strategy Hamas and NSJP had devised from their charter days: Frame the conflict to appeal to a wide group of left-wing ideologues. “We have Hamas pursuing national liberation in a very peculiar way which is essentially creating…a united front…using kind of a blend of tactics and a blend of ideologies, some people relate to Maoism, some people relate to Orthodox Marxist Leninism…,” Eren said.

“..You have…leftist groups that are heralded in, especially Western leftists, the DFLP and PFLP, entering partnerships and also sharing tactics…,” he continued.

CUAD Declares Hamas and Houthis as “Progressive Forces”

Months later, by August 16, CUAD had assessed Hamas and the Houthis as “progressive forces” and “resistance groups.”

“Assessing whether a military force is progressive or reactionary requires an examination of whether it is advancing or impeding the destruction of imperialism, …which correlates with the strengthening or weakening of the national liberation and working-class movements internationally,” the group stated.

CUAD also relegated the groups’ terrorism as a “secondary issue,” writing, “Assessing Hamas and Ansarallah as principally progressive forces in an anti-imperialist struggle does not mean that one has to agree with every aspect of the nature of these forces, or that they have always been or always will be principally progressive. These other aspects are secondary to the issue at hand, which is their role in carrying out a national liberation war against their oppressors.”

Encampment Timeline: April – May 2024

Gates Open to Outside Extremists

Extreme anti-Israel and pro-terror organizations and their leaders played an essential role at Columbia, collaborating with students to empower Hamas’ agenda.

Most notably, Within Our Lifetime (WOL) and the PFLP-linked Samidoun Palestinian Prisoners Network (Samidoun) promoted the encampment on social media, spoke at the encampment and staged protests just outside Columbia’s gates to put additional pressure on the university.

In a May 2024 podcast, Jonathan Ben-Menachem, a spokesperson and organizer for the Columbia encampment, said [00:51:13], “In New York, community organizations, like Within Our Lifetime, and the Palestinian Youth Movement are leading at the moment … (they) make the rounds on a daily basis, like, between all the encampments like, they’re the core of Palestine organizing.”

The People’s Forum (TPF) and IfNotNow (INN) also often rallied just outside the Columbia gates. These protesters, who waved the flags of terror organizations and expressed support for violence against Jews, were applauded by audiences both inside and outside the university.

Columbia students responded in kind, promoting affiliation with pro-terror organizations. In November 2024, CUAD distributed pamphlets just outside Columbia’s gates encouraging attendees to get involved with Samidoun.

Jewish students were subjected to chants calling them “white supremacists,” “genocide supporters,” “baby killers,” “terrorists” and “Nazis.”

AMP leader Osama Abuirshaid participated [slide 10] in the encampment, as did WOL leader Nerdeen Kiswani, who gave a speech there even though she had been banned from campus on March 28, 2024.

High-profile politicians and anti-Israel agitators, including Norman FinkelsteinMohammed El-Kurd and Cornel West, entered the campus and lent support to the encampment.

Rep. Ilhan Omar also visited the encampment with her daughter, Isra Hirsi, a Barnard College student arrested for her involvement in the encampment and suspended from Barnard.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and then-Rep. Jamal Bowman also made appearances.

On August 3, 2024, the NYPost reported that Ocasio-Cortez, Bowman and Omar were being sued by five Columbia students in a class-action lawsuit for “inciting and encouraging” the anti-Israel encampment and protests at Columbia.

During the violent takeover of Hamilton Hall, Lisa Fithian, a professional agitatorinstructed anti-Israel activists how to barricade themselves into the building. NBC News reported that animal rights attorney James Carlson had “a significant role in the takeover of Hamilton Hall.”

Harassment of Jews

CUAD promoted and endorsed pro-terror groups on social media and borrowed from their tactics and strategies.

Jewish students reported [p.57] the antisemitic and pro-terror rhetoric they encountered as they traversed a WOL rally in front of Columbia’s main gates on November 15, 2023 in order to access the main campus: “Agitators defaced hostage posters, chanted, ‘Israel bombs, USA pays, how many kids did you kill today,’ and held banners that said, ‘by any means necessary’ and “resistance until return within our lifetime.’”

During the encampment and outside the gates (which the protesters considered part of their territory), pro-Israel students were blocked or restricted from campus facilities. Jewish students were severely harassed. Some were told [00:00:02] to “go back to Poland”. Others were yelled at [slide 3]: “Yahoodim [Jews], yahoodi [Jew], f**k you!” as they walked from campus to their dorm rooms.

On April 17, 2024, a protester told the crowd at Columbia, “We will never let up and we will never let down until Palestine is free, Zionism is destroyed and Zionists start to hide like the Nazis.”

The same day, another protester declared, “We are Hamas,” while others chanted about Hamas’ military wing, “Al-Qassam you make us proud, kill another soldier now!”

Protesters at the encampment demonized Zionists and Zionism, chanting, “Say it loud, say it clear; we don’t want no Zionists here” and “Free our prisoners, free them all; Zionism will fall.”

An activist just outside the encampment area held [photo 4] a sign with an arrow pointing to a pro-Israel gathering that read, “AL-QASAM’S NEXT TARGETS.”

Other protesters held signs reading “Fight for worldwide Intifada,” a call for violence against Jews and Israelis worldwide. They chanted now-familiar slogans, including “Globalize the Intifada” and “There is only one solution; Intifada, revolution!”

Speaking at the encampment, Izzy Mustafa, an NSJP organizer, said [05:58:24]: “The organizing that you all have done for the last 195 days has been nothing but invigorating! And let’s just keep raising the bar. Let’s keep raising the ceiling. The more we escalate the more that they’ll understand.”

Mustafa continued [05:58:42], “When it comes to Palestinians and those who are with us for our struggle for liberation, they are no match! We’re going home and we’re going home soon. All of us. And it’s because of the dedication and the organizing spirit of campuses. Long lives [sic] the student movements!”

Even outside the encampment, Jewish students were hounded [slide 2] on campus. Columbia students shouted at them, “Uncultured a** b**ches!” and “Go back to Europe!” Celebrating Hamas’ missile attacks against Israel, protesters chanted [slide 5]: “Ya Hamas, ya habib, odrob, odrob Tel Aviv! [Oh Hamas, oh loved one, strike, strike Tel Aviv!]”

SJP Mirrors Hamas

Just days before October 7, on September 26, 2023, NSJP released the first edition of its newsletter, Al-Muqawamah [resistance, constant combat, persistent warfare] Al-Maktooba [written], or “The Written Resistance.”

“Muqawamah” is a term associated [p.19] with the “armed struggle” against Israel. Palestinians often refer to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other Palestinian terrorist groups as Fasa’il al-Mukawamah (resistance factions). “HAMAS” is the acronym for Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyya, the Islamic Resistance Movement.

An anonymous submission [pp.5-6] titled “Unifying the Student Movement: For Whom?” announces NSJP’s allegiance to terror groups within the “Axis of Resistance,” which includes Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Yemen’s Houthi Rebels.

“As Palestinians, internationalists, and leftists residing in the United States, we are responsible for remaining connected and accountable to the Palestinian people’s

movements within occupied Palestine, liberated Gaza, and the region’s refugee camps. Within this broader context, we must align with Palestine’s already active combative student movement.”

The author continued, “We must therefore question our relationships with organizations and individuals that have outright condemned or sidelined Palestinian popular organizations, the Palestinian resistance, and the loose alliance of regional anti-imperialist actors known commonly as the Axis of Resistance.”

In the second edition of the newsletter, published in January 2024, the “Letter from the Editors” stated, “Since October 7th, 2023, over 100 SJP chapters have newly formed or been re-chartered, answering the call to combat the imperialist and Zionist forces… Hundreds of thousands of students have worked tirelessly to uphold the Palestinian liberation struggle and challenge the US empire from within.

“Despite facing a resurgence of severe state and institutional repression, the student movement has upheld the core demand of the Palestinian people: the dismantlement of the Zionist entity and the liberation of Palestine—from the river to the sea.”

NSJP Declares “We Are Hamas”

Two days after the October 7 massacre, NSJP released a “Day of Resistance Took Kit” and distributed it to its campus chapters. The toolkit blamed Israel for the attacks, stating, “Responsibility for every single death falls solely on the Zionist entity.”

The attacks were further branded as “the natural and justified response” to the conditions of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Hamas terrorists who were killed in the attack were praised as “martyrs.”

The toolkit stated, “As the Palestinian student movement, we have an unshakable responsibility to join the call for mass mobilization.”

Echoing Hamas’ calls for a “Global Day of Jihad” on October 13, 2023, NSJP declared October 12, 2023, as a “National Day of Resistance” for college campuses across America.

“This is what it means to Free Palestine: not just slogans and rallies, but armed confrontation with the oppressors.”

“We as Palestinian students in exile are PART of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement…We must act as part of this movement. All of our efforts continue the work and resistance of Palestinians on the ground.”

As the diaspora-based student movement for Palestine liberation, our responsibility is to not only support, but struggle alongside our people back home.”

Resistance comes in all forms—armed struggle, general strikes, and popular demonstrations. All of it is legitimate, and all of it is necessary.

The toolkit provided SJP chapters and allied organizations with graphics and advertisements that included images of motorized paragliders, which were used by the October 7 terrorists to infiltrate Israel and descend on the Nova Music Festival, where they slaughtered over 360 unarmed young people.

NSJP’s dissemination of the toolkit ignited a fury of allegations that the kit constituted material support for terrorism. As defined by law, material support includes providing “resources…(including) any service or tangible or intangible property.”

In late October 2023, the ADL and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law sent a letter to nearly 200 university presidents asking them to investigate their SJP chapters because of the toolkit, specifically, “whether they have improper funding sources, have violated the school code of conduct, have violated state or federal laws, and/or are providing material support to Hamas…”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ordered the closure of two SJP chapters due to the toolkit.

On April 25, 2024, the Secretariat of Palestinian Student Frameworks – a coalition of student groups in Gaza, including the student chapters of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP — called on college students around the world to “escalate” the “global student intifada.” The appeal was published by CUAD on Substack and promoted by Masar Badil and Samidoun.

More About Masar Badil 

NSJP Brings the Student Flood to Columbia

Two days before October 7, on October 5, 2023, Columbia SJP re-emerged from a period of obscurity to announce an upcoming general body meeting. The group had been dormant on social media since May 2023.

By October 9, 2023, the group expressed support for the October 7 massacre in an official statement that began: “Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine stands in full solidarity with Palestinian Resistance against over 75 years of Israeli settler-colonialism and apartheid.”

It further declared, “The weight of responsibility for the war and casualties undeniably lies with the Israeli extremist government and other Western governments, including the US government, which fund and staunchly support Israeli aggression, apartheid and settler colonization.”

It demanded that Columbia apologize for the administration’s support for Israel, divest from companies profiting from Israel, cancel the opening of the Tel Aviv Global Center and cease the dual degree partnership with Tel Aviv University.

The statement linked to Columbia professor Rashid Khalidi’s book, “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1971-2017.”

Echoing NSJP’s toolkit and Hamas’ talking points, the statement called for “Not just slogans and rallies, but armed confrontation with the oppressors” and announced a protest at Columbia scheduled for October 12, 2023, in accordance with NSJP’s and Hamas’ call for a “National Day of Resistance.”

Support for Foreign and Domestic Terrorism

In the year following the Hamas terror attack, CUAD absorbed Columbia SJP and transformed from a BDS group declaring itself a “continuation of the Vietnam antiwar movement” to one that openly supported armed resistance by Hamas and other terror groups.

For example, by October 3, 2024, CUAD posted that Hezbollah was a “Lebanese resistance group” and former Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by Israel, had died in “martyrdom…in service of the liberation of Palestine.”

In the same post, CUAD praised Iran’s October 1, 2024 missile attack on Israel as a “bold move.” The group named “key resistance leaders” as “Hamas’s Haniyeh, Hezbollah’s Nasrallah, and Iranian military figures” and praised a Hamas-claimed terrorist attack in Tel Aviv, which killed seven Israeli civilians, including a young mother.

CUAD celebrated the October 7 anniversary with a protest at Columbia and distributed a newspaper with a headline that read, “One Year Since Al-Aqsa Flood, Revolution Until Victory,” over a picture of Hamas fighters breaching the security fence to Israel.

The phrase “revolution until victory” was coined by Yasser Arafat in the 1960s and is written in the charter of the Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which favored armed struggle against Israel.

On October 8, 2024, CUAD issued a statement saying, “We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance,” and rescinded an apology it made after one of its members, Khymani James, said Columbia was lucky he wasn’t out killing Zionists.

The same day, CUAD openly stated, “Violence is the only path forward.”

On October 9, 2024, The New York Times reported on “the increasing revolutionary tilt of the student movement,” stating that the groups involved now “align their goals with principles known as the Thawabet,” principles crafted by the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1977 which include the Palestinian right to armed resistance and self-determination “from the river to the sea.”

The article quoted an October 7 CUAD Telegram post which read, “The Palestinian resistance is moving their struggle to a new phase of escalation and it is our duty to meet them there.”

On October 14, 2024, U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) demanded that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigate CUAD’s terrorist threats, saying, “These threats aren’t idle.”

The senators wrote, “The time to act is now. Rarely has the FBI had such public and obvious evidence of potentially imminent violence. This cannot become another instance in which a terrible case of violence takes place at a school and the FBI issues a statement after the fact that the perpetrators were ‘on its radar,’ but did nothing.”

On November 7, 2024, CUAD published “A Tribute to Yahya Sinwar,” the Hamas leader and mastermind behind the October 7 attack who was killed by Israel on October 16, 2024. In the tribute, they glorified Sinwar as a “hero of the revolution,” contending that the atrocities committed by Hamas during the massacre were his “crowning achievement” and that they would use Sinwar and his terrorism as an inspiration to “drive this movement forward.”

CUAD continued, “As members of the collective pursuit of Palestinian freedom, each of us should look to him as a clear illustration of what it means to devote a full lifetime to the intifada. Yahya Sinwar became the ‘self-made individual’ that he wrote about. It’s now the time for us to reflect on how we can make ourselves more like him.”

In September 2024, the ADL published a report titled “Anti-Israel Activism on U.S. Campuses 2023 – 2024,” which found that Columbia had the highest number of antisemitic incidents on any U.S. campus the last year.

The report identified 2,087 anti-Israel incidents, including “assault, vandalism, harassment, protests/actions and divestment resolutions” between the beginning of June 2023 and the end of May 2024. The report found a “staggering 477% increase in those categories compared to the same period in 2022-2023,” which the ADL said “marks the highest number ever documented by ADL.”

Pending Cases Against SJP for Support for Terror

In May 2024, law firms representing American and Israeli victims of the October 7 attacks filed cases in federal courts seeking damages under the Anti-Terrorism Act against NSJP and individual SJP chapters. As of the date of this report, the cases are ongoing.

The cases claim Hamas has extended its terrorist influence to college campuses in the United States by “infiltrating National SJP and SJP chapters, establishing student arms of Hamas to spread intimidation tactics, coercion policies, and a terrorist agenda.”

The first case, Shnaider et al v. American Muslims for Palestine et al, targets the network of pro-terror organizations behind the anti-Israel disruptions on college campuses and their leaders, designating them to be part of the Hamas “organizational network” in America.

The complaint names AMP, NSJP and all 275 SJP chapters as well as Within Our Lifetime and CodePink for their support of SJP.

The complaint argues [p.76] that AMP receives funds through various organizations that have supported and contributed to the advancement of Hamas. AMP, in turn, helps finance National SJP and the SJP chapters with these terrorist-linked funds.

The lawsuit also characterizes [p.111] pro-terror protests on college campuses “as an extension of the October 7 attacks by SJP, the student arm of Hamas.”

“The crux of this case is that the Defendant’s ideology, messages, and actions closely align with those of Hamas, so much so that they share a common pursuit,” the complaint states [p.157].

It continues, “SJP’s various events and publications (including the Toolkit) and National SJP annual conferences over the course of the last decade and up until the present day fall within the purview of training and expert advice regarding the violent and terrorist mission of Hamas.

“These activities and statements have directly contributed to the promulgation and strengthening of Hamas’s agenda in the United States and to the recruitment of followers.

“All of the material support that all of the Defendants have provided to Hamas, both before and after the October 7 Attacks, regardless of whether they were intended to support terrorist or non-terrorist activities, have ultimately inured to the benefit of Hamas and its terrorist agenda.” [p.159] [Emphasis added]

The suit further states, “‘Material support’…helps lend legitimacy to foreign terrorist groups—legitimacy that makes it easier for those groups to persist, to recruit members, and to raise funds—all of which facilitate more terrorist attacks.

“Material support may take various forms. Defendants knowingly provided material support to Hamas by providing the platform, communication, public relations, and other material support within the United States … Defendants’ broad support, influence and activities act as a surrogate for Hamas, exerting political pressure, coercion and influence on the United States government and, by extension, on the State of Israel.” [p.165]

The second case, Parizer v. AJP/AMP and NSJP, names AMP and NSJP as defendants. The case claims these groups provide material support for Hamas through their pro-Hamas propaganda efforts described as “instrumental to Hamas’s terrorist activities and ability to remain functional amid Israel’s response.”

The complaint outlines a Hamas “terror by propaganda strategy” as explicitly outlined in Article 29 of the Hamas Charter which calls on its supporters globally to provide strategic support.

The suit states, “Hamas relies on its propagandists around the world to do its bidding, spreading its falsehoods about Israel and the Jews far and wide, and to instigate a culture of violence and fear to sway global institutions to behave in Hamas’s favor. Global propaganda, particularly directed at the West and the United States, is not just one small part of Hamas’s broader strategy: it is Hamas’s grand strategy.” [p.19] [Emphasis added]

The complaint continues, “Defendants upheld their commitment in the NSJP Toolkit to treat ‘liberation’ as something ‘beyond symbolism and rhetoric’ that is secured through ‘confrontation by any means necessary.’ Defendants’ members and allies responded to this command by engaging in illegal acts of domestic terrorism—including trespass, assault, vandalism, robbery, destruction of property, harassment, and intimidation—to further the ‘resistance efforts.’ [p.24]

“Defendants continue to provide crucial ongoing public relations services to Hamas to generate support for its ongoing terrorism. As a sanctioned FTO, Hamas is prohibited from hiring an American public relations firm. Defendants fill this critical gap by providing invaluable communication services that Hamas cannot receive or pay for elsewhere in the United States. [p.29]

“Defendants consistently respond to Hamas and its allies’ calls for mass protests and support. Indeed, Defendants seem to almost always answer the calls from Hamas, and Hamas, in turn, continues to express its organizational appreciation.” [p.30]

The suit points to Hamas representatives adopting liberal progressive language to further their aims: “Defendants do not just parrot Hamas’s talking points. Indeed, Hamas has regularly adopted Defendants’ propaganda language and framing.”

Notably, the suit pointed out that, “On October 8, the day after Hamas’s terrorist attack, AMP and NSJP were prepared and responded to Hamas’s “call for mass mobilization” by disseminating a manifesto and plan of attack (“NSJP Toolkit”) which includes materials that appear to have been created before the attack.” [p.2]

Administrative Complicity

In November 2023, in response to students protesting the suspension of Columbia SJP, the administration issued a statement reading, “The university will not apologize for enforcing its policies and procedures that are in place to create a safe campus community in which core university activities can be conducted without interruption.”

The statement made no mention of SJP’s antisemitic rhetoric and calls for violence, implying that lifting the suspension would not be contingent on the cessation of Columbia SJP’s support for terror but on the group’s adherence to university rules.

Similarly, on May 1, 2024, after the takeover of Hamilton Hall, Columbia sent a “campus update” that said, “The decision to reach out to the NYPD was in response to the actions of the protesters, not the cause they are championing.”

By May 3, 2024, then-Columbia president Minouche Shafik was already glossing over the takeover of Hamilton Hall and the rampant support for the annihilation of the Jews by Columbia’s students and faculty by saying, “Many people who gathered [at the encampment] were largely peaceful.”

In September 2024, Columbia’s Interim President Katrina Armstrong issued an all-out apology to students who were arrested in the Hamilton Hall incident and during the clearing of the encampment, saying: “If you could just let everybody know who was hurt by that, that I’m just incredibly sorry.”

“I know it wasn’t me, but I’m really sorry … I saw it, and I’m really sorry,” she continued.

The October 2024 House Republican staff report noted [p.100], “Armstrong’s apology represented the culmination of Columbia’s capitulation to the students who had engaged in criminal conduct and the radical faculty who obstructed discipline on their behalf.

“Less than six months after Columbia’s leaders had promised Congress that the University would not tolerate antisemitism and would ensure a safe learning environment, the University had lifted discipline for its most extreme offenders and its President had apologized to them.”

Columbia’s Continual Promotion of Pro-Terror Students and Faculty

Since the rise of the unlawful encampments on its campus into the present, Columbia has stood firm in its support for pro-terror students and faculty. It has made no move to alter the departments and their courses mentioned above.

The following three items illustrate Columbia’s attitude:

  • The National Review reported that Johannah King-Slutzky, a Columbia instructor and graduate student arrested [03:05:49] at the encampment on April 18, 2024, and subsequently suspended, was granted a teaching position at Columbia in the fall 2024 semester. King-Slutzky will teach “Contemporary Western Civilization.”
  • Following Columbia Professor Joseph Massad’s support for the October 7 massacre, Columbia scheduled Massad to teach a class on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the 2025 spring semester.
  • In December 2024, Columbia SJP launched its official newspaper, “The Columbia Intifada” which was made available to readers in Columbia’s Butler Library as part of “Read Palestine Week.” Columbia SJP distributed 1,000 copies on campus. FSJP promoted the newspaper on Instagram.

Refusal to Comply with Congressional Inquiries

On August 21, 2024, Education and the Workforce Committee Chairwoman Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) issued six subpoenas as part of the ongoing effort to root out antisemitism at Columbia. Columbia’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong and the co-chairs and vice chairs of the Board of Trustees were among those called to testify.

In a press release, Foxx stated, “Columbia should be a partner in our efforts to ensure Jewish students have a safe learning environment on its campus, but instead, university administrators have slow-rolled the investigation, repeatedly failing to turn over necessary documents.

“The information we have obtained points to a continued pattern of negligence towards antisemitism and a refusal to stand up to the radical students and faculty responsible for it.”

The 2024 House Report reported the same, saying [p.28] that Columbia failed to provide information requested in a joint investigation into its medical school and associated medical centers initiated in September 2024 following reports of antisemitism and unequal medical treatment for Israeli students.

Failure to Ensure Jewish Safety on Campus

On April 17, 2024, Shafik testified before Congress that “safety is paramount” and that “antisemitism has no place on campus.” The same day, Columbia allowed its students to erect an unlawful encampment supporting an antisemitic, genocidal terror group.

From that day forward, Columbia’s official announcements addressed safety and inclusivity concerns arising from the anti-Israel protests and encampments on campus. The university’s president pledged to “keep all members of our community safe” on multiple occasions.

However, reports [p.26] of harassment of and violence against Jewish students on campus tell a different story. At the very least, Columbia failed to provide adequate campus security staff to protect vulnerable students and ignored staff warnings and concerns about safety.

On April 21, 2024, encampment organizer Khymani James was featured in a video posted on X showing James organizing protesters at the encampment into a human chain to “push” pro-Israel students out of the encampment.

With their arms linked, James led the crowd in chanting [00:00:17], “We have Zionists who have entered the camp. We are going to create a human chain…so that they do not pass this point and infringe upon our privacy and try to destruct [sic] our community…”

That day, Rabbi Eli Buechler, the director of OU-Columbia’s Union Jewish Learning Initiative (JLIC) at the Columbia Barnard Hillel, sent a WhatsApp message to over 290 Jewish students at Columbia urging them to leave campus and “return home as soon as possible’’ due to growing threats of anti-Jewish violence by pro-Hamas students.

Buechler wrote that the protest “in and around campus is terrible and tragic,” adding that recent events “have made it clear that Columbia University’s Public Safety and the NYPD cannot guarantee Jewish students’ safety in the face of extreme antisemitism and anarchy.”

On May 7, 2024, The Free Press interviewed a Columbia worker who was “taken hostage” when protesters took over Hamilton Hall on April 30, 2024.

Four days before the student insurrection, the employee notified Columbia officials that he had found a [pro-Hamas] girl hiding in one of the janitor’s closets, but his concerns were ignored. On the night of the takeover, only one guard was assigned to the site.

Regarding Columbia officials, the worker said, “It felt like they didn’t even care. They were just worried about the protesters—don’t hurt the protesters. What about the safety and security of the workers that’s [sic] working in the building under these conditions?”

Intentional Discrimination Against Jews and Israelis

In June 2024, 47 students filed a complaint against Columbia and Barnard in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York alleging discrimination under Title VI, New York and New York City Human Rights laws and the Ku Klux Klan Act.

The complaint charged [p.20] that Columbia’s “selective enforcement of its own rules … reflect a shameful double standard in its failure and refusal to apply these policies in a nondiscriminatory manner to protect Jewish and Israeli students and prevent antisemitism on campus, deeming Jewish and Israeli students unworthy of the protections Columbia University readily affords non-Jewish and non-Israeli students.”

The complaint detailed:

  • The failure of Columbia officials and faculty to file “bias” incident reports detailing intimidation of Jewish students [p.41]
  • Columbia’s discriminatory application of its events rules against pro-Israel student clubs [p.49]
  • Columbia’s refusal to allow Jewish students who feared the hostile climate on campus to participate in their classes via Zoom [P.52]

The 2024 House Report highlighted the findings [p.7] of Columbia’s own Task Force on Antisemitism, which “detailed an atmosphere of pervasive civil rights violations at the University.”

For example, the Task Force found:

  • Israeli students were frequently targeted due to their national origin (a violation of federal anti-discrimination law)
  • Hatred toward Israelis reached such alarming levels on campus that it was difficult for Israeli students to access campus services, including healthcare
  • Visibly observant Jewish students were frequently met with extreme hostility

Disproportionate Discipline of Jewish Students and Faculty

At the April 17, 2024, Congressional hearing on antisemitism, Shafik testified that there had been 15 suspensions related to antisemitism on campus. She was challenged by

Congresswoman Virginia Foxx, who countered, “That’s misleading. In fact, only three students were given interim suspensions. All three were lifted including a student who repeatedly screamed ‘F*ck the Jew’…”

Foxx continued, “The only two students who are still suspended are the two Jewish students who were suspended for spraying the odorous substance. The substance was a non-toxic gag spray. While that was an inappropriate action, for months Jewish students have been vilified with false accusations of a ‘chemical attack’ and Columbia failed to correct the record.”

The False ‘Chemical’ Attack Narrative
Khymani James: “Zionists Don’t Deserve to Live”

Professor Shai Davidai: Vocal Advocate for Jews on Campus

Conclusion

Columbia SJP and its network of allies, along with a large contingent of the university’s faculty, have openly aligned themselves with the Iranian terror proxy Hamas. This tightly coordinated network of organizations, students and professors not only endorsed the events of October 7 but also helped facilitate the terror group’s ongoing “Al-Aqsa Flood” campaign.

Columbia University, with its history of extremist student activism and administrative capitulation, was chosen explicitly by NSJP to ignite a nationwide “student intifada.”

The plan proved successful, with the administration effectively falling in line, shielding pro-terror students and faculty from any substantial consequences for their unlawful activities.

While Columbia paid lip service to the surge in antisemitism on campus, in practice, it refused to protect Jewish students and staff—individuals whose safety was threatened and who have been judged by a double standard rooted in allegations fabricated by the administration.

Despite failing thus far to issue a decisive condemnation of the events of October 7, interim president Katrina Armstrong’s first significant move was to offer a sympathetic apology to Columbia’s pro-terror students arrested after occupying Hamilton Hall and during the dismantling of their encampment.

According to a congressional report, “Armstrong’s apology represented the culmination of Columbia’s capitulation to the students who had engaged in criminal conduct and the radical faculty who obstructed discipline on their behalf.”

It is clear from this report that Columbia University has discriminated against and facilitated hatred of Jews in violation of federal Title IX laws. It is time for the federal government, along with Columbia’s private donors, to stop the flow of funds until such time that Columbia institutes a much-needed course correction.

Methodology

Canary Mission conducted a comprehensive investigation into the antisemitic environment at Columbia University, with a focus on the events surrounding the April 2024 encampment. Our report analyzed the individuals and groups involved, including external pro-terror organizations.

The data for this report was gathered exclusively from open-source intelligence (OSINT) sources, including publicly accessible websites, online databases, and social media platforms such as X, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. Quantitative analysis was applied to categorize and evaluate the scale and scope of participation, as well as to identify trends within the collected data.

The report details 321 profiles of individuals who met one or more of the following criteria:

  1. Supported, participated in or spoke at the Columbia encampment
  2. Were influential in promoting Hamas ideology at Columbia
  3. Leading organizers of pro-terror student groups on or adjacent to campus, including but not limited to SJP, JVP, CUAD and WOL

Individuals from four primary categories were included: Columbia StudentsColumbia ProfessorsColumbia University Staff, and Outside Agitators, .

Columbia Students
Columbia Professors
Columbia University Staff
Outside Agitators

©2025 . All rights reserved.

Blue School District Doubles Down On ‘Inclusive’ Facilities After Registered Sex Offender Exposes Self To Young Girls

The Arlington Public Schools (APS) Superintendent released a statement recently affirming the district’s commitment to “inclusive” facilities after a registered sex offender was caught repeatedly exposing himself to young girls in a locker room on school property.

Richard K. Cox, a tier three registered sex offender who was first charged with indecent liberties in Arlington in 1992, was arrested in December 2024 after several people reported a naked man watching women in the changing room of the Arlington Aquatic Center, which shares facilities with Washington Liberty-High School, according to ABC 7News. The man apparently identifies as a transgender woman.

When asked about the incident, APS Superintendent Francisco Durán released a statement doubling down on the district’s commitment to building an “inclusive community” for “those who identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community,” stating, “[o]ur facilities are designed to be safe, welcoming spaces where our community can come to connect, engage and focus on their health and well-being,” according to the statement obtained by 7News.

“APS permits pool patrons to access restrooms and facilities that correspond to their gender identity,” an APS spokesman told 7News. “We take every report of concerning or unsafe behavior very seriously and do not tolerate behaviors from any individual who is threatening or making others feel unsafe. APS responded to all patron concerns related to this matter in a timely manner and took appropriate and immediate action to investigate, notify law enforcement, and prevent the individual from returning to our pool facilities.”

Durán claims APS took action “immediately” to address the concerns, but some women allege the school was aware of Cox’s presence at the school months prior.

Several women apparently alerted the director of Aquatics Management at APS, Helena Machado, of the man’s presence in September of 2024 but were told to use the individual changing facilities if they were uncomfortable, the Arlington GOP said.

“At the conclusion of the lesson, my daughter […] and I entered the locker room labeled simply ‘Women’s Lockers’ and were startled to find an adult individual whose head, face, shoulders and chest were covered by a towel but the individual’s penis, testicles and legs were fully exposed to anyone walking through the entrance,” one woman told the Arlington GOP. “I sent an email to the APS Aquatic Center director to simply clarify the changing room policy in the aquatic center as it relates to different genders. I received no response. This is unacceptable.”

The woman later spoke to a manager in person and was told that the facility is open to the public and that considerations were being made to change the signage to allow the locker room to be open to all genders, the GOP alleged.

Cox’s pending charges in Arlington County include 12 counts of loitering near a school, daycare, park or playground as a registered sex offender, three counts of entering school or daycare property as a registered sex offender, four counts of indecent exposure, two counts of indecent liberties with a child and one count of identity theft since October of 2024. Prior to the incidents in Arlington, Cox was arrested in Fairfax county in June of 2024 for indecent exposure in the women’s locker room of a Planet Fitness, though the charges were dropped after Cox argued he legally changed his sex to female, according to 7News.

“Transgender people identify as belonging to a gender which may not conform to the sex they were assigned at birth,” Cox argued to the court at the time, according to 7News. “For a transgender person to be observed in a locker room nude is no proof that this also was anything more than platonic.”

APS and the APS school board did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comments.

AUTHOR

Jaryn Crouson

Contributor.

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VIDEO: The Great Rewiring of Childhood—A Smartphone-Social Media Dystopia

The following is a transcript of this video.

 “The Great Rewiring of Childhood, in which the phone-based childhood replaced the play-based childhood, is the major cause of the international epidemic of adolescent mental illness.”

Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation

The release of the iPhone in 2007 profoundly transformed how we interact and experience the world and so marked the dawn of a new era in human history. Today most people are constantly within arm’s reach of their phone and a significant portion of their waking hours are devoted to using these devices. Social media apps are among the most heavily used with some people spending hours a day on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. Some believe this smartphone-social media ecosystem has improved our quality of life as it provides nearly limitless entertainment, makes it easier to communicate and connect with other people, creates business opportunities, and facilitates the sharing and consuming of information, pictures, and videos. Yet this ecosystem also has a dark side; it is addictive, and it calls forth the superficial, hostile, and narcissistic side of humanity. But perhaps worst of all, it is destroying the mental health of young people. In this video, drawing from the American sociologist Johnathan Haidt’s 2024 book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, we explore why social media causes anxiety and depression in children and teens and why smartphone and tablet use has radically changed the nature of childhood for the worst.

“Gen Z became the first generation in history to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addictive, unstable, and—as I will show—unsuitable for children and adolescents.”

Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation

Around 2010, rates of mental illness in Generation Z, or those born between the mid-199os and early-2010s, suddenly and drastically increased in the Western world. Rates of depression in teenagers increased 150%. Rates of self-harm by young adolescent girls tripled between 2010 and 2020, and doubled for girls between the ages 15 to 19. In 2020, 1 in every 4 American teen girls had suffered a major depressive episode in the previous year. While a 2023 study of American university students discovered that 37% reported feeling anxious “always” or “most of the time”, and 31% felt anxious “about half the time”. This mental health epidemic has been largely confined to Gen Z as since 2010 the mental health of older generations has remained relatively unchanged.

“What on earth happened to teens in the early 2010s? Something big is happening, something changed in the lives of young people in the early 2010s that made their mental health plunge.”

Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation

Given that the timing of Gen Z’s mental health decline coincides with the rise of the smartphone-social media ecosystem, an obvious hypothesis is that smartphones and social media are causing a mental health epidemic in young people. After all, Gen Z are the heaviest users of smartphones and social media. A 2015 report by Pew Research found that 1 out of every 4 teens said they were online “almost constantly”, while in 2022 that number rose to 46%. In 2017, Jonathan Haidt was toying with the hypothesis that these technologies cause depression and anxiety, but at the time all the available evidence was correlational. There were studies which linked smartphone and social media use with mental health problems, but it was unclear whether these technologies caused depression and anxiety, or whether depressed and anxious individuals spent more time on their phones and social media. However, today it is clear, in the words of Haidt, that “social media use does not just correlate with mental illness; it causes it.” Or as Haidt continues:

“Now, as I write in 2023…there’s a lot more research…showing that social media harms adolescents…the rapid movement of adolescent social life onto social media platforms was a cause, not just a correlate, of the increase in depression, anxiety… and other mental health problems that began in the early 2010s.”

Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation

Why are smartphones and social media causing mental health problems in younger people? To answer this question, we must identify what young people are missing out on because of their compulsive technology use; that being, a play-based childhood.

Throughout human history, children in all parts of the world and in all cultures have spent much of their free time playing with peers. This play-based childhood is not unique to humans; all young mammals instinctively gravitate to playing as it is essential for their development. Or as Haidt writes:

“Children need a great deal of free play to thrive. It’s an imperative that’s evident across all mammal species…Hundreds of studies on young rats, monkeys, and humans show that young mammals want to play, need to play, and come out socially, cognitively, and emotionally impaired when they are deprived of play.”

Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation

The healthiest type of play is unsupervised, outdoor play with peers which involves sporadic risk taking, which the Norwegian professors Ellen Sandseter and Leif Kennair define as “thrilling and exciting forms of play that involve a risk of physical injury.” In engaging in risky play, children confront and overcome their fears and anxieties, learn to endure minor injuries, and challenge their perceived limits. For example, climbing a tree may stimulate anxiety, but by climbing it anyway children develop physical skills, resilience, problem-solving abilities, and a sense of accomplishment that helps them face future risks and obstacles with greater confidence. “The small-scale challenges and setbacks that happen during play are like an inoculation that prepares children to face much larger challenges later.”, observes Haidt. One of the reasons children naturally gravitate to risky play is because it has “anti-phobic effects.” In playfully engaging in activities that stimulate fear and anxiety, and occasionally getting hurt in the process, over time children become less anxious and fearful.

Unsupervised outdoor play with peers also helps children cultivate social skills, such as how to detect and respond to social cues, deal with teasing, bullying, and exclusion, and in the case of boys, how to channel their natural aggressive impulses towards socially constructive ends. “Play requires suppression of the drive to dominate and enables the formation of long-lasting cooperative bonds.”, wrote the developmental psychologist Peter Gray.

For the first time in human history, the youth are not spending the majority of their leisure time playing outdoors with peers.  Rather, most teens, as well as many children, are spending their free time with necks crooked downward staring at phones or tablets. According to a 2023 study, the average teen spends 6 to 8 hours a day in front of a screen, with 4.8 of the hours spent on social media. And as Haidt writes:

“This is a profound transformation of human consciousness and relationships, and it occurred, for American teens, between 2010 and 2015. This is the birth of the phone-based childhood. It marks the definitive end of the play-based childhood.”

Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation

And as Haidt continues:

“Many parents were relieved to find that a smartphone or tablet could keep a child happily engaged and quiet for hours. Was this safe? Nobody knew, but because everyone else was doing it, everyone just assumed that it must be okay.”

Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation

Excessive use of smartphones and tablets is not safe for children and teens. Time spent using these devices robs young people of a play-based childhood and submerges them in a virtual world which Haidt describes as “poisonous” for the mental health of children and adolescents.

The most obvious reason why a phone-based childhood is ruining the mental health of the youth is because many apps, most notably social media apps, are intentionally designed to be addictive. “The creators of these apps use every trick in the psychologists’ tool kit to hook users as deeply as slot machines hook gamblers.”, comments Haidt. Young people are more vulnerable to developing addictions because the frontal cortex, which gives us the ability to resist rewarding stimuli and delay gratification, is not fully developed until after the age of 20. Social media companies are aware of this vulnerability and they actively try to exploit it. In 2021, the whistleblower Frances Haugen released the Facebook Files which contained photos of slides from in-company presentations, one of which stated that “teens are highly dependent on their temporal lobe where emotions, memory and learning, and the reward system reign supreme.” A subsequent slide showed a picture of teen girl, and as Haidt notes,

“…the presenters were not trying to protect the young woman in the center from overuse and addiction; their goal was to advise other Facebook employees on how to keep her “engaged” for longer with rewards, novelty, and emotions.”

Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation

And as Haidt continues:

“When we gave children and adolescents smartphones in the early 2010s, we gave companies the ability to…[train] them like rats during their most sensitive years of brain rewiring. Those companies developed addictive apps that sculpted some very deep pathways in our children’s brains…By designing a firehose of addictive content that entered through kids’ eyes and ears, and by displacing physical play and in-person socializing, these companies have rewired childhood and changed human development on an almost unimaginable scale.”

Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation

In becoming addicted to apps at a young age, children and teenagers are missing out on the in-person interactions needed to develop social skills. Some argue that social media is augmenting our capacity to connect with other people; however, this is only true in terms of the quantity of connections. In terms of quality, social media connections are shallow at best. Spending hours alone scrolling through social media feeds, sending memes and emojis to friends, playing multiplayer video games with strangers online, and posting content to elicit likes and reactions from others, are not valid substitutes for real-world face-to-face social relationships. In these disembodied virtual interactions there is no opportunity to learn to interpret body language, read subtle vocal or facial cues, maintain eye contact, develop charisma, or empathize with the embodied emotions of others. Unlike real-world socialization, the use of social media does not require that one develop social skills and it offers little to no opportunity to form deep, lasting, mutually empathic relationships. The poor quality of online social interactions helps explain why many in Gen Z are lonelier and more socially handicapped than any other generation.

“This is the great irony of social media: the more you immerse yourself in it, the more lonely and depressed you become.”

Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation

And as Haidt continues:

“We are physical, embodied creatures who evolved to use our hands, facial expressions, and head movements as communication channels, responding in real time to the similar movements of our partners. Gen Z is learning to pick emojis instead.”

Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation

Smartphones and social media are also negatively impacting mental health by destroying the ability to focus. The 20th century psychologist William James noted that, since the higher cognitive capacities of the youth are not fully developed, “Sensitiveness to immediately exciting sensorial stimuli characterizes the attention of childhood and youth. . .the child seems to belong less to himself than to every object which happens to catch his notice.” By bombarding the mind with “exciting sensorial stimuli”, the smartphone-social media ecosystem is making it exceedingly difficult for young people to cultivate their attentional capacities. The way this is playing out was eerily anticipated in Kurt Vonnegut’s 1961 short story Harrison Bergeron.

In this story an egalitarian ideology has infected a society to such a degree that a constitutional amendment is passed that disallows anyone from being more skilled, intelligent, or capable than anyone else. To facilitate this enforced equality, the government’s “handicapper general” attaches an earpiece to above-average individuals which buzzes every 20 seconds in order to disrupt their focus. Considering that those in Gen Z receive an average of 192 notifications per day—roughly one every 5 minutes—and that older teen girls, the heaviest smartphone users, are interrupted by 1 notification every minute, by carrying around a device that is hindering their ability to focus, “many members of Gen Z are now living in Kurt Vonnegut’s dystopia.” (Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation). They are spending their days in what William James called “the confused, dazed, scatterbrained state”, in which no skill can be developed, no knowledge absorbed, and nothing of worth achieved. At the critical junction between adolescence and adulthood, many in Gen Z find themselves stagnant and hence afflicted with depression and anxiety disorders. For as the English writer Colin Wilson observed:

“…stagnation is the beginning of mental illness, which propagates itself like the scum on a stagnant pond.”

Colin Wilson, New Pathways in Psychology

While the mental health of girls and boys is negatively affected by the addictive and attention destroying nature of the smartphone-social media ecosystem, this ecosystem is also affecting the genders in different ways. For example, social media is harming young girls more than boys for two reasons; firstly, girls use social media more than boys, and secondly, girls are more vulnerable to the negative effects of social comparison. The social status of a girl is closely tied to her physical appearance and thus her self-esteem is heavily influenced by the way she compares her looks to other girls she sees. As social media platforms are flooded with images and videos of women who either possess exceptional beauty or whose features are heavily altered by filters or photo editing apps, the more time a girl spends on social media, the more likely she is to develop a negative self-image which drives mental health problems. Or as Haidt writes:

“…social media exposes girls to hundreds or even thousands of images every day, many of which feature girls too good to be true, with perfect bodies living perfect lives. Exposure to so many images is sure to have a negative effect on comparison machines…The more time a girl spends on social media, the more likely she is to be depressed.”

Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation

While girls are heavier users of social media than boys, boys still spend hours each day on social media on top of playing video games, browsing online forums, and watching pornography. This immersion in a virtual world is contributing to problems with depression and anxiety as well as to what Jonathan Haidt called “a failure to launch”. For example, young men in their 20s are more likely to live at home compared to women of the same age, and in the U.K. and the United States the vast majority of NEETs, which stands for “Not in Education, Employment, or Training”, are young men. There is even a growing movement of boys and young men who are so riddled with depression and anxiety that they spend most of their time isolated in the bedroom of their parents’ house. While being shut up in one’s room would have been torture to boys of previous generations, today many boys are compensating for their failures in the real world by living their life almost entirely online. Or as Haidt remarks regarding an American boy who retreated from the world into his room at the age of 12.

“Luca, however, found an online world just vivid enough to keep his mind from starving. Ten years later, he still plays video games and surfs the web all night. He sleeps all day.”

Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation

Yet even boys who do not go to these extremes are still suffering from a screen-based childhood. In the past, due to their tendency to engage in unsupervised and risky play, boys between the ages of 10 and 19 had higher rates of hospitalization than all other age groups. Today, in contrast, in terms of rates of injury “adolescent boys are now not much different from adolescent girls, or from men in their 50s and 60s.” (Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation) While on the surface this may seem to be a positive trend, there is a negative underside to it. Because boys are not engaging in risky play and confronting and overcoming small anxieties on a daily basis, their small anxieties are intensifying and developing into full blow anxiety disorders. Or as Haidt writes:

“Imagine a childhood where all risk had been eliminated. Nobody ever felt the rush of adrenaline from climbing a tree when an adult had told them not to. Nobody ever experienced butterflies in their stomach as they mustered the courage to ask someone out. Picture a world where late-night outdoor adventures with friends were a thing of the past. In this childhood, there would be fewer bruises, broken bones, and broken hearts. It might sound like a safer world, but is it one you would want for your children?..something close to this is the world in which many members of Gen Z are growing up…these changes came about not because Gen Z is getting wiser, but because they are withdrawing from the physical world…they are engaging in less risk-taking overall—healthy as well as unhealthy—and therefore learning less about how to manage risks in the real world.”

Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation

Although the problems associated with a screen-based childhood are dire, fortunately the solution is simple – at least in theory. Teenagers need to be made aware of the dangers which smartphones, tablets, and social media pose to their mental health. Parents need to stop pacifying their children with screens – a practice that in the future may be regarded as a passive form of child abuse. And the screen-based childhood, which Haidt described as “the largest uncontrolled experiment humanity has ever performed on its own children,” needs to be thrown in the dustbin of history so that children return to a play-based childhood. For as Haidt writes:

“Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence. That’s the way children naturally develop social skills, overcome anxiety, and become self-governing young adults.”

Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation

©2025 . All rights reserved.

AWED MEDIA BALANCED NEWS: We cover COVID to Climate, as well as Energy to Elections.

Welcome! We cover COVID to Climate, as well as Energy to Elections.

Here is the link for this issue, so please share it on social media.

Checkout the 2024, 2023, & 2022 archives, plus asterisked items below.


— This Newsletter’s Articles, by Topic —

 This Issue’s Best of the Best:

*** Can Trump Make America Safe Again?

*** Barbarians at the Gate

*** China’s Massive Hacking Campaign Targeting the US

*** Mark Zuckerberg replaces fact-checking with X-style system

*** Classical K-12 Education 101: What exactly is it?

*** Good Video: LA Fires – What REALLY Happened?

*** A Lawless NRC Obstructs Safe Nuclear Power

*** Key takeaways from Trump’s energy secretary pick’s confirmation hearing

*** The New York State Super-Folly Act

*** The Saturation effect questions the prevailing narrative on CO2

*** Pay Up, Mr. Mann

Secondary Education Related:

*** Report: The Key to Fixing the US Education System

*** Classical K-12 Education 101: What exactly is it?

*** The Virtues of Classical K-12 Schools

*** America’s Educational System Is Experiencing a “Mass Psychosis”

*** New Organization: National Alliance for Education Reform (NAER)

How to Talk to your Kids about Brainwashing, Mind Control, and Propaganda

To compete globally, we must prioritize rigorous education

A series of Dangerous Threats

Education reform in red versus blue states

Higher Education Related:

Higher-Ed Reform’s Coming of Age

Report: Transforming Higher Education in Ohio — Reforms Needed Today to Prepare for Tomorrow

Artificial Intelligence:

*** AI Facial Recognition Software Resulting In False Arrests

The WEF Says 41% Of Companies Worldwide Planning For AI To Shrink Workforces By 2030

OpenAI Releases Economic Blueprint For The Future

Greed Energy Economics:

*** Biden Gives $27 Billion for Clean-Energy Deals in Final Days

*** Economic Health Watch: Affordability of Necessities

Why do wind projects get the gas price?

Unreliables (General):

*** Big Wind & Big Solar are Trying to Sue Rural America into Submission

*** Green Fantasies Have Adverse Consequences

Germans’ Pushback on Green Energy Topples Gov’t Leadership

Trump’s energy policies are a game changer for renewables

Deconstructing a continuing green scheme

Wind Energy — Offshore:

NOAA’s “no evidence” that wind kills whales violates the Information Quality Act

NOAA Withdraws Critical Right Whale Protection Rule Changes

Wind Energy — Other:

*** Trump Says He Wants No Wind Turbines Built During Administration

How Much Oil Is Required to Run a Wind Turbine?

Nuclear Energy:

*** A Lawless NRC Obstructs Safe Nuclear Power

Fossil Fuel Energy:

*** How Trump Can Unlock America’s Energy Options

Biden issues sweeping offshore oil, gas drilling ban in 625M acres of federal waters

Biden’s last-minute oil drilling ban can be undone by Congress

Electric Vehicles (EVs):

*** Massive Fire Burns at World’s Largest Lithium Battery Plant near Monterey, CA

*** Billions of Taxpayer Dollars for Electrification of Transport Looks Like Money “Down the Drain”

And Suddenly, Gavin Newsom’s Electric Car Mandate Looks Pretty Dumb to LA Fire Victims

Misc Energy:

*** Key takeaways from Trump’s energy secretary pick’s confirmation hearing

*** How to Solve All of America’s Energy Problems (Epstein & Peterson)

*** American Energy 101 (AEI)

*** The Energy Freedom Plan: an overview

The Energy Freedom Plan: 112 specific actions the new admin can take to unleash American energy (Epstein)

Grid battery cost issue storm looms in Massachusetts

Energy Affairs in 2024 and Beyond: Hopeful Signs for the New Trump Administration

California’s Energy War on the Poor

Manmade Global Warming — Some Deceptions:

*** The Saturation effect questions the prevailing narrative on CO2

*** Michael Mann Ordered to Pay National Review $531,000

*** Pay Up, Mr. Mann

*** The New York State Super-Folly Act

15 questions that will put an end to the ‘climate scare’ once-and-for-all

Wildfires, Fried Smelt, and the Hoary Hoax of a Burning Planet

Manmade Global Warming — The Science:

*** The Saturation effect questions the prevailing narrative on CO2

Scientific Societies Err on ‘Climate Change’

Manmade Global Warming — Misc:

*** Rethinking Carbon Dioxide – Wyoming’s Bold Move

*** Top 10 Climate and Energy Action Items for President Trump in His Second Term

Big Banks’ Retreat from Climate Alliance is Encouraging Step in Dismantling the ESG Agenda/Woke Corporate Capitalism

Social Benefits of Carbon

The Changing of the Guard

Trump:

*** Donald Trump sworn in as 47th president of the United States

*** The inauguration of President Donald Trump: Some Photos

*** Barbarians at the Gate

Carrie Underwood sings ‘America The Beautiful’ at Trump inauguration

US Election:

*** Is Cleaning the Voter Rolls Being Legislatively Ignored?

Stacey Abrams Group Hit with Largest Fine in Georgia History for Violating Campaign Finance Law

US Federal Agencies:

*** Can Trump Make America Safe Again?

*** Wright is Right

Ramaswamy done at DOGE

Drain the Swamp: Civil Rights Commission Would Be a Great Place to Start

FBI Is Still Hiding Details of Russiagate, Newly Released Document Shows

Misc US Politics:

*** General Breedlove: Why Greenland Matters

Full List of 158 Democrats Who Voted Against Sex Crime Ban on Immigrants

The Ultimate Pardon

Imagine There Is Gasoline Enough to Go Around (Remembering Jimmy Carter)

The LA Fires:

*** Assigning Responsibility for the Tragic Los Angeles Fires

*** Asleep At The Switch

*** Good Video: LA Palisades Fires – What REALLY Happened?

*** Climate Change Did Not Cause the LA Fires (Koonin)

*** LA Fire Dept plea for more money (December 4, 2024)

The Daily Chart: A Saga of Fire and Water

They Could Have Prevented This

LA fires clear the way for SmartLA 2028 and 2028 LA Olympics

Why California Wildfires are NOT Climate Driven: A Historical and Meteorological Perspective

Societally US:

*** The New Inquisition: Woke and Cancel Culture Vs. Western Societies

10 tips to look after your husband from a 1950s schoolbook is exactly what your marriage has been missing

Economic Health Watch: Regulatory Straitjacket

What we say, and How we say it, Matters

Censorship US:

*** How Trump Plans to Take on Censors — and They Plan to Take on Trump

*** Mark Zuckerberg replaces fact-checking with X-style system

*** Zuckerberg’s statement is big news, but it’s not justice — yet

Zuck Amok?

Globalism:

*** China’s Massive Hacking Campaign Targeting the US

*** Canada’s Foremost Empty Suit/Nepo-Baby Justin Trudeau Resigns

Religion Related:

Either You’re Serious Or You’re Not

Islam’s Feminist Fantasy

Health:

*** WSJ: How UnitedHealth’s Diagnosis Game Rakes in Billions from Medicare

*** Cancer Care (excellent book on repurposed drugs treating various cancers)

*** Cutting out Government Health Care Waste

*** The World Health Organization (WHO): A Criminal Cartel

Tony Robbins FREE Seminar (later January)

New Studies: Deep sleep can keep two big health problems at bay

USMLE (Step 1)- Grading changed to pass/fail

COVID-19 — Misc:

*** Roundup of latest on COVID-19 Injections, H5N1, and the new “quademic”

*** Japan Sounds Alarm as Heart Failure Surges 4900% Among Covid-Vaxxed

Anthony Fauci granted preemptive pardon in the last hours of Biden’s term

Israel/Ukraine:

Pray for the safety of the Israeli people

Latest Developments in Israel

Pray for the safety of the Ukrainian people

A well-rated source to make a Ukraine donation

Latest Developments in Ukraine


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Note 1: We recommend reading the Newsletter on your computer, not your phone, as some documents (e.g., PDFs) are much easier to read on a large computer screen… We’ve tried to use common fonts, etc. to minimize display issues.

Note 2: For past Newsletter issues see the archives from 2021, 2022, 2023, & 2024. To accommodate numerous requests received about prior articles over all fourteen plus years of the Newsletter, we’ve put this together — where you can search ALL prior issues, by year. For a background about how the Newsletter is put together, etc., please read this.

Note 3: See this extensive list of reasonable books on climate change. As a parallel effort, we have also put together a list of some good books related to industrial wind energy. Both topics are also extensively covered on my website: WiseEnergy.org.

Note 4: I am not an attorney or a physician, so no material appearing in any of the Newsletters (or any of my websites) should be construed as giving legal or medical advice. My recommendation has always been: consult a competent, licensed attorney when you are involved with legal issues, and consult a competent physician regarding medical matters.

Copyright © 2025; Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (see WiseEnergy.org).

What Makes a Particular K-12 School “Good”?

I thought that this piece would be appropriate, following my recommendations regarding the federal DOEd

I often hear the phrase “Good School” bandied about, like: “I want my child to get out of this inner-city school, and attend a good school in the suburbs.” As a national K-12 education expert, I have a great deal of interest in that significant terminology — as it is of extreme importance not only to the success of students, but also to our survival as a country.

As such I often quiz parents, teachers, citizens, legislators, etc. about exactly what they mean when they say such-and-such is a “Good School.” Not surprisingly the responses are all over the map.

Here are the most common answers I’ve received when I ask what makes a particular K-12 school “Good”?

  • Competent teachers
  • Committed teachers
  • Good administrative communication
  • A high level of parental involvement
  • Parents are paid attention to
  • Students get above-average grades
  • Students get above-average statewide/national test scores
  • Well-behaved students
  • Cultural diversity in the student body
  • Good programs for developmentally challenged students
  • Located in a safe neighborhood
  • Well-maintained buildings
  • State-of-the-art lab and other facilities
  • Successful sports teams
  • Diverse extra-curricular activities
  • Etc, etc.

Yes, ALL those things are desirable — but are any of these (or a combination of these) what definitively indicates that students in a school are getting an appropriate quality education? I don’t think so!

What a Good School is NOT —

To answer what makes a school “Good,” we have to be crystal clear about the primary PURPOSE of a K-12 school. Let’s start with what the school’s main purpose is not:

  • It is not there to babysit children.
  • It is not there to give students a diploma.
  • It is not there to put some students on the path of an athletic career.
  • It is not there to provide employment to teachers, administrators, librarians, bus drivers, etc.
  • It is not there be a magnet to upgrade the quality of a neighborhood.
  • etc., etc.

The Purpose of K-12 Schools —

We start with an obvious assumption: that any competent school will properly teach ALL children the basics — the fundamental 3Rs.

That understood, the #1 benchmark of a “Good” school is that it assures parents that graduates will be Critical Thinkers. It’s as simple as this: If that essential skill is not properly instilled, the school is a failure.

Yes, other important secondary attributes should be taught: social skills, good communication, responsibility, resourcefulness, an interest in learning, etc.

However, if ALL those secondary matters are instilled, but graduating students are not Critical Thinkers, the school should be considered a failure.

Some may say that this is a harsh assessment. However, if you consider the dredges our K-12 school system is mired in, plus the profound consequences to America when these non-Critical Thinking graduates become left-leaning propagandized, compliant, VOTING CITIZENS, this is our only viable life raft.

What makes this situation even more dire is that we are about to be engulfed in a tsunami wave of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Anyone who is not a Critical Thinker will quickly and easily be buried with indoctrination, never to be disgorged.

For our individual and collective survival, we simply MUST prioritize properly instilling Critical Thinking skills into our children — and the subject area of K-12 Science is the proven best opportunity to do so.

Under no circumstances, should any school that does not adequately do this be considered “Good.” The reality is, they are a failure.

A Litmus Test —

Parents will say: how do I separate the wheat from the chaff and accurately determine if my child is going to a truly Good School? Most schools are advertising about the items in the initial list above, hoping that parents are distracted by shiny objects. For those who want to get to the core of the matter — a sound education — here are four simple recommendations to reveal what’s really going on:

  1. Carefully read the school’s mission statement and website. Good Schools proudly and unequivocally communicate that they are teaching students to be Critical Thinkers. Sometimes educators use two alternatives to say the same thing: a) that they teach using the Socratic Method, or b) that they are providing a Classical education. If your school’s statements regarding all of these are missing, vague, or generic, that’s a major red flag.
  2. Ask when and how Critical Thinking is taught. Good Schools utilize Critical Thinking in ALL subject areas, but specifically teach this important life skill in Science — and the earlier the better. If their answer here is ambiguous, that’s a major red flag.
  3. Ask if the school uses the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for their Science classes. Good Schools do NOT use the NGSS for their Science classes. If they do, that’s a major red flag. [As explained here, two of ten reasons against the NGSS are: a) it teaches the opposite of Critical Thinking, and b) it has ditched the traditional Scientific Method!]
  4. Ask what the school’s position is on CRTDEISEL, etc.

Good Schools will unabashedly say that they do not support or teach any of those Marxist ideologies. If any of these are being communicated in your school, that’s a major red flag.

Putting this in Perspective —

So how many “Good” US K-12 schools are there? Countrywide less than 5% make the grade. If we exclude private schools, less than 1% of US public schools legitimately qualify to be called “Good.”

None of this is an accident, as over the last 50± years, the Left has aggressively infiltrated the curricula of US K-12 schools — with little meaningful resistance. Their very successful two-part plan has been to:

  1. switch the emphasis of K-12 education from HOW to think to WHAT to thinkand
  2. assure that the WHAT is steeped in Leftist ideology (e.g., CRT, DEI, Woke, SEL, Marxism, etc.).

So (per the initial list above) when a school has better teachers (for example) what that really means is that the school is doing a more effective job at indoctrinating our children! … And (as another example) when students get better grades, it actually means that they are absorbing more of the Leftist ideology! … We should not let attractive buildings, smiling faces, etc. deceive us!

There is Hope —

I’ll end on a positive note: there are K-12 schools that are genuinely “Good” — even though they are few and far between. One example is the fourteen (14) Thales Academy schools in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Read their mission statements, etc. and you’ll see an unabashed endorsement of Critical Thinking as well as a genuine focus on teaching children HOW to think.

Counteracting the Left’s influence on our K-12 education should be the new primary goal of the federal Department of Education (which so far has been part of the problem). Changing the emphasis from teaching children WHAT to think to properly training them in HOW to think (i.e., being Critical Thinkers) would be the most significant education development in over a hundred years.

We CAN do this if we are laser-focused on exactly what needs to be done!

PS — I’ve read dozens of articles about what makes a K-12 school “good” (e.g., here), written mostly by educators. Almost none of them said a word about Content (curricula) or Critical Thinking. This disconnect is appalling and is one of the main reasons why we are in such dire straits. Note that this study indicates that teaching Critical Thinking to K-12 students is not only doable but very beneficial.

©2025 . All rights reserved.


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Check out the Archives of this Critical Thinking substack.

WiseEnergy.orgdiscusses the Science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.

C19Science.infocovers the lack of genuine Science behind our COVID-19 policies.

Election-Integrity.infomultiple major reports on the election integrity issue.

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Storytime: The IB Class

I completed the International Baccalaureate (IB) program in high school, an academically rigorous and globally focused curriculum designed to prepare students for success in an increasingly interconnected world. The IB had a profound impact on my development, sharpening my skills in critical thinking, research, and intellectual curiosity. Ironically, it was these very skills that enabled me to recognize the political agenda embedded within the program’s teachings. Despite this realization, I made a conscious effort to remain open-minded while navigating the overt and subtle forms of political propaganda presented to me.

The IB program heavily emphasized ideologies such as neoliberalism, globalism, and social justice. Although it marketed itself as “neutral” and “open-minded,” it often created an intellectual echo chamber that pressured students to conform. Many of my peers mistook agreement with the dominant narrative for critical thinking, often regurgitating what they were taught to fit in or earn approval, rather than questioning the ideas presented to them.

One stark example of this occurred in my philosophy class. Our teacher conducted a Google search for terms like “gay giraffes” and showed the class explicit images to argue that homosexuality is “natural” in the animal kingdom. This was not only inappropriate for a classroom setting but also a clear instance of political ideology presented under the guise of academic inquiry. Similarly, in literature class, we read books that overwhelmingly focused on feminism, critical race theory, the fight against fascism, and narratives portraying colonizers as destroyers of native cultures. Meanwhile, our American history textbooks were written in the United Kingdom.

To be clear, I do not believe these perspectives should be excluded from the curriculum. On the contrary, students should be exposed to a diverse array of viewpoints on these subjects. The problem lies in the one-sided presentation of these ideas, which often felt less like education and more like indoctrination, creating an environment where adopting these ideologies seemed less like an intellectual choice and more like a moral obligation.

Reflecting on my time in the IB program, I genuinely appreciated its ability to foster abstract thinking and expose me to new ideas and perspectives. If given the chance, I would do it all over again. At my school, there were only about 30 of us in the program, which created a unique sense of camaraderie. We had nearly every class together, which allowed us to build meaningful connections. We even started a group chat, mostly filled with typical high school banter—nothing particularly extraordinary but a fun way to stay connected.

Then came a seemingly trivial event involving this group chat—an event that would unexpectedly become one of the defining moments of my life, packed with lessons that shaped who I am today. I’ve always been interested in politics and culture, but for most of my life, I kept my opinions to myself. There was no compelling reason to share them. That all changed during the summer before my freshman year of college, when an event occurred that shook me to my core.

One of my favorite YouTubers, someone who had greatly influenced my views on politics and culture, was arrested in Ukraine for allegedly spreading “propaganda” and “misinformation.” But this wasn’t true. He was simply recording and commenting on the war in Ukraine, offering his perspective on what he was experiencing as a resident of the country. The Ukrainian authorities arrested him, and not long after, he died in their custody.

This moment was life-altering for me. It gave birth to a new sense of purpose. Here was Ukraine—a country claiming to aspire to “Western values,” a country receiving billions of dollars from American taxpayers, a country seeking NATO membership—arresting an American citizen. Not only that, but this citizen, someone exercising the very free speech Western values are supposed to protect, died while in their custody.

This didn’t sit well with me. As I grappled with the weight of what had happened, I found myself unable to stay silent any longer. By the spring of my freshman year of college, I began openly sharing my political opinions—a stark contrast to the quiet observer I had been before. Around this time, the IB group chat, which had been dormant for months, suddenly came back to life with a burst of activity. The reason? I had been kicked out.

I always knew that most of my peers leaned liberal, but their political views had never been a barrier to our getting along. I valued their perspectives, regardless of our differences, and believed that political ideology should never dictate who I respect or choose to associate with. Unfortunately, it became clear that this sentiment wasn’t mutual. For this group, my political views were grounds for rejection. To them, holding the “wrong” politics wasn’t just a disagreement—it was a moral failing. They equated their political positions with moral superiority, viewing their beliefs as expressions of personal virtue.

This mindset was undoubtedly influenced by the political propaganda we encountered in the IB program. As I’ve mentioned in earlier reflections, individuals taught to accept an ideology without question aren’t truly equipped to think critically. Instead, they operate within the narrow confines of that ideology. When someone challenges these beliefs, they struggle to respond rationally because they haven’t been taught to think independently or critically.

At first, I was caught off guard by the sudden weaponization of what was once just a lighthearted group chat. The IB had marketed itself as a program fostering diverse thought and open-mindedness, but this ideal seemed absent in this group of students. Instead, their reaction exposed the very intellectual rigidity they claimed to oppose.

IB LEARNER PROFILE INFOGRAPHIC

Getting kicked out of a high school group chat is, in the grand scheme of things, trivial and inconsequential. But it points to something much larger at play. It reflects a growing intransigence within a segment of the population—a refusal to engage with differing perspectives. In a democracy, compromise is essential for its survival. This willingness to meet in the middle is what has allowed the United States to endure for more than two centuries. The one time the nation failed to reach a compromise, it led to the Civil War.

On one side of the political divide, there is a segment of people who have been educated to view their ideology as a moral imperative—an unquestionable truth that others must adopt. For them, political disagreements aren’t merely about being right or wrong; they are about good versus evil. Those who dissent are not just mistaken—they are immoral, even inhuman. When you demonize those who think differently, stripping them of their humanity, you create the society we are living in today: a society so deeply polarized that compromise feels impossible.

My peers from the IB program are undoubtedly intelligent individuals, but their intelligence has been misapplied. They’ve been guided to embrace an ideology that, in the long run, is more harmful than beneficial. Because they were taught what to think rather than how to think, their ability to engage in genuine critical thinking has been stifled. Ironically, this makes them the opposite of the open-minded individuals the IB program claims to cultivate. Instead of fostering intellectual curiosity, it has left them more closed-minded than ever.

In the aftermath of this event, some of my peers in the group chat defended me, while others vehemently opposed me. People took sides, and the whole situation quickly spiraled into something childish, ridiculous, and, in hindsight, hilariously overblown. What struck me most was the behavior of those who were against me—they were the loudest, angriest, and most hysterical voices in the room. It was as if they had gone their entire lives without ever encountering someone with a differing opinion. My dissenting view seemed to trigger a tribal response in their hindbrain, a visceral reaction to what they perceived as an existential threat to their ideological bubble.

The greatest lesson I learned from this YouTuber is to never take a side simply to appear popular or virtuous. Instead, always stand for what is good, honest, and right. In this situation, the right thing to do was not to ostracize someone for holding a different opinion but to remain open to discussion. For me, it has always been more important to stand by my beliefs than to chase popularity. That realization has become one of the defining characteristics of my life. I value the exchange of diverse viewpoints, whether they prove me right or wrong, far more than blindly conforming to an ideology instilled in me. I refuse to live my life accepting everything a teacher or society tells me is good without questioning it first.

There is a psychological phenomenon where people hate it when someone goes against the group, especially if that person is right. The group despises the outsider who thinks differently, and they make it very clear. The more right the individual is, the more the group hates them for it. So, it becomes a question of how you want to live your life. Do you want to live an easy life, staying part of a group that believes in an ideology without questioning it? A group that might believe lies, tolerate corruption, and blindly follow authority figures who spread those lies? Or do you want to know the truth?

It is comforting to live in a group of happy fools who believe things that aren’t true. It feels good to be part of a group that accepts you, to belong to a collective where no one questions anything, no one thinks for themselves, and everyone just goes along. They go along with the curriculum, the teachers, the priests, the political leaders—or any leaders, really. Leaders who might be corrupt. Leaders who might not be what they seem. Leaders who, out of fear of being exposed, act in despicable ways.

These are questions everyone has to answer for themselves. Do you want to follow an ideology, a priest, or a leader, and close your eyes to everything else, just going along like a zombie? Or do you want to go through life with your eyes open, asking yourself what is true? For me, I’d rather be alone, searching for the truth and being hated for it, than live a life of conformity.

When you see two people in a dispute—like in the group chat situation—and you’re just a spectator, sooner or later, you may find yourself pressured to pick a side. There’s a strong temptation to choose the side that’s more “popular,” the side with the bigger numbers. I encourage you to resist that temptation. Whether it’s trivial high school drama or a situation with serious consequences, always let yourself be guided by what is true, good, and honest. Never pick the “popular” side just because it seems safer or easier—pick the right side.

This isn’t just a moral issue; it’s practical. Over time, the truth always comes out. The side with the larger numbers often turns out to be wrong, and when that happens, people will turn against them. This always happens. From a pragmatic point of view, aligning with the “popular” side can backfire. Choosing the side that is true and honest, even if it’s smaller or less popular, is ultimately the wiser choice because, in the long run, the truth prevails. The “popular” side, no matter how strong it seems, will eventually collapse if it’s built on lies.

If you choose the “popular” side for the sake of convenience or personal gain, your conscience will never let you rest. It will remind you that you didn’t pick that side because it was right but because you wanted to improve your position. Sure, the “popular” side might reward you with acceptance, money, or even power for your loyalty, but the cost is your integrity. Worse, others will see through your motivations. They’ll know you picked the “popular” side for self-interest, and they won’t trust or respect you.

“What comes around goes around” is more than just a saying—it’s a universal truth. Disputes that might seem lost in the moment often find resolution in the long run, as time reveals which side was truly right. Eventually, people begin to see that the “winner” of a conflict may have been wrong, dishonest, or even outright evil. Once they come to this realization, their rejection of that side is often permanent. This is why you should never fear going against what is popular if it means standing with what is true and good. When you take that stand, you never have to question yourself or feel insecure—you know you’re aligned with what is right.

You can easily recognize those who stand firmly for their beliefs and what they know to be true, as opposed to those who take a side merely to be “popular.” There’s an emptiness in people who choose the popular side just to gain acceptance or remain in the good graces of a group. That lack of conviction is always apparent. This is where you have to decide what kind of person you want to be—someone who stands by their principles or someone who compromises them for fleeting approval.

AUTHOR

Antonio Ancaya

©2025 . All rights reserved.

The Difference Between Being “Smart” and Being Idiosyncratic

How many times have you heard statements like, “This person has a master’s from Stanford,” or “They hold a PhD in economics from Harvard”? Such remarks carry an implied message: we should trust and listen to these individuals based solely on their prestigious credentials. Consider a more familiar scenario from your experience in school—someone was labeled “smart” because of their GPA or accolades. Yet there’s a critical distinction between being conventionally “smart” and being idiosyncratic—a person who thinks or acts in a uniquely individualistic way.

Today, we can no longer afford to blindly trust credentials or institutions. The elite, often products of these prestigious universities, have championed ideologies like neoliberalism and globalization, enriching a select few while sidelining the average American worker. To challenge this, we must scrutinize the frameworks of our educational system, questioning its emphasis on conformity over creativity and its prioritization of standardized intelligence over authentic originality.

To understand our elites, we must first understand how they are educated. The theoretical purpose of education is to teach knowledge that shortens the learning curve for capable individuals, enabling them to focus more time on mastering their profession. Consider mechanic school as an example. Fixing cars is a craft, and at mechanic school, students are taught techniques and shortcuts that significantly enhance their efficiency and skill.

In theory, you could learn to repair cars—or enter any profession—without formal instruction, relying solely on trial and error over time. However, mechanic school condenses this process. What might take four or more years to learn independently can be mastered in just one year through structured lessons and real-world exercises. This is the ideal of education: a reasonable and effective way to accelerate expertise.

Yet, it’s important to recognize that formal schooling is not the only path to mastery. Many have fallen into the trap of believing that expertise can only be achieved through university education and that experts are defined solely by their credentials. This simply isn’t true. You can become an expert in a field without ever having studied it formally. True knowledge and skill can come from experience, self-education, and dedication outside the walls of academia.

What, then, has become the purpose of education today? The unfortunate reality is that education is now primarily about acquiring accreditation—a degree that acts as a license to work. Most students aren’t in school to truly learn; they are there to obtain the credentials necessary to secure a job. In many universities, students learn little of practical value because the education system is not tailored to the specific jobs they might take after graduation. Instead of teaching a craft or preparing students for real-world challenges, higher education often serves as little more than a mechanism to grant credentials.

This issue is compounded by the abstract and theoretical nature of many educational programs, particularly in managerial and administrative fields. The further removed education becomes from practical application, the more it devolves into exercises in theory—detached from reality. Complicating matters, universities are often reluctant to fail students. Failing a student means losing tuition revenue, so the incentive to push students intellectually is overshadowed by the financial incentive to pass them, regardless of their competence. This dynamic fosters an environment where mediocrity is tolerated, and genuine intellectual growth is stifled.

Now consider elite liberal arts education. Every society has an elite, and that elite must emerge from somewhere. Historically, elites arose from aristocracy, with power inherited through family lines. In the United States, however, meritocracy created an avenue for talented individuals from all walks of life to rise through the educational system. Elite liberal arts institutions once served to cultivate originality and independent thought among the best and brightest. These schools were meant to teach students how to teach themselves—how to become lifelong learners capable of mastering any subject.

Unfortunately, this ideal has been largely forgotten. Today, not only elite liberal arts colleges but higher education across Western democracies have become ideological echo chambers. These institutions often prioritize propagating a single worldview—typically aligned with leftist ideologies—over fostering genuine intellectual exploration. Students are encouraged to dismiss alternative perspectives rather than critically evaluate them. Such one-sided indoctrination undermines the very purpose of education.

A truly idiosyncratic and open-minded person is willing to entertain any idea, assess its merits, and determine its validity. Education should cultivate this openness and independence of thought, but in its current state, it falls far short of this ideal.

People who are deeply ideological often lack the ability to think critically. Ideology, by its nature, demands acceptance without question. When someone is taught to adhere to an ideology, they are not encouraged to challenge or analyze it—and as a result, they struggle to argue effectively or even entertain alternative perspectives. This inability to question their own beliefs leaves them unprepared to navigate a complex and nuanced world.

Consider a simple trade, like being a mechanic. A mechanic has a specific skill set and gets hired by a firm that needs their expertise in fixing cars. The relationship is straightforward: they perform their craft, get paid, and the transaction is complete. However, as one ascends into more elite or managerial roles, things become increasingly complicated. Motivations are no longer as clear-cut, and the work requires navigating layers of complexity.

For example, if you work in upper management at a public relations firm, your task might involve creating an advertising campaign to persuade people to buy a product. Unlike fixing a car, this requires understanding human emotions, needs, and desires—and crafting a message that taps into them effectively. It’s no longer a matter of simply applying a trade; it’s about influencing behavior in subtle, intricate ways. This complexity demands critical thinking, creativity, and adaptability—qualities that rigid ideological thinking cannot provide.

Another problem with elite education is the narrow and rigid path required to gain admission to top-tier schools. It’s not just about perfect grades and test scores; students must participate in numerous activities and maintain spotless disciplinary records. The process demands such careful navigation that it stifles natural intellectual curiosity and vitality. A person who is genuinely curious and full of energy is bound to make mistakes—it’s part of being human. Ironically, the most capable individuals often fail the most, and that’s a good thing. Mistakes provide valuable lessons, fostering growth and resilience that shape more capable adults in the long run. However, in today’s system, a single misstep as a teenager can disqualify someone from entering these elite institutions. This means that the very people who might contribute the most are often excluded, while those who succeed in this rigid framework come with their own set of potentially dangerous flaws.

The profile of students who gain admission to elite universities has been distilled into a very specific type. These individuals are highly intelligent and ambitious, but they are also rigidly compliant, rule-following, and extremely risk-averse. They avoid taking any action that could jeopardize their position, focusing solely on what they know will advance their prospects. While this mindset may be well-suited for roles in risk-averse industries like insurance, it is far less effective in most other fields—especially leadership roles, where boldness and innovation are critical. Additionally, these students are often unwilling to challenge the consensus. When faced with prevailing opinions or trends, they follow along almost robotically. This blind adherence to conformity not only stifles their ability to think independently but also leaves them oblivious to absurdities that more critical thinkers would immediately question and reject.

Another notable quality of these elite students is their pronounced individualism. While ambition naturally fosters some degree of individualism—since the drive to outdo others often separates people from the pack—these students take it to an extreme. They have little sense of belonging to something greater than themselves and primarily look out for their own interests, often at the expense of others. Universities do little to foster any sense of collective responsibility or mutual support, leaving everyone to fend for themselves.

This hyper-individualism also makes them susceptible to corruption, though not always in the obvious sense of bribery. While slipping a $100 bill to a police officer is overt corruption, the kind found among elites is often subtler. For example, a CEO stepping down to take a role as chairman of a government regulatory agency overseeing their former industry is a more insidious form of corruption—one that is quietly normalized and even encouraged in elite circles. Compounding the issue is that these students often lack real-world working experience, leaving them ill-prepared to understand or navigate the broader implications of their actions.

Elite students are taught to craft narratives as a substitute for reality, believing that the ability to spin compelling stories equates to being “smart.” This approach thrives in academic environments because these elite institutions exist within insulated bubbles of privilege and wealth, often financed by staggering student loans. Within these bubbles, students can create their own “reality” and ignore the real world, shielded from critique or accountability. As a result, they end up living in a carefully constructed fantasy, detached from the complexities and challenges of life outside their academic enclaves.

The result is that these students graduate with impressive credentials but little to no real-world experience. Government agencies and corporations assume that a degree from an elite university signifies competence, taking these graduates seriously—even if they are mediocre or lack true capability—simply because of the institution’s prestige. Admission to these elite schools effectively determines who will become the future leaders of society. Those who control admissions wield immense power, as they shape the pool of individuals who will ascend to positions of influence.

Moreover, these students are singularly focused on their own advancement and will do whatever it takes to gain admission and remain in good standing at these institutions. Unfortunately, many of today’s graduates lack the ability to think critically. Instead, they parrot the ideological ideas they were taught in university, having been trained to conform rather than to question or innovate.

True creativity is finite—it ebbs and flows. While we can’t easily quantify or measure it, we instinctively know it exists. The key lies in recognizing where and when to express it. For instance, your clothing might serve as a canvas for creativity in certain social settings, but you cannot—and should not—be original in every facet of life. Selectively applying creativity is essential. Attempting to “reinvent the wheel” at every opportunity can lead to wasted effort or missed opportunities.

Think back to school. Perhaps you tried to stand out—through your clothing, your writing, or even the way you expressed ideas. Maybe you submitted a paper that was experimental or unconventional. Sometimes it resonated; other times it fell flat. The problem is that schools often don’t reward this kind of thinking. Our education system, rooted in standardized testing and rigid expectations, tends to stifle originality in favor of practicality. I’ve personally written thought-provoking, original papers only to receive mediocre grades. Instead of being rewarded, my creativity was penalized, ultimately impacting metrics like GPA that are deemed critical for success.

This disconnect reflects a deeper societal issue: the tension between individuality and conformity. The solution is not to suppress creativity but to channel it strategically. Recognize the areas of your life where originality will benefit you most—and focus your efforts there. Save your creative energy for pursuits where it matters, rather than squandering it in contexts where conformity is rewarded.

Originality is like a wild beast. If untamed, it can harm you; but if controlled and directed, it becomes a powerful ally. Reflect on the choices you’ve made—on those original ideas or projects that didn’t pay off. Consider instead how you can wield your creativity deliberately, aligning it with areas where you want to excel. By doing so, you’ll not only stand out but also thrive in a world that often undervalues the power of independent thought.

Ultimately, good judgment is not a product of high IQ or prestigious credentials—it comes from real-world experience and learning through failure. Failing as a young person provides invaluable lessons that shape stronger, more capable adults. In contrast, those who have always been risk-averse and strictly compliant, doing only what they are told, avoid mistakes but also miss the opportunity to develop sound judgment. Without the experience of making and correcting poor decisions, they grow into adults who lack the wisdom to navigate complex situations or discern the best course of action.

AUTHOR

Antonio Ancaya

©2025 . All rights reserved.

South Dakota, Texas Pursue Ten Commandments Displays in Schools

After Louisiana became the first state to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools, a legal battle erupted. Republican Governor Jeff Landry signed the bill in June, and after months of litigation, it can finally be enforced in certain school districts. Now South Dakota may be headed for similar court battles.

Last week, South Dakota state Senator John Carley (R) and Rep. Phil Jensen (R), introduced Senate Bill 51. It reads, “The board of a school district shall display the Ten Commandments in each classroom in each school located within the district. The display must be a poster or document that is at least eight inches by fourteen inches. The text of the Ten Commandments must be the focus of the poster or document and must be printed in large, easily readable font.”

Like the legislation in Louisiana, this proposal also requires that the Ten Commandments be accompanied by a statement explaining their historical significance, which would apply to other documents like the Mayflower Compact and the Declaration of Independence.

“We need to illustrate our history and truth,” Carley urged. “[S]ome people may want to say, ‘We don’t want to talk about these topics,’ but the Ten Commandments certainly were a part of the founding of our country.” Carley also highlighted additional benefits of posting the Ten Commandments. As he put it, “If we find kids honoring their father and mother, a lot of parents will be happy about that. If we find people are not stealing, lying, or murdering, I think our Sheriff Department and law enforcement will certainly be happy.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), on the other hand, quickly criticized the legislation. They claimed it posed a risk of causing “students who don’t follow the state’s approved religious dictates to feel ostracized from their school community.” The ACLU of South Dakota argued that “the First Amendment guarantees families and faith communities — not politicians or the government — the right to instill religious beliefs in their children.” In their opinion, “Displaying the Ten Commandments in our state’s classrooms blatantly violates this promise.”

The group also claimed that “students already have the right to engage in religious exercise and expression at school under current law.” For instance, because students can “voluntarily pray, read religious literature or engage in other religious activities during recess or lunch,” the ACLU believes displaying the Ten Commandments would be a form of “religious conversion.”

On the other hand, South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley (R) supports the bill. On Monday, he said in a statement, “The Ten Commandments already are displayed in the U.S. Supreme Court and other public buildings. The Ten Commandments have influenced the creation of our nation and our rule of law.” A notable trend is forming of lawmakers introducing bills that require the Ten Commandments be displayed in public schools.

Just this week, Texas Senator Phil King (R) reportedly has plans to propose a bill of this same nature. He described the Ten Commandments as the “basis for much of American history and law.” As he put it, “It played such a role in our founding and among our founders. It’s part of our legal heritage.”

During the last Texas Senate legislative session, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick (R) had sought to bring the Bible back into Texas public schools. It was ultimately shut down in the Texas House. Allegedly, it is King’s intention to continue some of what Patrick started. In fact, Patrick had posted on X back in June that “Texas WOULD have been and SHOULD have been the first state in the nation to put the 10 Commandments back in our schools.” He went on to say that the House ultimately killing the bill was both “inexcusable and unacceptable.” But in response to King’s efforts to revive the bill, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) has already offered his support. As he said on X, “Let’s do it.”

Reflecting on these developments, Family Research Council’s Meg Kilgannon shared her excitement with The Washington Stand. “This is great to see other states attempting to include the Ten Commandments in schools,” she stated. “Regardless of your religious beliefs or lack of them,” she contended, “understanding the Law is important for any person’s educational formation.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Critically Thinking about the Federal Department of Education

Three Powerful, Practical, Plausible Recommendations to Improve DOEd

There is now an unprecedented opportunity that Critical Thinkers (that’s us) should take advantage of.

Arguably, for the first time in modern US history, the federal government is:

  1. open to making radical changes in government agencies,
  2. has the right political perspective, and
  3. is receptive to citizen inputs.

Yes, there are always reasons to be skeptical — but the upside is so great that we should assume the best, and offer assistance. For those who are incurably cynical and say no, then you are foregoing your future rights to complain!

I’m polling my Critical Thinking Substack readers as to their best ideas regarding the Department of Health and Human Services (FDA, CDC, etc.), Department of Education (DOEd), Department of Energy (DOE), EPA, and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). [If you have any good connections with the upper echelon of any of these federal Departments, please email me.]

Let’s say that this is the scenario:

a) we are given five (5) minutes for a face-to-face meeting with the Secretary of each of these Departments, and 

b) we are asked to limit our suggestions to three (3) items. Due to these rules, we need to filter out many ideas so that we are left with just three (3) succinct, important, doable recommendations.

This is the second in my series of commentaries to each of the above-mentioned Departments. Below are my suggested three (3) recommendations for the federal Department of Education (DOEd). Critically Thinking readers can constructively weigh in with support or any improvements on what I’ve proposed, in the Comments below…

We’ll then try to get the end product to the new Department of Education Secretary, probably Linda McMahon.

Recommendation #1 —

Redefine its Mission. Here is the boilerplate pablum that is their current mission statement. This should be upgraded to say something like: meaningfully assisting States in producing high school graduates who are competent, productive, healthy, critical thinkers (e.g., see this fine piece). In other words, the Department should leverage the power and money of the federal government to aggressively assist States in fixing the currently deplorable K-12 education system. (Note: in 2024 the Department had $80± Billion in discretionary funding (out of a $250± Billion budget) — that is a LOT of leverage!)

In the process of reformulating DOEd’s mission get rid of bureaucratic bloat. Strip down the Department to the bare essentials. (Right now there are over 4100 employees. How about aiming for 400 — a 90% reduction? Four hundred competent, motivated, mission-focused employees can do a LOT!)

Recommendation #2 —

Clearly spell out what the primary objective of K-12 education should be. Assuming that the 3Rs are properly taught, the #1 objective of every state education system should be to produce Critically Thinking graduates. In other words, States should radically change their education systems from their current focus on teaching students WHAT to think, to instead teach them HOW to think. Since no State is currently doing that(!), this would revolutionize American education. (Note: presently less than ten States even mention Critical Thinking in their Mission statements!)

DOEd should put this as a condition for States to receive money from DOEd. In other words, unless a State can show that their K-12 education curricula is properly teaching students to be Critical Thinkers, they are not eligible for certain DOEd funds.

Recommendation #3 —

DOEd should take an unequivocal stand against age-inappropriate books being in K-12 school classes and libraries (e.g., see here and here). The fundamental problem is that the American Library Association (ALA) does not recognize the issue of age-appropriateness! DOEd has the power and authority to stand up against ALA — much more than most States do.

This idea is already societally accepted in the US. A good example is that the rating systems for movies and TV are based on age-appropriateness. The movie website says: “Established in 1968, the film rating system provides parents with the information needed to determine if a film is appropriate for their children.” Exactly the same thing applies to books being considered for K-12 schools!

To make a profound improvement in K-12 education, the Department should specify that they will not provide any certain DOEd funds to a State that does not have an enforced appropriate official written policy regarding the age-appropriateness of materials associated with their K-12 schools. [Towards that same end the Department should aggressively oppose legislation that undermines the concept of age-appropriateness — like this.]

Yes, I am fully aware that there are a multitude of other education-related issues — and several of them are significant (e.g., see here). The question is, if you only had five (5) minutes to speak to the DOEd Secretary, and were limited to your three (3) best recommendations, what would they be? These are my recommendations.

©2025   All rights reserved.


Here is other information from this scientist that you might find interesting:

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Check out the Archives of this Critical Thinking substack.

WiseEnergy.orgdiscusses the Science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.

C19Science.infocovers the lack of genuine Science behind our COVID-19 policies.

Election-Integrity.infomultiple major reports on the election integrity issue.

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Muslim University Student Who Plotted Jihad Massacre is Latest Failure of Officials Who Vet Migrants

The officials who vet migrants are bound as a matter of policy to ignore that there is any such thing as an Islamic jihad, so vetting failures of this kind are bound to happen.

“Egyptian Student Added to CIS National Security Vetting Failures Database,” by Todd Bensman, Center for Immigration Studies, January 10, 2025:

An 18-year-old Egyptian student at Virginia’s George Mason University who now stands charged with multiple terrorism offenses related to a mass casualty plot on Israel’s consulate in New York is the latest addition to the Center for Immigration Studies National Security Vetting Failures Database. The entry brings the total number of analyzed failure cases to 50.

In March 2023, the Center published the database collection to draw “remedial attention” to ongoing government vetting failures lest they “drift from the public mind and interest of lawmakers, oversight committee members, media, and homeland security practitioners who would otherwise feel compelled to demand process reforms”, according to an explanatory Center report titled “Learning from our Mistakes”.

The FBI arrested Abdullah Ezzeldin Taha Mohamed Hassan on December 17, 2024, for allegedly plotting a mass casualty attack on the Israeli consulate in New York. The case is pending in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Hassan, an Egyptian National, entered the United States in July 2022 as a juvenile and lived in Falls Church, Va., although as of January 2025 the visa granted for him to enter had not been publicly reported.

As a juvenile, he may have entered with parents or relatives on a temporary non-immigrant visa, such as a tourist visa or a J-2 student exchange visa, or even on an F-1 student visa, as there is no age limit for student visas. The U.S. State Department would, however, approve any of these visa types and conduct a personal interview of minors older than 14, like Hassan, who was 15 at the time.

However it was that Hassan entered, perhaps even if he illegally crossed a land border and claimed asylum, he was clearly already radicalized as an Islamic extremist, a circumstance that visa adjudicators or even federal law enforcement agents at the border, apparently could have discovered in his online social media accounts.

This is knowable because, within weeks or months of the juvenile Hassan’s 2022 entry, his social media accounts alerted the FBI, which sent agents to interview him “due, in part, to Hassan’s support for ISIS online”, the recent charging documents said.

Although no charges were filed in 2022, at some point soon after the FBI interviews, the U.S. government reportedly decided a mistake had been made. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) put Hassan into deportation proceedings, which were pending by the time he enrolled in George Mason University (GMU) to study information technology, probably in 2023 or 2024.

Hassan was still an enrolled active student in the summer and fall of 2024 when FBI agents were again actively investigating him undercover and saw him on the GMU campus, an agent affidavit said.

Again, Hassan’s online activities on several X social media accounts had drawn FBI attention. The bureau sent in an undercover agent online upon discovering that Hassan, who portrayed himself as an admirer of Osama bin Ladin and ISIS branches in Afghanistan and West Africa, was openly fantasizing about killing infidels and wanted to martyr himself in a mass-casualty attack.

Court documents reveal examples of Hassan’s alleged posts of him musing about killing Jews and, in one case, noted that a football player’s forehead was a “sniper’s dream”.

In one X account, Hassan boastfully shared an AI analysis of his profile that stated: “Based on our AI agent’s analysis of your tweets, you are a young radical Islamist extremist who is obsessed with jihad and violence against perceived enemies. Your tweets suggest a deep-seated hatred and intolerance towards those of other faiths, particularly Jews.”

“Yep I am an extremist,” Hassan later posted….

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The 20+ Safest Online Communities for Kids

Children and the internet are a complicated combination. According to a survey by Internet Matters, children spend an average of 4.4 hours per weekday online. Parents want to know that their children are safe when using the internet, especially unsupervised.

To help, I’ve combed through the internet to find online communities for children that are safe places for them to socialize, express themselves, and learn how to use online services. Each resource has strict security protocols that ensure user safety, including moderating the use of banned words and phrases, chat restrictions, parenting oversight, and controls.

If you are a parent, you can feel your child is safe when they access any of the 23 online communities in this article.


Games

1. Animal Jam

URL: https://www.animaljam.com/

Specialty: Online game

Age Appropriate for: 7+

Price: Free (Premium Items)

Market(s): Desktop (PC/MAC), iOSAndroidAmazon

Animal Jam is an online space where kids can interact and play with friends in a safe and educational environment. Players can personalize their animal avatar, decorate their den, play mini games, and explore the game’s lush virtual world.

Online safety is a primary concern, with active chat filters and in-game moderators ensuring kids have a friendly and clean online experience. Animal Jam’s developers work closely with the Children’s Advertising Review Council (CARU) and are certified under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.

Animal Jam uses its platform to educate children on the dangers associated with being online and empower them to explore the internet safely. They also learn about real animals and their natural habitats. Users can create and accessorize their avatars, as well as their avatar’s homes (aka, dens). The game is free to play but also offers paid subscriptions.


2. Franktown Rocks

URL: https://www.franktownrocks.com/

Specialty: Online Games

Age Appropriate for: 10+

Price: Free

Franktown Rocks is a free-to-play online multiplayer game aimed at children ages 8 to 12. Young gamers get to create their own characters and interact with the online world of Franktown. Users can play games, watch videos, make music, and explore the world using their avatars and a range of vehicles.

Customization of avatars and homes allows young minds to express their creativity in a free and safe space. The game enables users to make friends with other gamers and socialize through shared online activities and experiences.

Franktown Rocks uses human and automated moderation to keep its site safe and enforce a no-bullying policy. The entire Franktown Rocks platform is COPPA compliant, meaning no personal information is collected at any time.


3. Home Base by Scholastic

URL: https://kids.scholastic.com/kid/homebase/

Specialty: Book-based games

Age Appropriate for: All ages

Price: Free

Market(s): Desktop (PC/MAC)iOS, Android 

Scholastic: Home Base is a free-to-use 3D world that keeps children engaged through interactive stories. The platform uses storytelling to help children improve key education-based skills including  geography, astronomy, physics, spelling, and writing. Users are encouraged to learn how to express themselves through writing stories and creating comics that bring their imagination to life.

Scholastic: Home Base also has over 20 single-player and eight multiplayer minigames that cover a range of styles, from action and strategy to puzzles and word games. The different book-based games are all set within recognizable worlds such as the Marvel Universe, Geronimo Stilton, and The Baby-Sitters Club.

To keep its platform safe, Scholastic Home Base offers 24/7 human moderation and a sophisticated automated filter to ensure content safety. The platform offers two levels of chat capabilities, global and local, for more private conversations between existing friends.


4. Minecraft

URL: https://www.minecraft.net/

Specialty: Gaming platform

Age Appropriate for: 7+

Price: $5.04/Year (Minecraft Education), $6.99 (Minecraft Pocket), $29.99 (Minecraft Desktop)

Market(s): Desktop (PC/MAC)iOSAndroid, Console

Minecraft is an online sandbox game in which the only limits to creativity and exploration are the players’ own imaginations. It is the best-selling video game of all time, with over 300 million copies sold, and is available on all gaming platforms, tablets, PCs, and mobile devices.

As a playable experience, Minecraft is suitable for all ages; however, it does include some combat elements. Players can play the game in two modes: creative and survival. While there is a storyline of sorts that players can complete, many gamers prefer the creative aspect of the game, building complex structures and complete towns and worlds that they can then share with other players.

The concept of Minecraft is simple. Players create and place different blocks of the same size and shape to create whatever they can imagine. The game also has chat filters and a reporting system that helps to control and mitigate inappropriate conduct on the game servers. Accounts also have parental controls, so parents of younger gamers have better oversight of their children’s gaming activities.

Alongside the standard game, Minecraft Education is an alternative version designed to teach users about AI, computer science, and digital citizenship. It helps gamers learn about problem-solving, collaboration, and empathy.


5. Moshi Monsters Rewritten

URL: https://moshirewritten.com/

Specialty: Online game

Age Appropriate for: All ages

Price: Free

Market(s): Desktop (PC/MAC/Linux)

Moshi Monsters Rewritten is a model of the original game recreated by fans. It gives kids a fun place to explore and collect Moshi monsters. Users must care for their monsters while engaging in social interactions with other players and taking part in a range of educational activities.

The world of Moshi Monsters offers a range of varied activities. In addition to adopting and caring for their monsters, users can customize their monster pets, play games with them, decorate their virtual rooms, engage with others via the Friends Tree and Pinboard, or visit other players’ virtual homes.

Moshi Monsters is a vivid and colorful world, and the central news hub is a newspaper called The Daily Growl. The information displayed is easy to read, perfect for the age demographic of its primary user base.

To keep children safe, the platform monitors and moderates chat rooms using patented filtering technology. Players also have the option to report and block users who violate the game’s code of conduct.

Moshi Monsters Rewritten is not associated with Moshi Monsters or the development studio, The Mind Candy Company.


6. New Club Penguin

URL: https://newcp.net/

Specialty: Online game

Age Appropriate for: 6-14

Price: Free

Market(s): Desktop (PC/MAC/Linux)

New Club Penguin is a wintery MMORPG set on Penguin Island. Players can customize their penguin avatar and igloo. The island offers 25 minigames in which players earn coins, rewards, and stamps. Coins can then be used to purchase new outfits and decoration items.

New Club Penguin is targeted toward younger gamers aged 6 to 14. Users can connect with others around the world. Maintaining a safe space is essential with such a young player base, and New Club Penguin is moderated 24/7. As a secondary safety measure, players cannot type numbers into the game.

New Club Penguin provides children with a fun and safe online environment to play and explore.


7. PK XD

URL: https://en.playpkxd.com/

Specialty: Games

Age Appropriate for: 9+

Price: Free (In-App Purchases)

Market(s): Desktop (PC/MAC)iOSAndroid

PK XD is an online open-world multiplayer experience aimed at kids aged nine and above. The PK XD universe is a place filled with unbelievable adventures where young gamers can connect with friends and let their imaginations flourish by designing and accessorizing their own avatars and pets.

PK XD also offers users a host of entertaining minigames to play alone or with friends, as well as a myriad of cool vehicles that gamers can use to navigate the PK XD universe.

While players can socialize with one another in the game, the developers of PK XD understand the need for safety; all chatting is done through pre-written phrases. This means no manual text can be entered or sent, keeping the tone of conversations safe and appropriate for the target age group.


8. Roblox

URL: https://www.roblox.com/

Specialty: Gaming platform

Age Appropriate for: All ages

Price: Free

Market(s): Desktop (PC/MAC)iOSAndroid, Console

Roblox is a global platform hosting an estimated 40 million game experiences. While gamers of all ages use the platform, it primarily targets children, typically nine and up.

Users can build their own games and share them with others, or play existing games that others have made. All of the games offer an immersive 3D experience with a design style best described as a mash-up of Minecraft and Lego.

Roblox offers a place for young gamers to meet and explore a range of games, including racing, fashion design, and obstacle courses, as well as hangouts and even concerts. With over 79.5 million daily users, the platform understands the need for rigorous safety mechanics especially given the in-game chat feature, which allows any user to talk to another.

Given Roblox’s huge player base, we recommend parents enable the game’s most stringent safety controls. This includes removing in-game chat options completely or controlling who is allowed to chat with your child’s account. Roblox also offers robust chat filters with human and AI moderators, age-based permissions, spending limits, a built-in reporting system, and even avatar clothing detection to ensure that digital characters remain age-appropriate.

While Roblox is free-to-play, users can purchase premium in-game content. Parents who are concerned about microtransactions may want to monitor or restrict their child’s spending.


9. Stardoll

URL: https://www.stardoll.com/

Specialty: Fashion community 

Age Appropriate for: 13-18

Price: Free 

Stardoll is an online community for teenagers with an eye for fashion and creativity. With almost 500 million players from over 200 countries, it is the largest online community of its kind. Members can create their avatars and let their creativity shine as they clothe their characters, decorate their homes, and socialize with others.

Stardoll members can strike up friendships and spend time together online chatting, playing games, and creating clubs. Stardoll is used by players of all ages; however, accounts for people under 13 have additional restrictions to keep them safe.

Beyond that, Stardoll constantly monitors its platform and has clear rules and codes of conduct. Name-calling and inappropriate language are not tolerated, and those who break the rules risk having their accounts terminated.


10. ToonTown Rewritten

URL: https://www.toontownrewritten.com/

Specialty: Online game

Age Appropriate for: All ages

Price: Free

Market(s): Desktop (PC/MAC/Linux)

Toontown Rewritten is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). It offers a safe online space for children, teens, and adults. The game has an endless storyline, which is the battle against the cogs, a corporate villain intent on turning the town into a new business.

ToonTown Rewritten offers a wealth of activities, from relaxing to action-packed. Gamers can participate in races, unlock bigger and better karts and new tracks, or go fishing to catch all the different fish species. Other activities include gardening, golfing, hosting parties, and adopting and caring for ToonTown’s native pets, Doodles.

ToonTown Rewritten is presided over by a team of moderators who check every single report that comes through to ensure ToonTown remains a safe online world for players of every age. The game also has measures in place to prevent the use of inappropriate words and phrases in chat sessions and stop the sharing of personal information.


11. Webkinz

URL: https://www.webkinz.com/

Specialty: Online game

Age Appropriate for: 6+

Price: Free (membership options) 

Market(s): Desktop (PC/MAC)iOSAndroid 

Webkinz is a bright and colorful virtual world for children aged six and over. Webkinz is a safe and educational platform where users can adopt, care for, and customize their own pets and homes, and can also engage with their friends through a variety of chat areas.

Webkinz provides children with a fun space to express themselves online. Safety is paramount for Webkinz, and all chat areas are heavily moderated while parents are also given additional chat controls, including permission management and third-party ad exposure.

Webkinz claims to be the original toy-to-life game, meaning that many of the playable pets in the game are also available as plush toys in the real world. This allows children to expand their roleplay in real life, encouraging creativity and imaginative play.


Social Media & Forums

12. Azoomee

URL: https://www.azoomee.com/

Specialty: Games and Videos

Age Appropriate for: 5-10

Price: Free

Market(s): iOSAndroid 

Azoomee is a BAFTA-nominated app bursting with all the things kids love and designed for children aged 5 to 10. Azoomee provides children with a safe and positive online experience, giving them a platform filled with games, videos, TV shows, activities, and more.

Azoomee’s creators worked with education and children’s media experts to collate a library of shows, videos, and games that aim to engage with children and help aid their development. This includes games that build problem-solving and strategy, as well as videos that fill young minds with wonder and introduce them to topics such as science and the natural world.

The app also has a chat feature, but all friend connections must be vetted and approved by a parent or guardian before communication starts. All parental controls and settings are PIN-protected to ensure child safety is maintained.

Additionally, Azoomee helps educate children on being smart and staying safe online through its series Search It Up, which earned a BAFTA nomination.


13. Grom

URL: https://www.gromsocial.com/

Specialty: Social Media app

Age Appropriate for: Exclusively for kids under 13

Price: Free

Market: iOS

GROM is a child-focused social media platform designed for children aged under 13. The platform is COPPA-compliant and recognized by the CARU Safe Harbor program. GROM provides children with the ability to connect with new and existing friends, share photos, and interact in a moderated environment.

To keep the platform safe, GROM has a 5-layer safety system that uses video-based age recognition, content filtering, human moderation, user reporting, and parental monitoring.

Parental monitoring features include content oversight for all posts, comments, and messages, along with customizable screen times and account settings.


14. KidzSearch

URL: https://www.kidzsearch.com/

Specialty: Search engine/forum

Age Appropriate for: 9-13 

Price: Free

Market(s): DesktopiOSAndroid

KidzSearch is a specialized internet search engine for children. All results are safe and filtered for ages 13 and under. KidzSearch uses Google’s search settings as a base with additional age-appropriate filtering. Kids can customize the background of their search experience on KidzSearch and are encouraged to engage with others in a safe introduction to the online world.

Within the engine, KidzSearch also offers a social media platform designed for children called KidzNet, and an informative Q&A portal called KidzTalk. Both are heavily moderated, and all content is reviewed before being published.

KidzTalk encourages children to ask and answer questions and offers polls, blogs, and quizzes. There are over eighteen thousand questions and more than fifty-one thousand answers currently on the site, and all users are encouraged to submit both whenever they can.


15. Kidzworld

URL: https://www.kidzworld.com/

Specialty: Social hub

Age Appropriate for: 9-16

Price: Free

Kidzworld is a social networking platform created for children and teens aged 9 to 16. The platform offers users a safe and moderated online forum to make friends, socialize, and learn how to express themselves in an online world.

Kidzworld complies with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and works hard to maintain a platform that protects its members from bullying, inappropriate language, and anyone who doesn’t belong on the platform.

Kidzworld provides an array of online activities to keep users entertained, including chat rooms, forums, quizzes, games, and articles on a wide range of interesting and informative topics.


16. Kinzoo Messenger

URL: https://www.kinzoo.com/kinzoo-messenger

Specialty: Social Media app

Age Appropriate for:  6+

Price: Free

Market(s): iOSAndroid 

Kinzoo is a child-focused messaging platform that lets young friends keep in touch through voice and video calls, as well as chat windows that allow the sharing of photos and videos in a safe and secure environment.

Kinzoo also offers a number of free games. When accounts are created, mobile users can select several games for free, with others available for purchase. Providing their friends have the same game, they can play through the app. Mobile users get to choose free games, but tablet users have to pay for any game they play.

Kinzoo holds certifications from kidSAFE+ and COPPA and works in a similar fashion to standard messaging services, but all contacts are controlled through a central parental account.  All incoming friend requests must be approved by the parent on their device before children can chat. Parents can also change PINs and report inappropriate content to the Kinzoo team.


17. LEGO® Play

URL: https://kids.lego.com/en-gb/play-app

Specialty: Creative social app

Age Appropriate for: All ages

Price: Free

Market(s): iOSAndroid 

LEGO® Play is a new kid-safe platform that combines the creativity of LEGO with the convenience of technology. LEGOPlay allows users to let their ideas run wild and share their creations with others via a kid-friendly social media feed.

The entire social space is well-moderated, granting children the freedom to explore and connect with new friends. Users can leave comments on other people’s work and build personalized profiles with avatars and nicknames to protect their identities.

The app also offers a range of minigames and LEGO videos for users to fully immerse themselves in the world of LEGO.


18. TrevorSpace

URL: https://www.thetrevorproject.org/trevorspace/

Specialty: Supportive social community  

Age Appropriate for:  13-24

Price: Free

TrevorSpace is an inclusive online platform for young members of the LGBTQ+ community. A social platform targeted toward teens and young adults aged 13 to 24, TrevorSpace provides a safe and supportive space for people exploring their identity and working to understand their sexuality and true self. Users can connect with friends worldwide by joining clubs and sharing their interests to connect with like-minded individuals.

TrevorSpace understands the need for security in the online sphere and maintains its platform by using online moderators and AI technology, ensuring it always offers a safe platform that encourages self-expression free from judgment or harassment.


Educational Platforms

19. Khan Academy & Khan Academy Kids 

URL: https://khanacademy.org/

Specialty: Educational

Age Appropriate for: All ages (2-8 for Khan Academy Kids)

Price: Free (accepts donations)

Market(s): DesktopiOSAndroid

Khan Academy Kids is a child-focused offshoot of Khan Academy, a non-profit organization that offers free, high-quality educational resources without advertisements to children aged 2-8. Older children will find similar resources on the main Khan Academy site.

Khan Academy and Khan Academy Kids offer lessons on a wide range of subjects and allow students to learn at their own pace. The app and website enable kids to satisfy their curiosity about a subject, bolster existing knowledge, and supplement ongoing studies.

All lessons available on Khan Academy or Khan Academy Kids are delivered through a combination of practice exercises and instructional videos. The program also offers a personalized learning dashboard so students can track their progress and adjust their learning to their own pace and capabilities.


20. Scratch 

URL: https://scratch.mit.edu/

Specialty: Coding community

Age Appropriate for: 8-16

Price: Free

Market(s): DesktopiOSAndroid

Scratch is the world’s largest free coding community designed for children aged 8 to 16. Scratch uses a simple visual interface and drag-and-drop features to help young minds build animations, games, and stories. Scratch helps children develop computational thinking and problem-solving skills through creative teaching methods, encouraging self-expression and collaboration. Scratch is free and available in over 70 languages.

The Scratch community is a safe space for people to discuss and share their work with others. Basic private data is taken during sign-up and securely kept; it is never sold or passed on to third parties. The community itself is moderated and has active filters on chat messages to ensure appropriateness at all times.


21. The Open Canopy 

URL: https://learn.outofedenwalk.com/

Specialty: Educational/cultural 

Age Appropriate for: 3-19

Price: Free

The Open Canopy is a fun and engaging online forum for children and young adults aged 3 to 19. The Open Canopy offers students a range of ”learning journeys,’’ 8-12 week curriculum-styled programs. Students from all over the world undertake these journeys and are encouraged to share their efforts on The Open Canopy’s online platform to help young people learn about different cultures.

Seeing the same assignment completed by people of different faiths, races, and geographical locations is an educational and eye-opening experience. The intention is for students to talk to one another and open dialogues that supplement the cultural learning experience offered by the various programs.

Community belonging and accountability are key to the ongoing safety of The Open Canopy students. Participants are reminded to be respectful and reflective, and they are encouraged to speak up and be compassionate, attentive, and brave. There are also clearly written community guidelines outlining what types of posts and language are inappropriate.


22. Tynker

URL: https://www.tynker.com/

Specialty: Coding community 

Age Appropriate for: 5+

Price: Subscription (Quarterly, Yearly, Lifetime)

Market(s): DesktopiOSAndroid

Tynker is an online educational platform that aims to teach children as young as five about coding. It offers a wide range of courses, apps, and lessons that help children develop an interest and gain experience in writing code. The lessons are fun and include teaching children how to create their character skins in Minecraft.

Children get to share their coded games and other projects with fellow users. Tynker uses this sharing capability to motivate children to grow their coding skills. The Tynker platform teaches children how to code in real-world applicable languages such as Python and Java, helping to prepare them for school and the world beyond education.

In dealing with such a young user base, Tynker prioritizes online safety and has moderators checking and approving every project that is published before it becomes available to users. This helps ensure that no age-inappropriate content is shared on the site. The platform has also taken the step to remove messaging and commenting, instead using heart reactions to show support for other coders.


23. Write the World

URL: https://writetheworld.org/

Specialty: Creative writing

Age Appropriate for: 13-19

Price: Free

Write the World is a free online community for young writers looking to find their voice and grow their critical thinking, reading, and general communication skills. The Write the World organization is targeted at people aged 13-19.

On the Write the World platform, young voices can develop in writing, editing, and publishing their work among their peers. They can also learn how to receive criticism and handle feedback. The different educational programs offered on the site incorporate virtual class groups, writing prompts, lesson plans, educational resources, college essay programs, and writing workshops.

Write the World keeps the community safe by monitoring accounts and ensuring registration information is checked and verified. If moderators feel a user infringes on the site’s policies, they will terminate access to the website and groups. Similar steps are taken against accounts that upload inappropriate work or do not comply with the platform’s terms of service and general purpose.


Conclusion

Safety and security are paramount for young people who spend time online. Most of the resources I’ve listed are solely for children and young teens, where they can safely spend creatively and socially. Knowing there are online communities where they can spend their time, with no risk of being exposed to inappropriate material, offers parents invaluable peace of mind.

These online communities offer children a safe space, and many also help teach children about the dangers of the internet and how to stay safe online.

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AUTHOR

The Bible and the Schools

Irony of ironies. There was an attempt to ban the Bible from school libraries in a conservative state because of a law against risqué content in school books.

The Mirror out of the UK reports: “A Texas school district has reportedly been forced to remove copies of the Bible after a new state law banned books that were ‘sexually explicit.’ It was revealed in an email from Canyon Independent School District Superintendent Darryl Flusche, that the holy book had been deemed unsuitable due to ‘sexually explicit material.’”

It clearly appears that school officials are trying to play “gotcha” with opponents of sexually explicit schoolbooks. The Mirror added, “Several parents were reportedly furious with the news. During a school board meeting earlier [in December 2024], Canyon ISD parent Regina Kiehne told school officials it ‘seems absurd to me that the Good Book was thrown out with the bad books.’”

The blowback was so strong, school officials retreated from their guileful position in the face of widespread opposition.

I’m glad to hear that some of the school districts in Texas allow the Bible on school property at all. But it’s a shame that ever since the Supreme Court ruled in the Abington v. Schempp case of 1963, many school districts have banned the Good Book altogether from the schools (while at the same time often allowing all manner of LGBTQ pornography).

In Schempp, the court declared as unconstitutional use of the Bible for devotional purposes in the classroom. But they added that the Bible has its place in a well-rounded education.

Said the majority of the justices: “It certainly may be said that the Bible is worthy of study for its literary and historic qualities. Nothing we have said here indicates that such study of the Bible or of religion, when presented objectively as part of a secular program of education, may not be effected consistently with the First Amendment.”

For decades, many public school systems have systematically gone way beyond what the Supreme Court decided. Personally I think many of those Supreme Court decisions, such as Schempp, were wrongly decided. They grew out of a bias in favor of secularism and opposed to religion. Frankly, this country was founded by Christians for religious freedom, which they generously offered to other groups.

The irony of the Bible being controversial in the schools is that this is the book that helped create the educational system in America.

When you trace back education in our country, you see the Bible was the chief motivating factor. It was so that people could read the Bible for themselves that schools were started in the first place.

The first law regarding education in America is nicknamed “the Old Deluder Satan Act.” The Puritans, the founders of Boston, wanted their children to learn how to read so they could read the Scriptures for themselves.

The act explicitly states that this was a counter-measure against the devil, who wants people to remain ignorant of the Word of God.

This 1647 Act states: “It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures…and that Learning may not be buried in the graves of our fore-fathers in Church and Commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors: it is therefore ordered… [that every township] shall then forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read.”

The children even learned their ABCs with Bible lessons. The widely used New England Primer taught: “A-In Adam’s fall, we sinned all. B-thy life to mend, the Bible tend. C-Christ crucified, for sinners died.”

The original colleges and universities were started to train ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Harvard’s original motto (in Latin) was “Truth for Christ and the Church.” The first president of Princeton, Rev, Jonathan Dickinson, said, “Cursed be all learning contrary to the cross of Christ.” Except for Cornell (founded 200 years after Harvard), all of the Ivy League schools were explicitly Christian.

And on it goes.

Founding father and Declaration of Independence signer Dr. Benjamin Rush declared, “The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in RELIGION….Without this, there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments. . .. the religion I mean to recommend in this place is the religion of JESUS CHRIST.” [emphasis his]

Dr. Rush also warned of the consequences when schools ignore teaching the Bible: “I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them.”

We need more Bible in the schools, including the public schools, not less.

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