Supreme Court hears oral arguments on key case involving parental authority and freedom of religion

Should public schools be allowed to force your children to sit for instruction using ‘storybooks’ featuring homosexuals, lesbians, bisexuals, queers and trannies? Two federal courts have said yes! 

Last week I posted a seminal article about a Massachusetts couple being prosecuted for daring to reject, on religious grounds, their pediatrician’s attempts to forcibly vaccinate their 9-month-old baby.

When Social Services intervened and made an attempt to seize custody of all five of their children, the couple fled to Texas. They were eventually tracked down by an army of law-enforcement authorities from the local, state and federal levels. This couple are now being put on trial for kidnapping their own kids from state custody.

The case has shocked the consciences of all Americans who thought they still lived in a free country and I warned that parental authority is emerging as THE ISSUE of our time. If something this fundamental can be stripped away from us, the state will see all other freedoms as fair game. It’s just a matter of time. Total tyranny is right around the corner.

Well, today I have another case to report that’s just as outragious, showing how parental authority is indeed under attack in this once-free country of ours.

It comes to us via Amy Howe at SCOTUS Blog. Her article confirms that last week’s article is no outlier. The fact that a case like this was even litigated and that two federal courts ruled against the parents is remarkable. Now it’s awaiting a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

By Amy Howe

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Tuesday (April 22) in the first of two cases in April involving religion and public schools. In Mahmoud v. Taylor a coalition of parents from Montgomery County, Md., contend that requiring their children to participate in instruction that includes LGBTQ+ themes violates their religious beliefs and thus their First Amendment right to freely exercise their religion.

Montgomery County, in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., is the largest school district in Maryland and one of the country’s most religiously diverse counties. The dispute before the justices on Tuesday began in 2022, when the county approved books featuring LGBTQ+ characters for inclusion in its language-arts curriculum. One book used for young children, Pride Puppy, tells the story of a puppy that gets lost during a Pride parade. Another book tells the story of a girl attending her uncle’s same-sex wedding.

When the county announced in 2023 that it would not allow parents to opt to have their children excused from instruction involving the storybooks, a group of Muslim, Catholic, and Ukrainian Orthodox parents went to federal court. They contended that the refusal to give them the option to opt their children out violated their constitutional right to freely exercise their religion – specifically, their ability to instruct their children on issues of gender and sexuality according to their faith and to control when and how these issues are introduced to their children.

The lower courts rejected the parents’ request for an order that would temporarily require the county, while the litigation continued, to notify the parents when the storybooks would be used and give them a chance to opt out of instruction. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit explained that on the “threadbare” record before it, the parents had not shown that exposure to the storybooks compelled them to violate their religion.

The parents came to the Supreme Court in September, and the justices agreed to take up their case.

In their brief in the Supreme Court, the parents point to two different Supreme Court cases. First, they say, more than 50 years ago in Wisconsin v. Yoder, the justices “recognized ‘beyond debate’ the First Amendment right of parents ‘to guide the religious future and education of their children.’” This means, they say, that under the free exercise clause, parents can opt out of instruction that would “substantially interfere with their religious development.”

In Yoder, the parents observe, the court held that Amish parents did not have to send their children to school after the eighth grade, because they believed that doing so conflicted with their religion and way of life. Here, the parents say, they are merely seeking to be able to excuse their young children from one particular subset of the public schools’ instruction that “deliberately seeks to confound their religious values.”

And under the Supreme Court’s 1993 decision in Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, the parents continue, the school board’s policy is unconstitutional because it is neither neutral nor generally applicable. The board of education, the parents stress, has “long allowed notice and opt-outs for any ‘instruction related to family life and human sexuality.’” But by contrast, the parents write, they cannot opt to have their very young children sit out discussions on “sexuality and gender identity during English class.” Moreover, they add, board members have displayed “explicit religious hostility” to the parents who have objected to the curriculum, suggesting that they were aligned with “white supremacists” and “xenophobes.”

The Trump administration filed a brief supporting the parents. Sarah Harris, then the acting solicitor general, told the justices that because the county will not notify the parents before the LGBTQ-themed storybooks are used or give them an opportunity to opt out of instruction using those books, parents can only comply with their religious obligations to their children by withdrawing their children from public school altogether. “That,” Harris contends, “is textbook interference with the free exercise of religion” – even if the parents’ children do not ultimately feel pressured or coerced by the instruction using the storybooks.

The Montgomery County Board of Education (along with the superintendent of schools, Thomas Taylor, and members of the board) counter that under both the Constitution and the Supreme Court’s cases interpreting the free exercise clause, the parents must show that either they or their children are being coerced to change their religious beliefs or practice. The Supreme Court, they contend, has never held that when parents opt to send their children to public schools, their children’s exposure to material to which their parents have religious objections is the kind of coercion needed to establish a claim under the free exercise clause, and it should not do so here.

The board cautions that accepting the parents’ argument that the lack of an opt-out option imposes a burden on their religious beliefs would “leave public education in shreds” “by entitling parents to pick and choose which aspects of the curriculum will be taught to their children.”

But in any event, the board continues, the parents have not shown that in this case that there has been any coercion. They have not provided any evidence, the board stresses, “that any parent or child was penalized for his or her religious beliefs, asked to affirm any views contrary to his or her faith, or otherwise prohibited or deterred from engaging in religious practice.”

The Supreme Court, the board writes, should not consider the parents’ argument that the policy is not neutral and generally applicable, because they did not make it in the lower courts. But in any event, the board adds, the policy is in fact both of those things: “It treats comparable religious and secular activity exactly the same; no opt-outs from ELA lessons using the storybooks are permitted.” And there is no indication that the policy was based on a hostility to religion. Instead, MCPS decided to stop the opt-outs because it received too many requests that were not based on religion.

A decision in the case is expected by late June or early July.

This article was originally published at Howe on the Court.

©2025 . All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Can Parents Opt Out? Supreme Court Takes on School LGBT Story Hour Case


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Trump Admin Gets Serious About Collecting Defaulted Student Loans After Borrowers Got A Pass Under Biden

The Department of Education (ED) Monday announced it will begin involuntary collection efforts for student loans after a five year pause.

A senior department official told the Daily Caller News Foundation the effort is aimed at removing the burden from taxpayers since involuntary collections were put on pause during the pandemic in March 2020 and never resumed under the Biden administration. ED will begin referring defaulted student loans to collections starting May 5 through the treasury offset program.

“The federal government student loan portfolio has continued to grow and we’ve got a record amount of our borrowers that are at risk of or in delinquency and default,” a senior ED official told the DCNF. “The federal student loan portfolio is headed towards a fiscal cliff if we don’t start repayment and collections.”

Only one in four borrowers are current on their student loans and as many as 4,000,000 borrowers are in late-stage delinquency of between 91 and 180 days, a department official informed the DCNF. About 35% of the federal student loan portfolio are 60 days delinquent and 5.3% have been in default for more than seven years.

“The current administration believes that American taxpayers can no longer serve as collateral for student loans. Student loan debt must be paid back,” the official said.

After a 30-day notice, the department will begin an administrative wage garnishment for unpaid loans beginning in the summer.

The department plans on kickstarting a “significant outreach effort to make borrowers aware of the obligations they have” as well as notifying them of the programs available for repayment, such as the income-driven repayment.

“We wholly believe that Congress has a role to play in fixing the higher education system that puts students in a position where they can afford their loan payments,” the department official told the DCNF. “So we’re looking forward to working with Congress on their efforts to streamline loan repayments as well as lowering college costs.”

Student loan repayments were temporarily paused during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic during the first Trump administration but the pause was continuously extended since. Former President Joe Biden attempted several times to forgive student loan debt, though many efforts were ruled unconstitutional.

AUTHOR

Jaryn Crouson

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republishd with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Trump Admin Freezes Additional $1 Billion In NIH Grants To Harvard University

The Trump administration is pausing more than 500 grants worth an additional $1 billion from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to Harvard University, senior HHS officials told the Daily Caller.

Senior Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) officials told the Caller that the decision to pause the funds is because the institution has been “intransigent with respect to obligations to protect students on this campus from the effects of insidious antisemitism.” The grants include those that were funding the institution’s training of its scientists and other non-clinical trial grants, the officials told the Caller. The frozen grants will not effect the care of any children, the officials added.

“Harvard needs to fully come into compliance with Title IV of the 1964 Civil Rights Act,” a senior HHS official told the Caller regarding what the university needs to do to have the funds unfrozen. “They need to remedy the violations of Title IV with respect to Jewish students on campus, they need to make sure that the not violating title six with respect to their admissions practices, and they need to provide sufficient guarantees that this conduct is not going to repeat itself.”

The Trump administration previously sent a list of demands to the institution, asking for several audits on their response to anti-Israel protests on campus and their admissions process. The institution released a public letter defying the administration’s requests. From there, the Trump administration moved to freeze $2.2 billion to the university. Monday’s action, shared with the Caller by senior HHS officials, is in addition to the $2.2 billion frozen.

“[Harvard’s public letter] clearly demonstrates that the university can, when motivated, respond quickly, but we’ve seen them go 18 months without apparently being sufficiently motivated to address the rampant antisemitism on this campus,” one senior HHS official told the Caller.

Since the Trump administration’s initial opening demand of the university, officials have not received any formal outreach from the institution, the sources told the Caller.

Harvard University sued the Trump administration on Monday over the frozen funds, the New York Times reported.

As far as if there are additional funding freezes in Harvard University’s future, a senior HHS official told the Caller that “all options are on the table,” but there weren’t specific grants they were currently considering pausing next.

“This is a pause of grant funding, not a termination. So we can assuming Harvard decides to come back into compliance with his federal civil rights laws, be turned back on,” a senior HHS official told the Caller.

The Trump administration has taken a sledgehammer to the Ivy League, pausing billions of dollars to several universities over their response, or lack their of, to alleged anti-semitism on campus.

In March, Trump’s Education Department warned 60 institutions, including all the Ivy league institutions with the exception of Penn and Dartmouth, that it would take action if they “do not fulfill their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students on campus.”

The administration followed up the letter in April, pausing $210 million to Princeton University and $510 to Brown University while federal investigations take place into the institution’s response to anti-semitism on campus are ongoing.

AUTHOR

Reagan Reese

White House corespondent. Follow Reagan on Twitter,

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Critically Thinking about Goal-Oriented Parenting

This is the second most important challenge of most people’s life. 

Writing this, I’m audaciously stepping into the area of expertise of my friend John Rosemond.

John has made a career out of giving parenting advice. At one point, he had a weekly column in a few hundred US newspapers. See his excellent books here. He has also given hundreds of popular parenting talks all over the country. I’m sure that he will share his wisdom in the comments below.

Triggering Life-Changing Thoughts —

Let’s say that when cleaning their attic, two parents came across a Genie.

After getting introduced, the Genie said that he ordinarily grants three wishes, but since there are two of you (and he feels generous), today he’ll grant four! His offer is that he will grant their wishes for four (4) outcomes for their six-year-old child by the time they turn 18.

What would the parents ask for?

The first parent gave this some thought and said that they wanted their child to be:

  1. Healthy
  2. Happy
  3. Straight A student, and
  4. Successful in some sport.

The second parent could see some merit in their partner’s thoughts, so decided to build on them. After some joint critical thinking and discussion, they both agreed that their final answer was for their child to be:

  1. Physically Healthy (have good dietary and exercise habits.
  2. Mentally Healthy (be a Critical Thinker).
  3. Socailly Healthy (communicative, considerate, etc. and…
  4. Spritually Healthy (have a strong Value System, e.g. sound morals.

Regarding the first parent’s original thoughts, they mutually agreed that if their child has these four things, it will also be almost guaranteed that they will be a happy, well-performing student, with success in some sport!

Note that their answer said nothing about them being best friends with their child, which is a very common major parenting mistake. The parents’ job is to see that their child turns into an adult with the above attributes — not to be their BFO. Interestingly (as explained here), being your child’s best friend and a proper parent are frequently in direct conflict.

If parenting is successful, the new adult will have a superior chance of being a happy, productive person. That is the ultimate parental reward.

What would YOU say if you had that opportunity?

The two main points of this fantasy exercise are that parents should:

  1. Have very specific goals regarding what they will call successful child rearing (ideally in writing to minimize misunderstandings), and
  2. Then decide whether their K-12 schooling is an asset or liability regarding each of their goals. (Where it is not, they need to fix that!)

To answer #1, parents need to take a major step back and resolve what their goals are for themselves!

Whether we think about it or not, there will be a day of reckoning for every one of us.

It’s up to each of us to decide what will happen at that time, and then live appropriately.

My view is that when we cash our chips in, there will be a final balancing of our account. What will be the assets and liabilities listed on that ledger? Most importantly, what will be the Net?

The Bottom Line —

My perspective is that these are the two most important life goals:

  1. Have a successful life — i.e., finish with a net asset ledger, and
  2. Assist others to end up with a net asset ledger.

These “others” can be:

  1. Members of your original family (e.g., a sibling),
  2. Spouse
  3. Child
  4. Relatives
  5. Friends or acquaintances
  6. Other associates (e.g., readers of this Substack)

Some other interesting articles about child-rearing:


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About Those Students Arrested by the Department of Homeland Security

According to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, 300 foreign students, such as Mahmoud Khalil at Columbia and Rumeysa Ozturk at Tufts, who are here in the United States on student visas, have now been arrested, and are threatened with deportation by the Department of Homeland Security. These 300 have been variously charged with a variety of offenses: providing support to Hamas, a designated terrorist group, both in person and on social media; calling for the destruction of the state of Israel (“From the river to the sea/Palestine shall be free”), urging violence against Jews everywhere (“Globalize the Intifada”), participating in campus violence, including physically harassing and attacking Jewish students, trying to shut down classes taught by Jewish professors, entering and vandalizing campus buildings, attacking campus police and janitorial staff, and much more. Douglas Murray discusses it all here.

All this gets especially messy because at the same time that portions of the right want to effect outrage at things which are essentially unimportant, the left is trying to focus on a much more important free-speech battle.

They believe that if someone supports a radical terrorist group or comes to the United States and tries to cause civil unrest or vandalism that they should somehow be protected by the First Amendment.

In recent days and weeks even some esteemed conservative writers have backed up this position.

As well as the case of Mahmoud Khalil, there is now also the case of Rumeysa Ozturk. Like Khalil, this person came into the US claiming to be a student. She came in on a student visa.

The Turkish-born student has now been detained. She seems — like Khalil — to have made a fundamental misunderstanding about what it means to come to the US as a student.

First of all she — like him — is not protected by the same laws that would protect an American citizen. She was not born in this country, is not a citizen of this country and was — in fact — a guest in this country.

But the left — and some on the right — are gearing up to make her their latest “free-speech martyr.” Yet even free speech for American citizens stop at the moment that you support the harassment of American students.

It stops at the moment that you encourage and engage in acts of vandalism and violence on American college campuses — among other places. And it stops when you support foreign and domestic terrorist movements.

As Marco Rubio said yesterday, there is no reason why any country in the world should invite people into it whose intent is to cause civil strife. What country would invite people in and then reward them for trying to cause trouble in their host country?

As Rubio said of the Ozturk case: “We gave you a visa to study and earn a degree — not to become a social activist tearing up our campuses. If you use your visa to do that, we’ll take it away. And I encourage every country to do the same.”

Senator Josh Hawley managed to hold the sane eminently sensible line yesterday when he berated people claiming that assaulting campus police and smashing up buildings is “protected speech.” It isn’t.

Words are not violence. Violence is violence. The woke left never liked to remember this. But conservatives shouldn’t forget it either.

The defenders of these students who have been arrested and will have their cases heard in a court of law keep claiming that what is at stake is “their right to freedom of speech.” No, it is not. Theirs is not a free speech matter. What is at stake, among other things, is the violent part these people play in suppressing the freedom of speech of others. They shout down pro-Israel speakers, entering lecture halls to interrupt such speakers with chants — “Stop Ethnic Cleansing,” “End the Genocide,” “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free,” and most threatening of all, “Globalize the Intifada.” They violently invade university buildings, and vandalize them, writing pro-Hamas graffiti on walls. They attack campus police trying to regulate the tent encampments that they set up in the middle of campuses. At Columbia, the pro-Hamas brigade entered Hamilton Hall, and proceeded to break furniture and write on the walls. When members of the janitorial staff tried to stop them, they were attacked. One of the janitors was so wounded that he spent five days in the hospital.

Right now, Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk are being presented as martyrs on the altar of free speech. But it is the active participation in violence of the former, and the approval expressed for Palestinian violence by the other, that have gotten them in trouble. They were greatly privileged to have been allowed into our country for study. But they greatly abused that privilege, and if justice is done, Khalil will be back in the despotic mess that is Gaza, or possibly end up teaching at Birzeit University (ranked as the 1,946th university in the world) in Judea (or is Samaria?). As for Ms. Ozturk, she can look forward, if justice is done in her case, to returning to Turkey, to be ruled by the dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as he tightens the screws of his regime. Neither one will be able to exercise the freedom of speech they so abused in warm-hearted and welcoming America. Both will lament their paradise lost, which only when they are far away, in their respective political hellholes, will they begin to appreciate.

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

DHS Just Added Itself To Harvard’s List Of Trump Admin Adversaries

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Wednesday revoked its own grants from Harvard University over its alleged failure to address antisemitism.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced the department is canceling two grants totaling $2.7 million to the school as part of a continued crack down against antisemitism on campus, according to a press release. Noem said the school is “unfit to be entrusted with taxpayer dollars.”

“Harvard bending the knee to antisemitism — driven by its spineless leadership — fuels a cesspool of extremist riots and threatens our national security,” said Secretary Noem. “With anti-American, pro-Hamas ideology poisoning its campus and classrooms, Harvard’s position as a top institution of higher learning is a distant memory. America demands more from universities entrusted with taxpayer dollars.”

The Secretary wrote Harvard a letter demanding details on any violent and illegal activities committed by foreign student visa holders. The letter warned that, if the records were not turned over by April 30, Harvard would lose its Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification and be unable to admit foreign students altogether.

Noem claims the $800,303 Implementation Science for Targeted Violence Prevention grant “branded conservatives as far-right dissidents in a shockingly skewed study,” while the $1,934,902 Blue Campaign Program Evaluation and Violence Advisement grant “funded Harvard’s public health propaganda.”

“Both undermine America’s values and security,” the press release stated. “With a $53.2 billion endowment, Harvard can fund its own chaos—DHS won’t.”

The Trump administration on April 11 demanded Harvard agree to a list of reforms to the way it handles antisemitism after a September congressional investigation found “Harvard failed” to enforce meaningful punishment on nearly 70 students who were involved in a multi-day pro-Hamas encampment during the previous spring semester. The changes asked of the school included reforming and better enforcing disciplinary processes for students who participate in antisemitic protests, improving screening of international students for “hostile” views towards America and auditing “programs with egregious records of antisemitism.”

In a public statement Monday afternoon, Harvard declared it “will not surrender” and refused the proposal. The Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, made up of the Department of Education (ED), Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) swiftly revoked over $2 billion in grants to the university hours later.

“Harvard is aware of the Department of Homeland Security’s letter regarding grant cancellations and scrutiny of foreign student visas, which—like the Administration’s announcement of the freeze of $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million in contracts, and reports of the revocation of Harvard’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status—follows on the heels of our statement that Harvard will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” a Harvard spokesman told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “We continue to stand by that statement. We will continue to comply with the law and expect the Administration to do the same.”

“Harvard values the rule of law and expects all members of our community to comply with University policies and applicable legal standards. If federal action is taken against a member of our community, we expect it will be based on clear evidence, follow established legal procedures, and respect the constitutional rights afforded to all individuals,” the spokesman continued.

AUTHOR

Jaryn Crouson

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Critically Thinking about K-12 Books

My response to a local example of K-12 book misinformation. 

I’ve written about the horrific corruption of K-12 library books and textbooks before (e.g., see here and here). This continues to be a very hot item as:

a) the Left has prioritized the subversion of our children’s minds,

b) major national forces (like the American Library Association*) are aggressively supporting this,

c) there is no well-coordinated, effective national response from the Right (like DOEd), and d) to date no State has passed adequate legislation to assure that K-12 libraries and classes only have age-appropriate books

Re “d”, remember that those who are calling for DOEd to be closed are saying to turn over the K-12 education to these same 50 states. This is one of many pieces of evidence that indicates that such a plan makes no sense.

Anyway, in my popular local newspaper, a citizen just wrote in complaining about supposed “book banning” in our county schools. Below is the Letter to the Editor (LTE) that I promptly sent in as a reply (and it was accepted).

Note five subtleties in my response:

  1. The person who wrote the initial LTE has an unusual name, so it’s not clear whether this is a man or a woman. Rather than use Woke pronouns, I refer to that individual as “the writer,” etc.
  2. Even though what they wrote was ignorant, I carefully called their beliefs wrong, rather than saying they were wrong. Big difference!
  3. Although this fight is about values (as Judeo-Christian values are being assaulted), I avoided using that word, as it is more likely to stir emotions. Instead, I am making the focus on the age-appropriateness of books, etc. which is less flammable.
  4. In an attempt to make the age-appropriateness more understandable, I repeatedly used a specific example: an eight-year-old child. I purposefully added the “child” part to further emphasize the age disparity.
  5. Many of those on the Right who are involved with this issue, focus on books that are sexually inappropriate. IMO this is a strategic mistake, as there are several other subject areas that make a book age-inappropriate. Broadening the issue expands our support. See my examples below.

A famous golf axiom is that almost all golf bets are won (or lost) before even teeing off. The reason is that the stipulated conditions will favor one golfer over the other.

In this day and age of rampant political misinformation, this is a favorite tactic used: to mischaracterize an issue in a way that stacks the deck in favor of the complainer. Such an example appeared in a Carteret News-Times (NC) LTE on 4-12-25. The earnest writer pleaded against “book banning” — but there was no such action being taken or considered!

The one — and only — issue regarding K-12 library books and textbooks is: is the book material age-appropriate for the children involved?

For example, it is not age-appropriate for books available to an 8-year-old child to include such content as gratuitous violence, drug promotion, profanity, self-mutilation, beastiality, etc.

Consider three facts:

  1. the American Library Association explicitly states on their website that they do not believe in age-appropriateness* [so we can see where the problem lies],
  2. for decades, movies have been labeled by age-appropriateness [and exactly who has been harmed by such labeling?], and
  3. local schools are not “banning” any books.

Regarding #3: a) just because an author writes a book, they are not entitled to have it purchased with taxpayer dollars to be in every US K-12 school, b) purchased books should be clearly marked as to which age they are appropriate for, and c) if a school does not have every book that a parent would like their child to read, parents can obtain said books on their own, for their child. So nothing is “banned.”

Lastly, regarding other opinions expressed by the writer:

  1. Not having books on depraved violence, etc. available for an 8-year-old child does not “cause them to read less.” I contend that it is exactly the opposite.
  2. Not having books on drug advocacy, etc. available for an 8-year-old child does not “hinder their critical thinking.” Eight-year-olds do not have the experience and maturity to perform critical thinking on such material.
  3. “Educators are handicapped due to a decline in available books.” There are thousands of age-appropriate books for every age group of K-12 students, so if that is an educator’s experience they should solicit their library to buy more of the many age-appropriate books that are out there.
  4. “Reading diverse books helps develop a strong sense of self and empathy for others.” Agreed, as long as they are age-appropriate.

If this writer (and others of a similar mindset) would apply Critical Thinking to this issue, they will see the overwhelming evidence that age-appropriateness is the main criterion that should be carefully applied to textbooks and library books in our K-12 schools.

{FYI, for those who are not subscribed to my free popular twice-a-month Newsletter (see below), in the last issue I posted a link to good people who are trying to identify some of the many objectionable books, by State and by school in each State. It is a work in progress. Please make a donation.}

* K-12 school librarians play a key role as to which books are purchased for the school library. Most of these librarians are also members of the American Library Association (ALA). The ALA adamantly opposes the concept of age-appropriateness! Their website makes it crystal clear what their official position is:

Access to Library Resources and Services for Minors: “Library policies and procedures that effectively deny minors equal and equitable access to all library resources available to other users violate the Library Bill of Rights. The American Library Association opposes all attempts to restrict access to library services, materials, and facilities based on the age of library users.”

The question is: is a K-12 school librarian acting in the interests of parents and school children, or are they an agent disseminating ALA ideology?

©2025   All rights reserved.


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

I am now offering incentives for you to sign up new subscribers!

I also consider reader submissions on Critical Thinking on my topics of interest.

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.

Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2024 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time – but why would you?

‘Will Not Surrender’: Harvard Scoffs At Trump Admin’s Demands To Address Antisemitism

Harvard University announced Monday it will not agree to the Trump administration’s demands to address antisemitism on campus.

The Department of Education (ED) sent a letter to the Ivy League school April 11 demanding the school agree to a host of reforms, including adjusting and enforcing disciplinary processes, improving screening of international students for “hostile” views and auditing “programs with egregious records of antisemitism.” Harvard cited academic freedom concerns and free speech rights in its announcement rejecting ED’s demands.

“We have informed the administration through our legal counsel that we will not accept their proposed agreement,” Harvard president Alan Garber wrote in the announcement. “The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”

ED, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the General Services Administration (GSA) initiated in late March a review of more than $8.7 billion worth of grants to Harvard after a September investigation by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce found that “Harvard failed” to discipline students who engaged in antisemitic campus protests. Harvard demonstrators disrupted classes, occupied a campus building and a set up a multi-day encampment.

At the time of the Committee’s investigation, none of the 68 students referred for discipline action regarding their role in the spring semester encampment were suspended.

In its letter to ED, Harvard stated it “is committed to fighting antisemitism and other forms of bigotry” on campus and that it “has undertaken substantial policy and programmatic measures” to address such incidents.

Following the Trump administration’s announcement of Harvard’s grant review, the university preemptively ran to Wall Street, issuing bonds to the tune of $750 million. Harvard has an endowment of over $53 billion.

“Harvard has served as a symbol of the American Dream for generations – the pinnacle aspiration for students all over the world to work hard and earn admission to the storied institution,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in March when announcing the review of the school’s grants. “Harvard’s failure to protect students on campus from anti-Semitic discrimination – all while promoting divisive ideologies over free inquiry – has put its reputation in serious jeopardy. Harvard can right these wrongs and restore itself to a campus dedicated to academic excellence and truth-seeking, where all students feel safe on its campus.”

ED has already revoked funding from several other Ivy League universities over their noncompliance with civil rights laws and federal directives, slashing millions from ColumbiaCornell and Princeton.

The Trump administration has been committed to rooting our antisemitism on college campuses after violent protests were allowed to go on for over a year unchecked. In February, the administration assembled the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, made up of the ED, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and HHS. The task force stated its “first priority will be to root out anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses” and has since begun its review of schools’ compliance with civil rights enforcement.

The following month, ED sent letters to 60 universities warning them of “potential enforcement actions” if they did not step up to protect Jewish students from harassment and discrimination.

A Harvard spokesman referred the Daily Caller News Foundation to the university’s announcement in response to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

Jaryn Crouson

Contributor.

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RELATED VIDEO: Trump GOES TO WAR With The Ivy League

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Critically Thinking About Success: Part 2

Applying the Success Equation to U.S. K-12 Education. 

This is a follow-up to Critically Thinking about Success (Part 1). I’m following the same format, but looking at how we can achieve success by relatively quickly fixing America’s totally broken K-12 education system…

I’ve always had a fascination with why certain people stood out from the crowd and were successful. As I developed my Critical Thinking skills, I researched and paid attention to what common traits these people had — and applied them to a variety of issues that I’ve dealt with.

I contend if we follow the five Traits below, that will maximize our chances of success regarding what to do with the Department of Education (DOEd)…

Trait #1: Have a specific, high, attainable vision of what they want

Successful people are often called dreamers — as they see possibilities that almost everyone else discards as pie-in-the-sky. But their dreams have at least three characteristics:

a) they are precise (not vague),

b) they are aspirational, and

c) they are within reason. These three attributes help a believer to stay focused on their vision.

The VISION is: to transform DOEd so that it facilitates a significant improvement of the US K-12 education system, within five (5) years.

As with almost all visions of successful people, the vast majority of citizens will be skeptical that this can be done. They will have an array of excuses (like the fifteen listed here), but to Critical Thinkers, there are legitimate counters to every concern regarding DOEd.

Trait #2: Don’t reinvent the wheel

One way or another, almost everything has already been done before. (In fact, many historians look at history as a collection of repetitious cycles. A related famous saying is: “If you don’t learn from history, you are doomed to repeat it.”)

There are two primary ways of learning: Education or Experience. I found that those who are successful maximize the education part. In other words, a significant key to success is to learn as much as possible from the failures and accomplishments of others.

Most people are saying something like: “Get rid of DOEd because they have been a disaster.” That statement is absolutely true, but is getting rid of DOEd our best option to bring about our Vision? Unequivocally NO!

Critical Thinkers will approach this situation by saying: “Let’s identify and learn from the multitude of DOEd mistakes made in the past — and see that the transformed DOEd avoids those pitfalls.”

For example, Critical Thinkers will notice that DOEd never spelled out what the top priorities were for our K-12 education system! That is a simply stunning omission that explains a lot.

The good news is that this is easy to fix quickly. This error is compounded by the fact that when I read the Mission Statements of all fifty State Education Departments, there is zero uniformity among these!

So a powerful role that DOEd can play is leadership. The goal would be to get all States to have the same K-12 education objectives. How they achieve them will be left up to each State. See fifteen examples where DOEd leadership can be an extraordinary game changer.

Trait #3: See an exceptional opportunity when it presents itself

We ALL have been presented with (and will continue to be in the future) multiple opportunities. Unfortunately, many people don’t recognize most opportunities until they are in the rearview mirror. Successful people have developed the acuity to recognize a much greater selection of opportunities than others do.

We literally have in our grasp a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to quickly and substantially improve the American K-12 education system. Again please carefully read fifteen powerful examples of what can easily be done.

To not take full advantage of this opportunity will in the future be looked at as a watershed mistake in American history. To consciously choose to make the situation worse (by turning over K-12 education to some fifty failing bureaucracies) would be criminal.

Trait #4: Intelligently take advantage of opportunities when presented

There are talkers and doers… Recognition of opportunities is an essential matter — but it is for naught if it isn’t acted on.

As a physicist, I can tell you that one of the fundamental principles of physics is the Law of Inertia. Basically what it means is that it takes more energy (effort) to get a stopped object to move forward, than it takes to get an already moving object to continue to move forward. The same applies to organizations. If their leaders are in a moving forward mindset, they will be more open to opportunities than someone who is defensively protecting their turf, or who simply decides a priori that something can’t be done, is too much trouble, etc.

The facts are that DOEd Secretary Linda McMahon:

1) can fire anyone at DOEd,

2) can hire anyone for DOEd,

3) can establish whatever policies and procedures she wants,

4) can spend $80± BILLION of annual discretionary funds anyway she sees fit, etc., etc.

What this means is that Linda can scrap the entire DOEd and start over —with essentially full control over every important aspect of it. In other words, Linda has the power to transform DOEd into a major beneficial force regarding American K-12 education.

This needs to be fully appreciated as an unprecedented opportunity, which requires prompt, meaningful action on her part to have DOEd blossom into a fabulously powerful force for good.

Trait #5: Be persistent to overcome the inevitable roadblocks that will be in the way

Every lofty goal comes with an assortment of obstacles. If they weren’t there everyone else would be doing it, and it would no longer be a lofty goal — it would be an everyday matter. So having a positive, persistent attitude is a key attribute of successful people.

There will be obstructions and obstacles in transforming DOEd into what it should be — like a large collection of vocal naysayers who lack the vision of how to convert DOEd into a major success.

We need to keep our eye on the prize, which means staying focused on the extraordinary benefits to America from starting to annually graduate 4± million well-educated, thinking citizens (instead of what’s happening now: annually graduating 4± million non-thinking citizens who are indoctrinated with progressive ideology). Reversing those figures would be profoundly beneficial to America’s future.

The Takeaway

There are no guarantees in life. Even if you adopt the above five traits, unforeseen circumstances might derail an otherwise good plan. I have a few adages I adhere to, and the most important one is: “Work as if everything depends on you, but pray as if everything depends on God.”

The benefits from properly transforming DOEd reimburse every cost and sacrifice at least a hundred times over. All we need is the vision and an unwavering commitment to make it happen.

©2025   All rights reserved.


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

I am now offering incentives for you to sign up new subscribers!

I also consider reader submissions on Critical Thinking on my topics of interest.

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.

Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2024 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time – but why would you?

Harvard, Columbia Plunge in Law School Rankings Amid Anti-Semitism Backlash

Both Ivy League schools received poor marks on the Anti-Defamation League’s 2025 campus anti-Semitism report card, with Harvard earning a “C” and Columbia a “D.” 

Harvard and Columbia Law Schools both plummeted in the 2025 U.S. News ranking amid ongoing controversies over campus anti-Semitism, while Vanderbilt University and the University of Texas at Austin joined the prestigious “T14” list.

Harvard slipped to No. 6—its lowest ranking ever—while Columbia fell to No. 10.

By contrast, Vanderbilt and UT Austin—which work to combat campus anti-Semitism, according to the Anti-Defamation League—climbed 5 and 2 spots, respectively, to tie for No. 14.

The ranking marks Vanderbilt’s first-ever appearance in the “T14,” a longstanding label for the top 14 law schools in the United States, according to legal commentator David Lat.

The shake-up for Harvard and Columbia comes as the schools have faced public scrutiny over their repeated failure to protect Jewish students and rein in anti-Semitic protests on campus.

The Trump administration, which has pledged to cut funding from universities that fail to curb anti-Semitism, revoked more than $430 million in federal funds from Columbia and is reviewing nearly $9 billion in contracts and grants at Harvard.

Both Ivy League schools received poor marks on the Anti-Defamation League’s 2025 campus anti-Semitism report card, with Harvard earning a “C” and Columbia a “D.”

The ADL evaluated 135 universities based on their administrative policies, responses to anti-Semitic incidents, and protections for Jewish students.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Trump taps Yehuda Kaploun as U.S. antisemitism envoy

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EDITORS NOTE: This World Israel News column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

Critically Thinking About Success

Plus some tidbits from my personal experiences. 

I’ve always had a fascination with why certain people stood out from the crowd and were successful. As I developed my Critical Thinking skills, I researched and paid attention to what were common traits these people had — and applied them to myself. I’m sharing these with you and then will show an example of how I personally utilized this information.

[Note: The example I am citing below is financial success, but the traits apply to any type of success.]

Trait #1: They have a specific, high, attainable vision of what they want

Successful people are often called dreamers — as they see possibilities that almost everyone else discards as pie-in-the-sky. But their dreams have at least three characteristics:

a) they are precise (not vague),

b) they are aspirational, and

c) they are within reason (not that you are going to beat Tiger Woods’ golf records).

These three attributes help a believer to stay focused on their vision.

When I was 25 my vision was: I wanted to be able to retire by the time I was 40.

I had an interesting job at GE Aerospace (and was soon promoted to management), but I had other interests in life. To be able to enjoy them, I needed to be financially independent, so that I would be able to go where I wanted, and do what I wanted, when I wanted. I shared my vision with some co-workers and friends. They smiled and said: “That’s nice — good luck with that!”

Even though I didn’t know anyone who retired by 40 (through their own efforts), this was a high goal that I was quite sure was doable if I adequately applied myself to it.

Trait #2: They don’t reinvent the wheel

One way or another, almost everything has already been done before. (In fact, many historians look at history as a collection of repetitious cycles. A related famous saying is: “If you don’t learn from history, you are doomed to repeat it.”) There are two primary ways of learning: Education or Experience. I found that those who are successful maximize the education part. In other words, a significant key to success is to learn as much as possible from the accomplishments and failures of others.

After considering (and in some cases trying out) several strategies to bring about retirement by 40, I decided to invest in real estate. A critically thinking person knows that a trial and error (i.e., the experience) approach to real estate investing (or any other such option) likely takes way too long (putting at risk my goal of 40), and will also likely result in unnecessary financial and other setbacks that could jeopardize the whole plan.

I did not have the benefit of knowing anyone who had done this, so I chose to learn from strangers. I went to a local bookstore and bought every book they had on investing in real estate. Over the next year or so I carefully read some fifty of those books. Some books were fabulous and others I maybe only picked up one good idea. However, my perspective was that one usable idea could give me $10,000 profit — so that was a good return on a $20 investment (for the book) and 3± hours of reading.

Trait #3: They see opportunity when it presents itself

We ALL have been presented with (and will continue to be in the future) multiple opportunities. Unfortunately, many people don’t recognize most opportunities until they are in the rearview mirror. Successful people have developed the acuity to recognize a much greater selection of opportunities than others do.

I was in rural upstate NY, which was not identified by anyone as a hot spot for real estate investing. That said, my real estate investment crash course (the 50± books) gave me some ideas about what to look for. Before buying any property I also created my own documents that would help me assess opportunities — like a Return on Investment (ROI) form.

BTW, some of the 50± books I read were on Income Taxes, as understanding (and taking advantage of) tax laws is a very important part of a successful real estate investment strategy. It also clarified for me what category of real estate I should be investing in.

Trait #4: They intelligently take advantage of opportunities when presented

There are talkers and doers… Recognition of opportunities is an essential matter — but it is for naught if it isn’t acted on.

As a physicist, I can tell you that one of the fundamental principles of physics is the Law of Inertia. Basically what it means is that it takes more energy (effort) to get a stopped object to move forward, than it takes to get an already moving object to continue to move forward. The same applies to people. If you are in a moving forward mindset, you will be more open to opportunities than someone who is defensively protecting their turf, or who simply decides a priori that something can’t be done, is too much trouble, etc.

All the planning in the world means little if you aren’t willing to jump into the deep end. Shortly after the book education phase, I started making offers on select real estate properties. The details of getting appropriate real estate brokers, lawyers, banks, etc. is too long to go into here, but I also did that.

Before I got married (age 26) I had purchased my first real estate investment, as well as a home. My wife was on board and was supportive in several ways. We were on our way!

Trait #5: They are persistent, overcoming the inevitable roadblocks that are in the way

Every lofty goal comes with an assortment of obstacles. If they weren’t there everyone else would be doing it, and it would no longer be a lofty goal — it would be an everyday matter. So having a positive, persistent attitude is a key attribute of successful people.

From the get-go, I had several challenges regarding my real estate investing plan. One example is that I had limited cash to buy properties. As a 25-year-old, I had already started saving but had not had enough years to accumulate an appreciable amount. Once again I turned to the 50± books I had read for clever ideas on leveraging, etc.

There were multiple other problems to deal with. For example, we bought a home in November, that had been shut down. The Realtor assured us that the water had been properly drained. I worked on upgrading the unheated home over the Winter. In the Spring when I turned on the water, I ended up having to repair some 40 pipe breaks and leaks — some within walls. Ugh. The water had only been shut off, not properly drained. Lesson learned.

The Takeaway

There are no guarantees in life. Even if you adopt the above five traits, unforeseen circumstances might derail an otherwise good plan. I have a few adages I adhere to, and the most important one is: “Work as if everything depends on you, but pray as if everything depends on God.” This perspective has worked for me, but you decide what’s best for you.

Here is the result of my real estate saga. Since I was paying close attention (not just robotically going forward), I realized when I was 34 that I had attained my goal of financial independence — several years ahead of schedule. So I formally retired from my management job at GE. (I remember at my exit interview the higher level manager told me that he thought my “retirement” was a ploy to get a promotion. Funny.) My wife also retired from her executive secretary position at a major manufacturing company.

Subsequently, many people asked how we were able to retire at age 34. If they seemed to be genuinely interested I would outline the plan I adopted. To this day I’m surprised how many people’s first reaction was something like “You were lucky!”

A careful reader will know that luck had very little to do with it…

The plan for my next Substack commentary is to show how success with the failing US K-12 education system is finally in our grasp — but it means applying the above five traits.

©2025 All rights reserved.


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

I am now offering incentives for you to sign up new subscribers!

I also consider reader submissions on Critical Thinking on my topics of interest.

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.

Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2024 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time – but why would you?

EXCLUSIVE: University Of Kentucky Offers To Violate State Law To Trans Kids — Changes Tune When Reporter Notices

The University of Kentucky’s hospital system hypothetically offered to provide transgender services to a child, which would constitute a violation of state law, according to an investigation by the Daily Caller.

A staff member for the UK HealthCare Department of Family and Community Medicine at Circle told the Caller on March 31 that they would schedule an appointment for hormone therapy for a hypothetical 15-year-old child.

“Um, yes, we do have trans … health at Circle,” the staff member said during a phone conversation.

“I also wanted to say that he’s also 15, I wasn’t sure if that changes anything,” a Caller reporter stated.

The staff member replied, “It does not.”

When asked specifically what services Circle provides, the staff member explained, “Hormone therapy — we don’t do the surgeries but we do have a facility that does surgery.”

Republicans in the Kentucky legislature passed a law in 2023 that would ban sex change surgeries, hormone therapy, and puberty blockers for patients under 18. Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed the legislation, but the legislature overrode his veto in March 2023. Beshear claimed the ban would “endanger the children of Kentucky.”

The University of Kentucky said in a statement to the Caller the next day, April 1, that they follow state law, as well as President Donald Trump’s executive order pulling federal funding from healthcare facilities that provide gender transition services to minors.

“The University complies with State Law and President Trump’s Executive Order on Gender Affirming Care,” Kristi Willett, the executive director of public relations for the University of Kentucky, told the Caller.

Trump signed an executive order Jan. 28 prohibiting federal funding from going to hospitals and healthcare facilities that offered sex changes to minors. The order was paused in late February after two federal judges issued preliminary injunctions in response to legal challenges against the president’s action. A Daily Caller investigation found that more than three dozen hospitals were still offering the services to minors.

Former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said in a statement that hospitals who “chemically and surgically mutilate” children “should be held accountable.”

“Protecting Kentucky kids is not up for debate. President Trump and Kentucky lawmakers took decisive actions to end this permanent, life-altering harm. Any medical professional who chemically and surgically mutilates vulnerable children in secret or under the guise of some rebranded effort should be held accountable,” Cameron told the Caller.

The Caller called UK HealthCare’s Circle clinic again on April 2, the day after receiving a statement from the university denying that they were violating state law. This time, the Caller was given a different story as to whether or not they are still providing “gender affirming care.”

“I just spoke with my manager and she said there is a new law where apparently they have to be over 18 for hormone therapy,” a staff member said. “They could still be scheduled in the clinic but they would not be able to do the hormone therapy.”

Republican Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman did not respond to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

Amber Duke

Senior Editor. Follow Amber on Twitter

RELATED ARTICLES:

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Arizona State Arrests 69 at Encampment

University Under Federal Investigation for Antisemitism

Following the lead of students at Columbia University who made the first pro-Hamas encampment on a U.S. campus on April 17, 2024, dozens of protesters at Arizona State University (ASU) descended upon ASU’s Alumni Lawn on April 26, 2024, at 8:45 a.m.

The protest was organized by Students Against Apartheid, which calls itself “a coalition of ASU students, clubs, and community orgs coming together to end ASU’s investment in the settler colonial state known as ‘Israel.’”

Armed with long-term supplies and tents, protesters quickly established a Hamas solidarity camp, which they dubbed the “ASU Liberated Zone.”

The encampment illegally occupied the newly renovated Alumni Lawn, the public-facing entrance to the university.

Officials immediately released a statement saying the encampment was unauthorized and violated the university policy and the Student Code of Conduct.

In addition, an ASU representative made clear that tents are not allowed anywhere on campus.

Unlike other universities where protests wreaked unending havoc on campuses for weeks, the administration responded swiftly.

The administration offered no path to negotiation or accommodation to the protesters who were violating university rules. The ASU police department was called in and by 9 a.m., officers were already tearing down tents.

Despite protesters linking arms to protect the encampment, the area was completely cleared. Three arrests were made after officers informed protesters they were in violation of misdemeanor trespass statute ARS 13-1502, which states it is illegal to remain on “property after a reasonable request to leave” by law enforcement.

Protesters quickly began rebuilding the encampment. They established a perimeter and proceeded to make demands, including:

  • A ceasefire in Gaza
  • ASU President Michael Crow’s resignation
  • Divestment by the university from “all companies tied to the state of Israel or complicit in the occupation of Palestine”

The university gave the protesters an 11 p.m. deadline to clear the encampment. By 6 pm, the crowd had swelled to 400 people.

Beginning at 10:40 p.m. and again at 11:47 p.m., police, who had been facing off with protesters, warned the protesters to disperse.

In addition to trespassing, the police informed the crowd that the encampment was also in violation of Arizona Revised Statute 13-2902, a class one misdemeanor that forbids unlawful assembly “with the intent to engage in conduct constituting a riot.”

Five minutes after the last warning and with no response from the crowd, the police moved in.

By 2 a.m. and with assistance from the Arizona Department of Public Safety and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, ASU PD had arrested 69 protesters, mainly from the front lines. The crowd, which had shrunk to about 200 people, began dispersing.

Clean-up crews behind the police cleared the encampment.

Pro-Israel students helped authorities clean up the encampment

Of those arrested, only 20 were students; the rest were outside agitators. Despite this fact, Lexsari Coronado, an ASU student affiliated with the Party for Socialism and Liberation who is credited with organizing the protest, declared,

“This is just a student movement rising up and we are rising up with them. The movement is always student-led. The students are uprising, and this is changing the movement for Palestine. And yeah, we’re — we’re basically gonna stay here until our demands are met.”

Immediately after their arrests, the 20 students were suspended for violating the university’s anti-camping laws, banned from campus and prohibited from communicating with professors about coursework.

Three days later, on April 30, 2024, the 20 students filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona against the Arizona Board of Regents.

Despite participating in a clearly demarcated illegal protest, the students charged that their First Amendment rights had been violated and sought a preliminary injunction to lift their suspensions.

The suit alleged that the consequences imposed upon them by ASU were causing them “irreparable harm” due to their inability to enroll in classes and meet academic requirements for graduation.

The district court judge denied the student’s motion to have their suspensions lifted and ruled that the students did not provide sufficient evidence that their First Amendment rights had been violated.

The judge also found insufficient evidence to support their claim that their suspensions were causing irreparable harm.

As of March 2025, the lawsuit is ongoing. The students amended their complaint, adding more defendants, and the sheriff asked for and received an extension to respond to the new complaint.

On Oct. 9, 2024, Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell filed criminal trespassing charges, a Class Three misdemeanor, against 68 of those originally arrested. The charge carries a maximum penalty of 30 days in jail, a $500 fine and a year of probation. To date, trial dates have not been set.

In filing the charges, Mitchell stated, “The right to free speech does not extend to violating the law.”

Federal Investigation into ASU Over Complaints of Antisemitism

In January 2024, the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into ASU after receiving complaints of antisemitism at the university.

The complaints charge that Jewish students at ASU have felt “threatened and discriminated against” since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.

As reported by Campus Reform, whose Editor-in-Chief Dr. Zachary Marschall filed the complaints with the DOE, ASU’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) held an event on October 8, 2023, just one day after the massacre to help students “learn about the Palestinian liberation struggle against the U.S. and Israeli war machine.”

Five days after the massacre, on Oct. 12, 2023, ASU SJP held a “day of resistance” rally where students carried Palestinian flags and chanted “Free, Free Palestine” as well as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a call for Israel’s destruction.

The complaint asks for “sanctions against the University to the fullest extent [that the DOE] is able to impose them as well as forcing the University to ensure its funds are not sent to organizations spreading antisemitism.”

ASU is “one of several dozen universities accused by the Trump administration in March 2025 of allowing antisemitic harassment and discrimination to run rampant on campus,” reports Axios.

Arizona Advances Bill to Ban Encampments

Rep. Alma Hernandez, the Tucson Democrat who introduced the no encampment bill in the Arizona state legislature

State legislator Alma Hernandez, a Democrat from Tucson, is the principal author of a bill that would ban encampments on college and university campuses currently making its way through the Arizona state legislature.

Hernandez says the bill is a reaction to the wave of post-October 7 protests, which she charges were breeding grounds for antisemitism and illegal activity.

The Arizona House advanced the bill by a decisive margin on March 3, 2025. It now heads to the Senate.

In an interview with KJZZ Phoenix, Hernandez explained the need for the bill. “… both at the Arizona State University and University of Arizona, intimidating students because they are Jewish and trying to stop them from being able to walk… that’s problematic,” she said. “… No student should ever have to … find an alternate route to go to class. No student should have to be in a situation where they are harassed or pushed [which] did happen at Arizona State.”

Hernandez said that while she supports protesting and freedom of speech, those rights do not extend to criminal trespassing.

“What would people be saying if we had people out there who were literally calling for the death of black individuals on college campuses? I guarantee you people would have a problem with it … How is it any different? … Why are there double standards when it comes to Jewish community and Jewish students?” she asked.

RELATED VIDEO: U.S. veteran sounds the alarm on the infiltration of Islam into America’s education system

EDITORS NOTE: This Canary Mission report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Do Our Schools Have a Prayer?

There’s a battle right now related to religion and Oklahoma schools. Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters is in favor of greater religious expression in the public schools of that state. Others in the “The Sooner State,” including the state attorney general and some confused clergy, oppose what Walters is attempting to do.

Walters wants school children to have access to the Bible and the Ten Commandments in school.

Walters said in reference to Engel v. Vitale, the 1962 Supreme Court decision that threw out school prayer as unconstitutional: “I think they were dead wrong on that. Individuals have the right to express their religious beliefs. That does not stop in a school building,”

Walter also said, “What I’m trying to make sure is our kids understand American history.”

The opposition is claiming that, in effect, Walters wants to “establish religion” in the schools.

But what does our history show?

The First Amendment begins, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Historically, this was understood to mean that there would be no established church at the federal level in the United States.

Even at the time the First Amendment to the Constitution was adopted in 1791, prohibiting a federal church, a handful of states had their own established churches at the state level, and saw no conflict between that and the First Amendment. The last of these to wither away was that of Massachusetts in 1833.

Meanwhile, one of the great legal scholars at Harvard in the 1800s was Joseph Story, who went on to serve as a Justice on the Supreme Court. In 1851, Story wrote a commentary on the Constitution.

Story wrote: “Probably at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and of the amendment to it now under consideration [the First Amendment], the general if not the universal sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the State so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience and the freedom of religious worship.”

He added, “An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation.”

Justice Story continued, “The real object of the First Amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance, Mahometanism [Islam] or Judaism or infidelity by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government.”

In other words, according to a great legal scholar writing fairly close to the founding era, the purpose of the First Amendment was not to banish God from the public arena.

Jumping ahead to the twentieth century, another associate justice of the Supreme Court, William Rehnquist, who would go on later to serve as the Chief Justice, wrote this about the founders and the First Amendment:

“The true meaning of the Establishment Clause can only be seen in its history…The Framers intended the Establishment Clause to prohibit the designation of any church as a ‘national’ one. The Clause was also designed to stop the Federal Government from asserting a preference for one religious denomination or sect over others.”

Rehnquist gave an example from the very same men who wrote the First Amendment: “George Washington himself, at the request of the very Congress which passed the Bill of Rights, proclaimed a day of ‘public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God.’ History must judge whether it was the Father of his Country in 1789, or a majority of the Court today, which has strayed from the meaning of the Establishment Clause.”

Thankfully, since Rehnquist wrote those words in 1985 in the case of Wallace v. Jaffre, there have been more “originalists” ruling on the high court—adding needed balance to the treatment of Christian expression in the public arena. Nonetheless, the battle for religious liberty is far from over.

As to the current battle, NBC observes: “Whatever happens in the Oklahoma case, more religious rights cases touching upon the establishment clause are on the horizon. Litigation is already underway over a law in Louisiana that would require public schools to display the Ten Commandments. A federal judge blocked the measure.”

Thomas Jefferson is often invoked as effectively the “patron saint” of secularism in the public arena. But even that is a misreading of history. For example, Jefferson wrote, “In the holy cause of freedom…heaven has rewarded us.” And he added, “that it may flow through all times…is my fervent prayer to heaven.”

The founders of America never intended to banish God from the public arena, including the public schools.

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RELATED VIDEO: U.S. veteran sounds the alarm on the infiltration of Islam into America’s education system

Trump admin freezes $210M to Princeton over anti-Semitism after Title VI complaint from Campus Reform’s Zachary Marschall

Marschall’s complaint, filed in January 2024, claimed that the school took no serious steps to combat anti-Semitism after the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre of Jewish civilians.

A Trump administration official said that ‘Princeton has perpetuated racist and anti-semitic policies.’


WATCH: Princeton Loses $210M Over Antisemitism

President Donald Trump’s administration has suspended $210 million in funds to Princeton University in New Jersey after Campus Reform Editor-in-Chief Dr. Zachary Marschall filed a civil rights complaint against the school over anti-Semitism.

Marschall’s complaint, filed in January 2024, claimed that the school took no serious steps to combat anti-Semitism after the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre of Jewish civilians. He stated, for example, that students protested against the Jewish state only weeks after the massacre, chanting messages like “Brick by brick, wall by wall, apartheid has got to fall,” and calling for an “Intifada.”

“The violent words of these protesters completely disregard the atrocities Hamas has already committed and promises to commit in the future against the people of Israel, including raping, murdering, and kidnapping civilians,” Marschall wrote at the time.

Marschall’s complaint led the Department of Education—then under former President Joe Biden—to start investigating the Ivy League university in April 2024. The investigation was one of 16 that were started as a result of Marschall’s Title VI complaints, with other colleges such as Brown University and Tufts University also finding themselves under federal scrutiny.

A reporter for The Daily Caller News Foundation announced the $210 million funding freeze on Monday, stating that it resulted from the investigation that started under Biden’s Department of Education, which is now continuing under President Trump.

A Trump administration official told the Daily Caller: “Princeton has perpetuated racist and anti-semitic policies.”

On Tuesday, Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber sent a message to the community announcing that the school “received notifications from government agencies including the Department of Energy, NASA, and the Defense Department suspending several dozen Princeton research grants.”

“Princeton University will comply with the law. We are committed to fighting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination, and we will cooperate with the government in combating antisemitism. Princeton will also vigorously defend academic freedom and the due process rights of this University,” he continued.

The $210 million makes up almost 50 percent of federal funds that the Ivy League school receives, The Daily Princetonian reported.

On March 19, Princeton leaders called for “holistic spending restraint” due to negative attention from the White House—among other reasons—and announced that Princeton will cut down on hiring and raises, as well as potentially eliminate funding for certain projects, the Princetonian wrote.

Campus Reform has reached out to Princeton University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.

AUTHOR

Elad Vaida

Managing Editor. Elad is a dual American-Israeli citizen of Romanian origin who moved to the U.S. in 2005. He graduated from Harvard University with a master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies and from Penn State University with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science. He previously worked as a speechwriter for Senator John Kennedy (R-LA). His written work has appeared in The Federalist, Washington Examiner, The American Conservative, and other publications.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Campus Reform column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.