Campus Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Be Offensive

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Question: If you believe in the traditional Judeo-Christian sex ethic—that no one should have sex apart from the bonds of holy matrimony (between a man and a woman)—should you be disqualified from making a presentation at a college campus?

Apparently, some key student leaders at Cornell University think so. Cornell is the only Ivy League school that was not explicitly founded as a Christian school.

Who would have agreed with the traditional Judeo-Christian sex ethic that intimacy is to be reserved for marriage?

  • Rev. John Harvard and the Puritans who founded Harvard University in 1636 and named it in his honor because of the books and money he donated for its establishment.
  • The Puritan businessman Elihu Yale and the Congregational ministers who founded Yale around 1700, likewise to train ministers of the Gospel.
  • The Presbyterian elders who founded the College of New Jersey, which later came to be called Princeton.

And on it goes.

In fact, most Americans subscribed, at least ostensibly, to the Christian view of sex until about a generation or so ago. The sexual revolution upended everything and has brought in its wake ravaging sexually-transmitted diseases, countless divorces and broken families, subsequent poverty, and untold misery.

But now, if you hold those traditional views and have voiced them at some time, you could possibly be censored from speaking at a public event.

That’s what happened to a friend of mine, Jannique Stewart. Jannique, an African-American woman who grew up in Europe, speaks at colleges, high schools, and churches all over the country and even other countries—-providing a traditional view on the pro-life issue, on abstinence, and on sex.

At our church in south Florida, we have had Jannique speak at a couple of our “Salt and Light” events. She’s always been very positive, factually based, and upbeat.

Jannique has her own organization, loveprotects.com. And recently, she has been doing a lot of speaking for Scott Klusendorf’s Life Training Institute, an organization that tries to equip people to defend the pro-life perspective using science and philosophy. She notes: “We’re able to debunk a lot of the common myths and misconceptions” surrounding abortion.

An executive board member of Cornell Political Union contacted the Life Training Institute in January of this year to inquire about Jannique’s availability to speak at one of their meetings. The topic was going to be pro-life versus pro-abortion. They ended up inviting her, securing the date, working out the details—but then later they disinvited her. They did that when they found out two things about her.

She told me on my radio show the views that got her barred from speaking at Cornell: “One, that sex should be reserved for marriage, and two, that I believe that marriage is defined by God, our Creator, as the union of one man and one woman.” Well, I believe that too. So do millions of Americans.

By this criterion, Barrack Obama could have been disinvited in 2011 because he publicly professed to believe marriage was between one man and one woman. In fact, former Supreme Court Justice Kennedy, who wrote the pro same-sex marriage decision in 2015, said that belief in heterosexual marriage has been widely held around the planet for “millennia.” So her views on this are not unique to Jannique.

Jannique told me of her reaction to being disinvited: “That’s a form of viewpoint discrimination, and that’s wrong of them to do that—especially at a university campus, which is supposed to be a bastion of higher learning where we’re supposed to have a free exchange of ideas and then be able to debate those ideas.”

She says, “They felt that the students would not be able to listen to my prolife speech because they would be so focused on my views. And I thought, ‘Now, that really is insulting to their intellect because what they’re saying is that [their fellow] students at this Ivy League school cannot possibly listen, simply because of my views on pre-marital sex and marriage.”

What disturbed Jannique the most was how they viewed her views as being on the same level as racist views. She was told, “having me on campus with the ideas that I hold is very similar to having a racist on campus with pro-slavery and pro-Holocaust views. The board felt that way or the board felt the students would perceive me in that manner, and that is offensive. It’s not only offensive—it’s flat out wrong to try and compare the Biblical standard (and that which is natural marriage) as bigoted.”

When people like Jannique get censored on our college campuses, the students only get exposed to politically correct ideas. And truths that have stood the test of time—for “millennia”—get silenced.

But there is no constitutional right to not be offended.

Elizabeth Warren’s Debt ‘Cancellation’ Plan Would Make College More Expensive, Not Less

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Elizabeth Warren wants free college for every American. But what the Massachusetts senator doesn’t seem to realize is just how much more costly college would get if her “free” proposal passed.

Shortly after Valentine’s Day in 1987, Education Secretary William J. Bennett wrote a now-famous op-ed in The New York Times titled “Our Greedy Colleges.” In it, he suggested that “increases in financial aid in recent years have enabled colleges and universities blithely to raise their tuitions, confident that federal loan subsidies would help cushion the increase.”

This observation became known as the “Bennett Hypothesis.” As the years go by, it seems more apt to call it the Bennett truism.

In the last 20 years, the federal government’s total spending on student loans has skyrocketed, from $24.8 billion in the 1995-96 school year to $93 billion in 2017-18.

At the same time, the price of college tuition has soared. Between 1998 and the present, tuition at four-year institutions has roughly doubled, and at private four-year colleges tuition has gone up 58%.

The price increase is even more dramatic looking at the last 40 years. Since 1980, the cost of attending a four-year public university has increased 287%—an uptick rate surpassed only by increases in the cost of medical care.

Enter Warren.

On Monday, she published a proposal that includes the following:

  • Students with household incomes below $100,000 would have the first $50,000 of their student loan debt canceled.
  • For every additional $3 of income over $100,000, the amount of loan forgiveness offered would be cut by $1.
  • Borrowers from families earning more than $250,000 annually would receive zero debt cancellation.

On the whole, as Robert VerBruggen has pointed out, her proposal would cancel all loans for about 75% of borrowers and provide partial cancellation for 95% of borrowers.

This debt cancellation portion of the plan would cost taxpayers $640 billion, as Warren pointed out herself.

And that’s just the retroactive part of the proposal.

The plan would also provide “universal free college,” allowing students to attend a two- or four-year college “without paying a dime in tuition or fees,” as she says. The total tab? $1.25 trillion over just the next decade.

Warren suggests her “free” college and debt cancellation plan would be financed (again) by an “ultra-millionaire tax,” singling out the 75,000 families in America she estimates to have more than $50 million in assets.

This is a group she has already identified to finance her “free” childcare plan. Things are getting expensive in a hurry.

Her latest proposal is problematic for a host of reasons, not least of which is the exorbitant cost to taxpayers. But it would also fail to achieve the goal of greater equality in access to education. A similar proposal for “free” college was already tried in England, and it ended up benefiting the wealthy rather than the needy.

But beyond these failures, Warren’s proposal would likely expedite the rise in college tuition. It comes down to simply math: When colleges know the federal government is financing “free” tuition in perpetuity, they’ll have all the more reason to raise tuition and fees, which taxpayers will then absorb.

In fact, a growing body of literature has already shown that federal subsidies have this tendency to push tuition prices higher.

In one study, researchers Grey Gordon and Aaron Hedlund found that raising subsidized loan limits led to a 102% increase in tuition from 1987 to 2010. Absent that additional federal money, the authors estimate tuition would have only gone up by 16% on net.

Another study by David O. Lucca, Taylor Nadauld, and Karen Shen of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found additional evidence of the Bennett Hypothesis at play. The authors found that credit expansion (increasing subsidized federal student loans) leads to a tuition increase of 60 cents for every additional dollar of subsidized federal loans. Their conclusion bluntly states:

… a credit expansion will raise tuition paid by all students and not only by those at the federal loan caps because of pecuniary demand externalities. Such pricing externalities are often conjectured in the context of the effects of expanded subprime borrowing on housing prices leading up to the financial crisis, and our study can be seen as complementary evidence in the student loan market.

As Carlo Salerno of CampusLogic points out, students choose to take on college loan debt, and are not assigned that debt. So loan forgiveness “unfairly rewards the person who borrows to get a Ferrari over the one who got a Kia.”

That inequity is underscored by the numbers. As Salerno calculated, a wealthy student who borrowed $100,000 a few years ago and has been delinquent on repayment would get more forgiveness than the low-income student who responsibly worked to pay down $40,000 in debt over the past 20 years and only has $10,000 remaining, which would be forgiven.

Some would clearly benefit from this scheme, but it would penalize students who choose to work while in college to minimize their debt, those who pursue an apprenticeship over an expensive degree, and those who take out debt, but live modestly post-graduation in order to fully pay back what they owe.

Moreover, as the Urban Institute found (in an analysis unrelated to the Warren plan), “the top 25% of American households by income hold nearly half of all student debt—and the bottom 25% holds just a tenth of it. Canceling all student loans would deliver $5 to rich Americans for every $1 given to poorer families.”

Proposals to make college “free” or to forgive vast amounts of student loan debt reward one entity more than any other: the universities.

Subsidizing the already-dysfunctional student loan system is not the solution. If we want to get serious about addressing the student loan issue, we must pursue structural changes to accreditation, along with innovation in financing through options like income share agreements. Making sure colleges have some “skin in the game” also holds promise.

But above all, Washington should get out of the student loan business. The federal government currently originates and services 90% of all student aid, leaving taxpayers greatly exposed when defaults occur or when loan forgiveness becomes more generous.

Getting the feds out of the student loan business would go a long way toward finally addressing the root causes of soaring tuition.

COMMENTARY BY

Lindsey Burke

Lindsey M. Burke researches and writes on federal and state education issues as the Will Skillman fellow in education policy at The Heritage Foundation. Read her research. Twitter: .

RELATED ARTICLE: Elizabeth Warren’s College Plan Is a Bailout for the Elite

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With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Terror of Existence — From Ecclesiastes to Theater of the Absurd

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“Sincerity in literature may not always be a virtue, but insincerity is almost always a vice.” – Theodore Dalrymple

“A theater of the absurd is exactly that: absurd.” – Kenneth Frances

Theodore Dalrymple, a former prison doctor and psychiatrist, and Kenneth Frances, who holds an MA in Theology, joined together to produce a work that explains how we have fallen into the “theater of the absurd.”

I have written dozens of articles about uncontested absurdities that have now become public policies. Theodore Dalrymple and Kenneth Frances analyse how we have come to accept these uncontested absurdities via literary works. Frances writes this about a J.D. Salinger book read by millions of public education students:

I have often wondered whether the America novel, The Catcher in the Rye, is a literary hoax, a kind of Leftist propaganda manifesto, manufactured to discredit traditional family values.

Who are the culprits? Who set the cornerstone for the theater of the absurd?

The culprits are existentialists, led by Jean-Paul Sartre, who are a “conundrum of intellectuals” who have abandoned God and replaced him with man.

Existentialism is about “being”, not “believing.” We are in an age of “identity theory” that has morphed into “identity politics.” God has been taken out of the public square and replaced by me-myself- and I.

What could possibly go wrong?

The Believer vs. The Non-Believer

In their compelling book The Terror of Existence — From Ecclesiastes to Theater of the Absurd Dalrymple and Frances analyse the main existentialist works of the 20th century. Francis is a “believer” Dalrymple is not. However, both help us find meaning in a existentialist created meaningless universe.

This book is both literary criticism and spiritual and philosophical exploration. The authors try to answer some of the most compelling questions faced today including:

  • How can a life stripped of ultimate meaning be anything but absurd?
  • How is man to live?
  • How could man find direction in a world of no direction?
  • What would a father tell his children that could make their lives worthwhile?
  • What is the bed rock of morality?

Education Has Created a Nation of Idiots

In Chapter 13 Francis reveals how educators have been injecting our children with the heroin of existentialist ideals. Francis writes:

Theologian Peter Mullen, writing in the Salisbury Review in 2017, said: “Give me fifty years of comprehensive education and I will show you a nation of idiots.”

Francis goes on stating, “[E]ver since the widespread use of social media and the rise of political correctness, many institutions of education seem to have lowered their standards. Generation Selfie, particularly millennial college students, live in an era of sound bites, ‘micro-aggressions’, ‘safe spaces’ and shallow, trolling tweets.”

In the May 2017 edition of Taki’s Magazine, Dalrymple wrote the following on “Sovietization without a revolution”:

“For to force people to assent to propositions that are outrageously false, on pain of losing their livelihoods or worse, was to crush them morally and psychologically, and thus make them docile, easily manipulated, and complicit in their own enslavement.”

Without God Life is Meaningless

Francis writes, “Satanic temptation is real…Shielding our ears from the groans emanating from Western or Eastern holocausts in the pursuit of happiness is evil and satanic.”

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, during his Temple Address in London, England on May 10, 1983 said:

“If I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous [Communist] Revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately that to repeat: Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”

In Chapter Six Francis does an analysis of Jean-Paul Sartre’s novel Nausea. Francis writes, “This book is about a writer who finds himself in the belly of the absurd.” Francis notes, “there’s a long list of factual infamous despots and psychos influenced by [Sartre’s] existentialism who exercised their authenticity with gusto.”

One of these “existentialist” tyrants was Pol Pot.

“Many years before the Year Zero slaughter of millions began in the mid-1970s in Cambodia, a well mannered, polite Mr. Pot left Cambodia and went to Paris to study radio technology. While there, he was deeply influenced by Sartre and Marxism.” notes Francis. “In testimony before a genocide tribunal in Cambodia, Pol Pot’s chief jailer, Kaing Guek Eav, said that children were executed to prevent them seeking revenge. In order to save bullets, executioners would hold the children by their legs or feet and smash their heads against tree trunks in the ‘killing fields’ on the edge of Phnom Penh.”

Conclusion

If you want to understand how we got to our current political system and the culture of identity politics then read The Terror of Existence — From Ecclesiastes to Theater of the Absurd.

Colorado Sex Ed Bill Would Force Kids to Learn LGBT Ideology, Ban Talk of Abstinence

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Colorado’s wildly controversial, comprehensive sex ed legislation has ignited national discussions about how far Americans want to expose their children to a radical social agenda.

More than a few eyebrows were raised when Colorado passed its mandatory comprehensive sex education law in 2013, which required students undergo “culturally sensitive” lessons.

“Culturally sensitive” meant that sex ed lessons would incorporate minority perspectives on sex that had not previously been represented in sex-ed—including LGBT individuals, but also other groups. (In practice, this meant teaching and affirming more diverse kinds of sex.)

Though many parents were concerned, those concerns were appeased by the fact that students could discuss their moral, ethical, and religious beliefs on sex and sexuality in the classroom. It also allowed some schools to be excused from provisions of the law, if requested.

Yet, just five years later, Colorado’s Democrat-controlled General Assembly thinks the 2013 law is no longer good enough to address the sexual education of teens.

Enter HB 1032.

HB 1032 would do away with all the “concessions” included in the 2013 law and would specifically prohibit religious, moral, and ethical perspectives on sex from being discussed in the classroom.

The bill demands that schools teach about the relational and sexual experiences of LGBT teens. It would forbid any emphasis on abstinence and sexual-risk avoidance as the only foolproof method against pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, and even declares that saying so in the classroom is against the law.

HB 1032 would strip teachers, administrators, and school boards of the ability to choose the content of their comprehensive sex ed curriculums and would no longer allow schools to be excused from the requirements of the bill.

The bill is almost militant in its stringent requirements and prohibitions, thoroughly censoring the speech of teachers and crushing parental rights and religious freedom in the classroom.

Currently, only two states in the country (California and Louisiana) prohibit schools from speaking about religious beliefs regarding sex. The majority of states—including Colorado currently—allow abstinence to be stressed or emphasized to teens as the only foolproof method against sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy.

Yet, HB 1032 would flat-out ban speech that suggests abstinence is the best and healthiest choice. That’s despite the fact that the majority of American teens are choosing abstinence, and Colorado teens have a lower rate of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted teen pregnancies than the national average.

HB 1032 would flat-out ban speech that suggests abstinence is the best and healthiest choice.

Prohibiting emphasis on abstinence isn’t the only instance of the Colorado Legislature attempting to place words into the mouths of teachers and ideology into the hearts of our children. HB 1032 would also require that teachers who discuss pregnancy outcomes, like adoption and parenting, also discuss abortion.

If passed, Colorado would become only the third state in the country to have that, after Vermont and California.

Clearly, the vast majority of American parents, teachers, and schools believe adoption and abortion are not morally or ethically equivalent options. The bill brazenly refers to teaching abortion as an example of “objective, unbiased” instruction, despite abortion being one of the most contentious issues of our time.

It probably comes as no surprise that Planned Parenthood lobbies across the nation for comprehensive sex education bills to be enacted, and Colorado was no exception.

It certainly isn’t coincidence that Planned Parenthood is one of the world’s largest providers of comprehensive sex education materials in the world, peddling radical content that even the most liberal among us might find too shocking for our taste.

Planned Parenthood’s ready-made sex education curriculum just happens to fit the exact requirements HB 1032 would impose on local school districts. Its materials often promote virtually any type of sexual exploration and experimentation as a “safe and healthy” part of any relationship, no matter the child’s age or biological sex, just as long as you “say yes.”

Planned Parenthood’s ready-made sex-education curriculum just happens to fit the exact requirements HB 1032 would impose on local school districts.

That last point is certainly the provision of Colorado’s sex education bill that garnered the most heartfelt protests from parents during the 20-odd hours of public testimony. Parents tend to take issue with the government mandating teaching elementary school students the definition of “consent.” They already know the answer.

In Colorado, as in most other states, the definition of consent for elementary students is: Illegal. Criminal. Unsafe.

Parents have been rightfully confused on how teaching young children about consent could possibly protect them from predators. How did decades of “No Means No!” education become upended to be “Yes Means Yes”?

Young children are certainly capable of voluntarily saying the word “yes” to acts that might feel good but are nonetheless deeply harmful and traumatic. It is a parent’s job to protect their children from an agenda that has shifted sex education dialogue from being one of protection to one of pleasure, from prevention to gratification.

Unfortunately, HB 1032’s sponsors and supporters have downplayed the tens of thousands of parents clamoring for the bill to die as well as the national dialogue the bill has ignited on how parents can guard their children’s hearts and minds in today’s schools.

HB 1032 has already been passed through a state House committee, the House floor, and its first state Senate committee, despite the overwhelming outcry. The bill is currently being considered in a Senate fiscal committee, which will soon vote on whether $1 million will be allocated from the general fund to schools to help them pay for implementing the burdensome legislative requirements.

If passed out of committee, the full Senate will vote on the bill, and then it will be off to the desk of Colorado’s openly gay governor, Jared Polis, for signature.

It is a parent’s job to protect their children from an agenda that has shifted sex-education dialogue from being one of protection to one of pleasure, from prevention to gratification.

Families in states such as Arizona, Massachusetts, and Texas are fighting controversial provisions similar to Colorado’s. Tennessee, Alaska, Idaho, and other states are taking proactive measures to ensure family values are respected in the classroom.

Washington state parents recently took a page from Colorado parents’ book and successfully stopped their own appalling comprehensive sex education bill, as did parents in New Mexico.

But the threat isn’t limited to state legislatures. The U.S. House of Representatives will be voting soon on the deceptively named “Equality Act,” which could lead to federal courts ordering schools to implement curriculums on sexual orientation and gender identity.

We hope the outcry in Colorado continues to encourage parents in other states around the country to stay informed about what’s being taught in their children’s classrooms—and to do everything they can to protect their children from harmful ideology.

COMMENTARY BY

Stephanie Curry

Stephanie Curry is the policy manager for Family Policy Alliance.

RELATED ARTICLE: Bans on ‘Conversion Therapy’ Are Really About Locking Kids Into Transgenderism

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Why? Because they are determined more than ever to give the government more control over your lives. Restoring your liberty and embracing freedom is the best thing for you and the country.

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RELATED ARTICLE: California Parents Object to New Sex Ed Program in Public Schools

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Pelosi Is Hijacking the Civil Rights Movement to Force LGBT Ideology on Kids

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“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

Those aren’t just hollow words. Those words birthed a nation unlike any other and inspired its leaders and soldiers to give their very lives in the most sacred of blood oaths to uphold truth.

Those words sustained a country during its deepest sin and gave us the framework to begin anew. Those words are just as true today as they were when the great American experiment began.

Our nation has a rich history of fighting for equal rights for all.

One of the most intense examples of this is the story of racial desegregation in schools—because the pursuit of equal rights for all affected every family and every child. Even kindergartners experienced firsthand the rocky road to equality, and their parents were along for the ride whether they liked it or not.

Ultimately, in 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation in public elementary and secondary schools was unconstitutional, violating equal rights. And the Civil Rights Act in 1964 added the full weight of the federal government to the process of desegregating schools—including federal funding and even military intervention in K-12 schools.

But the fight didn’t start with the famous Brown case. There were many cases centered in higher education leading up to Brown, but four in particular from 1938 to 1950 that laid the groundwork.

Along the way to full desegregation, civil rights leaders carefully constructed their legal strategy to prove first that black students needed to be offered the same educational opportunities as white students, even if in separate schools and programs.

Next, they were able to prove that it is very difficult for separate schools to be considered equal if black students do not get to interact and share ideas with white students, especially when the white students would be the majority of the population in their future career fields.

Finally, they proved that even when black students were admitted to the same schools, doctoral programs, and classrooms as white students—yet still subject to segregation—there was in fact no equality.

At the University of Oklahoma in 1950, for instance, black students attended the doctoral education program with white students, but they were forced to sit in designated rows in class or designated tables in the cafeteria.

Declaring that this treatment could never be equal, the Supreme Court stated that “[t]here is a vast difference—a constitutional difference—between restrictions imposed by the state which prohibit the intellectual commingling of students, and the refusal of individuals to commingle where the state presents no such bar. The removal of the state restrictions will not necessarily abate individual and group predilections, prejudices, and choices. But at the very least, the state will not be depriving appellant of the opportunity to secure acceptance by his fellow students on his own merits.”

In other words, the state cannot stop people from separating into their own groups, but neither can it require them to be separate.

This case was a critical turning point for black civil rights, and four years later, Brown turned the tide for K-12 schools—and the country.

Hijacking the Civil Rights Legacy

Flash forward several decades to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Top 5 priority bill, H.R. 5—the so-called Equality Act. Now, the left, with Pelosi at the helm in the House, wants to use the blueprint that helped our nation desegregate schools to manipulate schoolchildren to carry water for the LGBT political agenda—whether their parents like it or not.

Their argument is that just as black children were literally and forcefully segregated from white children, so are LGBT children segregated from all other children in schools—creating an oppressed, unequal class of American children.

There are two obvious problems for these activists.

First, they claim to be advancing civil rights for LGBT-identifying individuals—who constantly change their own personal identities, with new categories constantly being added to the group as a whole. This makes it extremely difficult to advance civil rights, as the public can’t accurately identify the group that is receiving protection, and what type of protection is needed on a given day.

Second, unlike the days of racial segregation, LGBT-identifying children are not in fact being forced by the government to attend segregated schools or sit in separate sections of class.

LGBT activists are ignoring the first problem, and they attempt to fix the second problem by claiming something oddly similar to the 1950 University of Oklahoma case.

They claim that LGBT-identifying students are treated unequally in schools not because they are forced to sit in different areas, but because the nation as a whole does not permit transgender students to use the restrooms and locker rooms of the opposite sex, does not require featuring LGBT people and ideas in school, and doesn’t teach children about the social and experimental medical ways to “transition” to another sex.

In other words, they believe the state is complicit in “separating” LGBT students from the student body by not reinforcing their ideology in the classroom.

The racial desegregation of America’s schools was about upholding the truth: that all men are created equal and deserve to be treated equally.

H.R. 5 by its very nature is not about achieving equal educational opportunities for all. It’s about forcing every administrator, teacher, child, and parent involved in schools to give any person who identifies as LGBT a platform in our schools, and special rights above and beyond everyone else.

In short, H.R. 5 isn’t about actual equality. It picks “equality” winners and losers.

Serious Consequences

So if Pelosi succeeded in getting H.R. 5 through Congress (which recently held a hearing on the bill), and if the president were somehow to sign it, what would be the practical implications for public schools?

For starters, major changes in your child’s curriculum. Pelosi and the LGBT activists who fund her campaign want to ensure “equality” by requiring “LGBTQ sexual experiences” to be included in schools. Sex education class can’t truly be equal unless all types of sexual experiences are taught, so leftist groups say.

Colorado already requires that children as young as 9 years old learn about “LGBTQ sexual experiences.” And California sex ed guidelines even require teaching children about having multiple sexual partners, and warning children about “religion abuse” that would include “forcing others to adhere to rigid gender roles [or n]ot allowing a partner to do things they enjoy.”

Both of these states’ curricula came from policies requiring LGBT inclusion in sexual education.

Sex ed class used to be for the purpose of helping students understand human biology and reproduction, which by nature includes everyone. H.R. 5 elevates LGBT sexuality and gives it special emphasis in the classroom.

And the “equality losers”? Parents and teachers who don’t believe the material is appropriate for their children for health, moral, religious, or other reasons.

All-Pervasive Indoctrination

But the changes envisioned in H.R. 5 don’t stop at sex ed class. The idea is to weave LGBT-centric themes throughoutthe school’s entire curriculum.

Take, for example, New Jersey’s new “LGBT curriculum” policy. Imagine a literature or history class where students are not just taught the historic contributions of literary giants like Emily Dickinson or former U.S. presidents, but the curriculum also questions the sexual preferences of our historic figures.

One textbook example ponders the fact that President James Buchanan “never married and had a very good friend who was living with him. He may have been gay.” A former American president is reduced to the sort of suspect commentary found in newspaper tabloids and gossip magazines.

What’s worse, parents really would have no opportunity to opt-out their children from exposure to this type of teaching or the topic of gender transition, since it is woven into every aspect of the curriculum.

The “equality losers” are, once again, teachers and parents who object—but especially children whose precious academic time will be consumed by nonsense speculation over what kind of sexual exploits any given historical figure was having.

That’s not equal rights. That’s ideology masquerading under the guise of rights.

That’s not equal rights. That’s ideology masquerading under the guise of rights. It is special rights for some at the expense of many others.

The Death of Equality

H.R. 5 is vying for a spot in our nation’s Equality Hall of Fame, comparing a sexualized political agenda to the brave students who endured segregation and then crossed town, under great hardship, to achieve racial desegregation.

If “all men are created equal” now means ensuring young children are informed that “little boys can become little girls,” then the centuries of power contained in those words ends with H.R. 5.
COMMENTARY BY

Autumn Leva

Autumn Leva is vice president of strategy for the Family Policy Alliance. Twitter: .

Dear Readers:

Just two short years after the end of the Obama administration’s disastrous policies, America is once again thriving due to conservative solutions that have produced a historic surge in economic growth.

The Trump administration has embraced over 60 percent of The Heritage Foundation’s policy recommendations since his inauguration. But with the House now firmly within the grips of the progressive left, the victories may come to a screeching halt.

Why? Because they are determined more than ever to give the government more control over your lives. Restoring your liberty and embracing freedom is the best thing for you and the country.

President Donald Trump needs all of the allies he can find to push through the stone wall he now faces within this divided government. And the best way you can partner with him is by becoming a member of his greatest ally in Washington: The Heritage Foundation.

Will you activate your membership with a tax-deductible gift today?

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission.

The Cultural Failure Of Free College

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Economist Ludwig von Mises observed the reality that virtually every government action creates unintended consequences that cause problems greater than the ones that were meant to be solved.

But the Democratic Party that is now apparently fully on board with free college for everyone is clearly unaware of this truism. That’s not too surprising as it has to do with economics, history and rational thought — all areas largely abandoned by the modern Democratic Party.

So here are the almost assured consequences that will stem from such a policy (beyond the $7 trillion price tag) and each ends up conflicting directly with the goals of free college for everyone.

  • Most people will not graduate. Right now, according the National Digest of Education Statistics, fewer than one in three enrollees in four-year institutions of higher learning with open enrollment policies graduate — even after six years. So even if it is free, statistically it is reasonable to predict that two-thirds of those who enter will not come out with a degree. That means it becomes both an enormous misallocation of resources and it squanders years in pursuit of a fruitless endeavor for most. Further, for all these young people, there will be no increase in salary because there is no college degree — only lost time and likely some college-related expenses.
  • It will create skyrocketing costs. Is everyone accepted who wants to go? If it is guaranteed tuition payment to universities without academic requirements — which has been the Bernie Sanders’ rhetoric — it will mean that these institutions will have even less incentive to control costs. Right now, only health care costs have soared as fast as college costs over the past 30 years. Not coincidentally, both markets are deeply impacted by government. In the case of colleges, it is easily obtainable student loans backed by the federal government, along with Pell grants and other fundings. This guaranteed flow of federal money and the ongoing cultural push for kids to go to college regardless of the need for them to, has driven up college costs and created the debt issue. Making it ”free” would make it much more expensive for taxpayers.
  • Government will further screw up the college market. The obvious hike in costs would force the political reality of having to control costs by limiting or even lowering tuition. (This is all very akin to the dynamics in the health care debate, except the option of rationing is the opposite of what free tuition is for, so that likely would not be an alternative.) How would universities hire more professors, instructors and add classroom buildings and dorms along with administrators if the government is capping or cutting tuition? Obviously the quality and value of a college degree would plummet.
  • It wouldn’t accomplish the goal of everyone making more money. Assuming, however, that it does increase the number of college graduates, what does that accomplish? In the big picture, it would mean that a Bachelor’s Degree becomes the equivalent of a high school degree within about a half of a generation, except that the B.A. comes with a lot of debt while a high school degree does not. So the result is that the American people generationally are saddled with trillions more in debt without a discernible increase in the actual value of what the new wave of college graduates have.

And finally, this is becoming even more of a big deal for Democrats at the very time that the labor market is historically tight. Right now, the unemployment rate is about 3.8 percent — below what economists consider full employment.

Further, there are about six million unemployed Americans, while there are seven million job openings — the majority of which do not require a college degree. In truth, the nation and the economy actually do not need more college graduates, particularly in all the wrong fields, i.e. the soft sciences, the arts, literature, ethnic and cultural studies, communications and media.

Evidence? There are 13 million Americans with at least a four-year college degree working in jobs that do not require any college degree.

The push for free college for everyone is much worse than just being a $7 trillion budget buster. It also destroys the value of a college degree, high school degree and years in a young person’s life, all while not accomplishing its primary goals.

EDITORS NOTE: This Revolutionary Act column is republished with permission.

The Future of Student Loan Debt in Today’s Political Climate

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If you or someone close to you has student loans, you might think you know a lot about student debt. Still, it might surprise you that there are now over 45 million student loan borrowers who owe a collective $1.52 trillion in student loans in the United States.

This massive amount of student debt signals a mounting student loan crisis that’s greatly impacting the lives of graduates. With an average student loan payment of around $351 for borrowers between the ages of 20 and 30, many are struggling to make ends meet.

Borrowers often feel swamped by their debt owing an average of $26,828 if they graduated from a public college in 2016 and a whopping $30,281 if they graduated from a private college that same year. Did you get a graduate degree in 2016? Your debt is likely close to the average of $57,600 that graduate and professional program borrowers owe.

All that debt is taking a toll on borrowers. It’s not surprising that the average federal student loan default rate is 11.5%. But even borrowers who aren’t missing payments are still struggling. Student debt has huge impacts on stress, quality of life, and often results in delayed milestones.

A study by the Federal Reserve Board Division of Research & Statistics has shown a 9-percentage point drop in homeownership of young adults aged between 24 and 32 from 2005 to 2014. Although multiple factors could have influenced this drop, many believe one major factor is student loan debt. College graduates are now moving out later, not getting married, not buying cars or homes, and waiting to have kids because they’re struggling financially.

Given the impact of student debt on the population and economy, it’s only natural that politicians have taken notice. In the run up to the 2020 election, many are shaping their policies and campaign platforms to deal with the surge in student debt and the crisis it’s caused.

This isn’t the first time politicians have tried to fix the student debt problem. In fact, policies have changed over time on both private and federal student loans as administrations have changed. This has sometimes benefited borrowers, and other times made things more difficult for them in the name of cutting federal spending.

The 2020 campaign will bring a lot of discussion about student loan debt which has the potential to completely revolutionize how federal student loans are forgiven, paid for, and given out.

A History of Federal Student Loan Policies

In 2007, George W. Bush created two new programs to address the rising costs of college: the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLFP) and the Income-Based Repayment Plan (IBRP). The PSLFP gives federal loan borrowers a chance to have the balance of their loans forgiven if they make 120 qualifying loan payments over 10 years while working for a job that qualifies as a ‘public service job.’ These positions include jobs held for municipal, state, and federal government bodies, but also working for organizations like non-profits, labor unions, or AmeriCorps.

The IBRP allowed low-income borrowers of federal loans to pay just 15% of their discretionary income towards their loans each month with the promise that after 25 years the remainder of their student debt would be forgiven.

Both programs gave hope to student loan borrowers struggling to pay back large amounts of debt while earning low salaries. But the PSLFP has proven to be so complicated that the few people eligible for it have received the loan forgiveness promised. Meanwhile, some complained the IBRP wasn’t accessible to all borrowers who could benefit from it, and they were paying too much of their income toward their student debt.

Obama later addressed some of the problems with IBRP by opening it up to more borrowers and changing how much they were required to pay back, from 15% of the borrowers’ income to just 10%. He also made loan forgiveness possible after just 20 years of repayment. The program is now called the Income-Driven Repayment Program (IDRP).

Trump has taken steps to change these programs with the help of his Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. They want to end the PSLFP program in order to cut funding towards student loan forgiveness. They envision instead just one forgiveness program for all borrowers that require they pay 12.5% of their discretionary income towards their debt for 15 years if they have an undergraduate degree, and 30 years if they have a graduate degree.

This could be seen as an improvement for those previously enrolled in the IBRP or REPAY programs for since their debt would be forgiven sooner. But the hitch is they may have to put more of their income towards their debt – potentially causing problems for many. Also, getting rid of the PSLFP would eliminate its tax benefits since student debt forgiven through that program was non-taxable. The new Trump program would tax all forgiven student debt as though it were income, possibly creating huge tax bills for those who received forgiveness.

The Future of Student Loan Policies

Elizabeth Warren, one of the candidates for president in 2020, is already discussing her intentions to help student loan borrowers. She has proposed a program which would allow those with both private and federal student loans to refinance them at an interest rate of just 3.76 percent with the government. She would also allow graduate and parent borrowers to refinance student loans at a lower rate.

Currently, borrowers can only refinance student loans – both federal and private – with private lenders. This means federal student loans will be converted to private student loans and borrowers won’t be eligible for federal benefits and repayment plans.

In addition, Warren has talked about declaring college debt a national emergency and is a proponent of policies working toward debt-free college. In fact, she backed a 2017 proposal to use federal money to help states ensure students can attend college debt-free.

These policies would greatly help borrowers by reducing debt or reducing the cost of servicing that debt. However, there are concerns about the cost of these programs and their impact on the existing financial and student loan industry.

Meanwhile, Trump will continue to make changes to student loans, something he will talk about on the campaign trail and include in his platform. In addition to putting through the changes to forgiveness programs outlined above, Trump has also mentioned eliminating subsidized student loans, reducing Pell Grants, and introducing a risk-sharing policy that requires post-secondary institutions to bear some responsibility for the loans that students take on to attend school. These policies would likely affect low income borrowers and students greatly since it would increase the amount of debt they would need to take on given there are fewer grants available.

Trump might also eliminate interest deductions for student loans, tax graduate tuition waivers, and the Lifetime Learning Credit – all programs that offer tax incentives in order to make going to college and repaying your student loans easier for borrowers. In return, he would improve the American Opportunity Tax Credit by allowing student loan borrowers to claim up to $2,500 in an annual deduction for five years instead of four.

Impact on Student Loan Borrowers

At this point, it’s hard to say what the future of student loan policies will look like in this country since so much is still up in the air. As more candidates join the 2020 race, they will bring many different views on student loans and student loan forgiveness. Those views won’t be static. The policies of candidates might change and evolve during primaries and the general election based on debates, news about the impact of student loans, and the political climate.

If you are a student loan borrower, it’s important you know this election has the power to completely change the future of student loan policy in this country. Borrowers like you could be impacted positively or negatively.

For that reason, you should follow the race closely, ask questions of candidates, push parties to adopt better student debt policy platforms, and then vote for the candidate whose student loan policies are most compelling to you.

Even if you aren’t actively involved politically, it’s important you’re aware of how student loan policies might change so you’re prepared since it could directly impact you and your repayment.

Court Kicks CAIR Out of San Diego School District

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In a landmark case, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has been forced out of the San Diego Unified School District.

A lawsuit was brought against the district for partnering with CAIR and allowing the Islamist organization to run a discriminatory, unconstitutional propaganda program in its schools.

The court agreed with this assessment.

The program in question gave Muslim students special privileges and gave CAIR the power to change the district curriculum to make sure Islam was looked upon more favorably.

Students and parents were made to watch biased videos, CAIR officials were allowed to teach students and teachers about Islam and students were trained “how to become allies with Muslims students.”

The program, which began in April 2017, was based on false evidence that, in the wake of President Donald Trump’s electoral victory, Muslim students were subjected to “Islamophobic” bullying. However, state records indicated there was no evidence of such bullying in the district’s schools.

The court ruled that the program was unconstitutional because it violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause by favoring one religious group over another and mixing government with religion.

Under the terms of the ruling, the school district is required to permanently drop the program and prevented from allowing CAIR to be involved in school activities in the future.

Further, school officials must correct the pro-Muslim student bias and disproportionate emphasis on Islamic history in its curriculum, which were both instituted through the program.

The court further gave the following guidelines to the schools:

  • “Educators should treat each religion with equal respect, with the time and attention spent discussing each religion being proportionate to its impact on history.”
  • “Educational material on religious subjects must be neutral and may not be presented in a manner that promotes one religion over another.”
  • “Educators or other staff sponsoring guest speakers at District events must ask them not to use their position or influence on students to forward their own religious, political, economic or social views and shall take active steps to neutralize whatever bias has been presented.”
  • “Guest speakers from religious organizations are not permitted to present to students on religious topics.”

“This is a tremendous victory, because CAIR intended this plan to be a pilot program for a nationwide rollout,” said Daniel J. Piedra, executive director of the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund (FCDF), the organization which brought the suit against the school district.

The FCDF said that other school districts similarly affected by CAIR are Seattle Public Schools, Minneapolis Public Schools, Cajon Valley Unified School District and Gilroy Unified School District.

“This settlement agreement will serve as a warning to politically correct school boards nationwide to think twice about partnering with CAIR,” said Charles LiMandri, chief counsel for FCDF.

LiMandri called the court’s decision a “victory against radical Islamic indoctrination in America’s schools.”

The FBI and the Justice Department have both banned CAIR as an outreach partner because of its Islamist agenda and ties to Hamas and terror funding.

In 2007, the U.S. government labeled CAIR an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation for financing the Hamas terrorist group.

In November 2014 CAIR was designated as a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates.

CAIR was listed by the U.S. government as being among “individuals/entities who are/were members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee and/or its organizations.” The Palestine Committee was a secret body set up by the Brotherhood to advance the Brotherhood/Hamas agenda in America.

A secret meeting of the committee held in Philadelphia in 1993 was wiretapped by the FBI. Nihad Awad, co-founder and executive director of CAIR participated in that meeting where members agreed that a new “neutral” entity for influencing U.S. policy and opinion was agreed upon.

Awad founded CAIR the following year.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Judge Disallows References to CAIR-Hamas Ties in Suit 

Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)

CAIR Is Suing Texas — You’ll Never Believe Why

16 Likely Democratic Presidential Candidates Endorse CAIR

Parents Cannot Opt Out Of California’s New Transgender Cram Down

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California may not be able to build basic 19th century technology like a railroad, but boy they know how to cram down indoctrination in a fashion that would make gulag guards proud.

The California Department of Education is working on new “health guidelines” — which are neither healthy nor mere guidelines — in a proposed Health Education Framework. This framework covers new educational resources that teach children to reject the old-fashion two-gender stereotype and instead embrace a plethora of ever-expanding gender options.

One recommended resource is a booklet entitled  “Who Are You?” This lovely teaching tool explains to students that there are at least 15 genders from which they can choose, depending on how they feel about themselves at the time. The booklet helpfully teaches children — who, let us remember, are sent to the schools specifically to learn what they are taught — that it is impossible for anyone to determine whether a baby is a boy, a girl or something else.

As one excerpt in the guidelines states: “Babies can’t talk, so grown-ups make a guess by looking at their bodies.”

Guess? This teaching material is as anti-science as it it comes. Of course genitals are a pretty strong indicator of a baby’s sex. Hormones, also. But the undeniable, unchangeable, scientific home-run is chromosomal structure. Genetics cannot be altered as the rest eventually can be. This means that, with a few extraordinarily rare conditions, there are only two genders: XX and XY.

Not surprisingly, California’s planned guidelines — in schools of instruction for students, remember — do not discuss such facts, data or science. So if you dismiss all of reality, then it stands to reason you are left with a “guess.” This is public education in California. But lest we dismiss this cancerous approach being relegated to the wacky coast, there are plenty of frightening examples from around the country.

Such as in Florida, a reddish-purple state. In two school districts in the Tampa Bay region — Sarasota County and Pasco County, both of which are actually red counties politically — officials set out guidelines dealing with transgender children that include keeping their transgenderism secret from their parents and forcing male PE teachers to observe transgender boys (that is, physical girls) change in locker rooms.

But remember, when school leaders say “guidelines,” they mean our way or the highway. Teachers can be transferred, demoted or even fired if they don’t follow the “guidelines,” which is why I often put them in quotes. Really, these are policies. Teach these or else.

Here’s how California teachers will be told to explain the new departure from reality to five-year-olds.

“Discuss gender with kindergartners by exploring gender stereotypes and asking open-ended questions, such as what are preferred colors, toys, and activities for boys/girls, and then challenging stereotypes if presented.” So if a boy acts like a boy, “educators” (have to use quotes in this context) should actually push back against that, directing them to act like girls. And vice-versa for little girls. This is not open-minded. It’s child abuse.

Because of course most of the children cannot read yet, pictures help with the indoctrination into self-destructive behavior on a large scale: “…show images of children around the same age who do not conform to typical gender stereotypes. Examples do not have to be exaggerated or overt. Simple differences, such as colors or toy preferences, can demonstrate acceptance of gender nonconformity.”

And like all good re-education camps, there is no opting out. Brenda Lebsack at EdSource.org, who has gone through the 1,000-page guidelines that almost no parent will read and, interestingly are only in English, explains:

“Instruction about gender or sexual orientations that is implemented through the adoption of the framework is exempted from parent notification and opt out requirements (California Education Code 51932b). According to The California Safe School Coalition, state law provides that ‘instruction or materials that discuss gender, sexual orientation, or family life and do not discuss human reproductive organs and their functions’ are not subject to parental notice and opt-out laws.”

The only real alternative for parents who are Christian or most any religion, or who believe in science and reality, or who are moderate to conservative, is to not send their children to their local public school. They send them off automatically, even in “good” school districts, at great peril. That sounds extreme, but clearly based on this newest proposal, if you send your child to California’s public schools, and increasing numbers of other schools, you are sending your child to learn and believe a provable lie that could psychologically damage them for life.

EDITORS NOTE: This Revolutionary Act column is republished with permission.

Duke University Ordered to Repay the Federal Government $112 Million for Grant Fraud

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It looks like all involved are Americans (LOL! I am, after all, fair and balanced here at Frauds and Crooks!).

But, I’m bringing you this news for several reasons and first and foremost I want you to know that a whistleblower filed a lawsuit that provided information about how research data was being fudged (for years!) and has been awarded $33 million as a reward under the False Claims Act.

Good for him!

So keep an eye on possible opportunities for you to turn in someone or some institution that is defrauding Uncle Sam!  

The story that is all over the news this morning, involves the National Institutes of Health and the EPA, so the first thing I thought about was how much data involving global warming is being manipulated at the big universities that suck off the US Treasury.

And, in the wake of the Admissions scandal, it is one more example of how the average American is being suckered by elite universities.

From The Chronicle of Higher Education,

Duke to Pay $112.5 Million to Settle Scientific-Misconduct Lawsuit

Duke University will pay $112.5 million to settle a lawsuit over its alleged submission of falsified data to obtain $200 million in federal research grants.

The lawsuit, filed by a former lab analyst, Joseph Thomas, alleged that from 2006 to 2013 a research technician, Erin Potts-Kant, fabricated data that Duke used to get research funding from the National Institutes of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Thomas also alleged in the lawsuit, filed under the False Claims Act, that Duke covered up the fraud. The university said on Monday in a written statement that its officials discovered the possible fraud only in 2013, after Potts-Kant was fired for embezzlement. The university did not initially understand “the extent of her research misconduct.”

More here.

The US Justice Department press statement from yesterday is here.  This is one tiny bit of it involving the suit initially brought by Thomas,

The allegations were originally brought in a lawsuit filed by Joseph Thomas, a former Duke employee, under the qui tam, or whistleblower, provisions of the False Claims Act, which permit private individuals to sue on behalf of the government and share in any recovery.  The Act permits the government to intervene in and take over the whistleblower’s suit, or, as in this case, for the whistleblower to pursue the action on the government’s behalf.  Mr. Thomas will receive $33,750,000 from the settlement.

I told you about qui tam suits here in January.

EDITORS NOTE: This Frauds, Crooks and Criminals column is republished with permission.

Speech Righter: Trump Tackles College Censorship

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Going to college is tough for any teenager. But for conservatives, it can be downright dangerous. These days, parents are sending their kids off to six-figure war zones, where even moderate speakers need armies of protection — if they’re allowed to speak at all. Christians brave enough to talk about their views are stigmatized if they’re lucky, and physically attacked if they’re not. We’ve wiped campuses clean of so many words, ideas, and values that an entire generation is leaving college completely unprepared for the cruel world from which higher education is “sparing” them.

Like a lot of parents, Donald Trump is fed up. College campuses are so toxically liberal today that conservatives have gotten everything from death threats to docked grades. We’ve watched Christians like Isabella Chow lose her student government sponsorship. Even a simple act like recruiting for a college club is an excuse to throw punches. That’s not education — it’s state-sponsored hazing. And this administration has decided to do something about it.

Today, the president had a warning for liberal incubators like Berkeley: shut down free speech and the government will shut down your federal funding. Under a new executive order, the penalties for schools censoring students will be, in Trump’s words “very costly.” “If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view – NO FEDERAL FUNDS?” the president tweeted. So far, no one has had the nerve to hit higher education where it hurts. But then, not everyone is President Trump.

Charlie Kirk, who heads the group Hayden Williams was attacked for promoting, thinks it’s about time someone stepped in and stopped the First Amendment’s death spiral on college campuses. But how, he wonders, will the liberal media take it? After all, they’re “an ideologically homogeneous group, need to thread the needle of wanting to appear to be in favor of free speech while arguing that the president requiring free speech is somehow dangerous. That isn’t easy…” After all, he points out:

“Burn an American flag on campus or stand on a bench and decry the Constitution as racist and you will be allowed to speak. Wear an American flag on your shirt or hand out copies of the Constitution and you will be accused of triggering and sent off to the campus equivalent of the broom closet, called ‘Free Speech Zones,’ in order to continue to express your thoughts.”

And that intolerance has never cut both ways. Liberals used to care about the free exchange of ideas — until theirs became impossible to defend. Now, they’ve decided they don’t want to try to win the debate. They want to stop the debate from taking place. After years of policing speech and punishing speakers, the Left’s brainwashing is paying off. Thirty-percent of college students think shouting down people like Ben Shapiro is acceptable. Another 10 percent said it was okay to use violence to stop students like Hayden. And where did these extremists-in-training learn how to bully conservatives? From their adult counterparts, of course. They’re just mirroring what they’ve seen from the leaders of “get-up-in-their-face,” “tell-them-they’re-not-welcome,” “we-kick-them” liberalism.

This new army of young radicals thinks they’re on the “morally righteous side” in this culture war, Hayden says, “and in order to win, they must silence any form of dissent.” Now, thanks to President Trump, that silence will hurt any college who encourages it. “For an industry that loves to preach against capitalism, they sure do love their money,” Kirk points out. “This will hopefully start to get their attention. Unlike their students, if they don’t like it, they are certainly free to speak out.”

Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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EDITORS NOTE: This FRC column is republished with permission.

Public University Suspends Prof. for Advising Foreign Student to Learn English

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In a bothersome case of political correctness gone amok, a professor at a highly ranked public university in the United States has been suspended for suggesting a foreign student “learn English.”

The egregious incident occurred this month at the University of Kansas (UK), a taxpayer-funded institution with an enrollment of 28,500 that ranks among the nation’s top public universities. Situated in the northeast Kansas town of Lawrence, the school is the state’s flagship university and a premier research institution.

The “offending” professor, Gary Minden, teaches electrical engineering and computer science in the highly regarded school of engineering. Minden, an acclaimed academic, is a UK alum who received undergraduate and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering at the school.

In the 1990s he served as information technology program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a Pentagon agency with a $3 billion budget dedicated to developing technologies for the military. “DARPA goes to great lengths to identify, recruit and support excellent program managers—extraordinary individuals who are at the top of their fields and are hungry for the opportunity to push the limits of their disciplines,” according to the agency’s website. “These leaders, who are at the very heart of DARPA’s history of success, come from academia, industry and government agencies for limited stints, generally three to five years.”

During a recent class, Minden told a foreign student who was using an online translation system on a cell phone that the student should “learn English,” according to a local newspaper report. The unidentified student evidently was not bothered over the suggestion, but others in the class were offended and an “hourlong discussion” ensued in the engineering class which focuses on embedded systems.

During the discussion things apparently got heated and many students in the class became very upset. The professor told the local newspaper that he’s “frustrated” over the incident but refused to comment further for obvious reasons. In the article a university spokeswoman said “a number of students have raised concerns about events that occurred in their engineering class. In response to these concerns, the university has assigned a different instructor to teach the course while the matter is reviewed.”

This is hardly an isolated case of political correctness at taxpayer-funded schools in the United States. Public elementary, middle and high schools as well as colleges have taken an extreme leftist turn on several issues over the years and Judicial Watch has reported or taken legal action in several of the cases.

This includes exposing a Mexican separatist school that pushes Marxism and Anti-Americanism in Los Angeles, pervasive corruption in Chicago public schools and an after school Satan club in Washington State that received speedy tax-exempt approval from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Judicial Watch is currently embroiled in a legal battle with the Berkeley Unified School District in California to obtain the records of a middle school teacher who is a national organizer for a radical leftist group.

The teacher, Yvette Felarca, works at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School and is a prominent figure in By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), an organized militant group founded by the Marxist Revolutionary Workers League that uses raucous militant tactics to protest conservative speaking engagements. Felarca has been charged with several crimes, including felony assault, for inciting a riot in Sacramento.

A few years ago, Judicial Watch wrote about professors at a 54,000-student public university in south Florida that demanded the school protect illegal aliens by creating a “sanctuary campus.” The professors compared immigration enforcement to “fugitive slave laws.”

At the time students at colleges around the nation requested their undocumented classmates be protected, but the Florida professors blazed the trail as the first faculty members of an American taxpayer-funded establishment to officially call for campus-wide sanctuary in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s presidential election.

EDITORS NOTE: This Judicial Watch column is republished with permission.

Guess Which Abrahamic Religion Shut Down Public School ‘LGBT Rights’ Classes in England?

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QUESTIONS:

  1. Who are the victims in this case, those who are gay or those who follow the teachings of Mohammed?
  2. Which is worse Islamophobia or Homophobia?

It appears that in “tolerant” England there is a serious clash of cultures arising. Multicultural Great Britain created and funded the No Outsiders Project. According to the UK’s Economic and Research Council:

This [No Outsiders project] is a 28-month project (September 2006 to December 2008), supporting primary teachers in developing strategies to address lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality in their own schools and classrooms.

The goals of the No Outsiders project are:

  • To add to the understanding of the operation of heteronormativity (the assumption that heterosexuality is normal, so anything else is abnormal) in school contexts.
  • To create a community of practice within which teachers can develop effective approaches to addressing sexualities equality within the broader context of inclusive education.

The No Outsiders “inclusion” classes are now being taught throughout Great Britain.

Merriam-Webster defines heteronormativity as, “of, relating to, or based on the attitude that heterosexuality is the only normal and natural expression of sexuality.”

Islamophobia versus Homophobia

The three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) all believe sodomy is a sin. Ash-Shura 25:165-166 states:

Do you approach males among the worlds (165). And leave what your Lord has created for you as mates? But you are a people transgressing.”(166)

Quran 4:16 reads, “And the two who commit it [sodomy] among you, dishonor them both. But if they repent and correct themselves, leave them alone. Indeed, Allah is ever Accepting of repentance and Merciful.”

Who will win this argument in the end? The followers of Mohammed or those UK teachers of No Outsiders “inclusion”?

Intersectionality at a Crossroads

Intersectionality always hits a road block when two self-identified “oppressed minority groups” get into who’s the greater victim fight. So it is with the Muslim ummah and the LGBT community in Great Britain. In a BBC column titled “LGBT lessons row: More Birmingham schools stop classes“ Sima Kotecha writes:

Four more schools in Birmingham have stopped teaching about LGBT rights following complaints by parents.

Leigh Trust said it was suspending the No Outsiders programme until an agreement with parents was reached.

Earlier this month the city’s Parkfield Community School suspended the lessons after protests were held.

Campaigner Amir Ahmed said some Muslims felt “victimised” but an LGBT group leader said No Outsiders helped pupils understand it is OK to be different.

Watch this YouTube video “Muslim Parents Livid over LGBT Sex Education Lessons at their Children’s School“:

As parents begin to understand that their children are being indoctrinated on values that they find abhorrent we will see more of these kinds of programs dismantled. Religious beliefs trump sin every time.

RELATED ARTICLE: Transgender Professor Unhappy Some Believe Biological Males shouldn’t be Allowed to Compete in Women’s Sports

VIDEO: DivestU

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It’s no longer a secret that many college campuses today are nothing more than leftist indoctrination camps. But what can we do about it? Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, offers a simple and effective solution.

RELATED ARTICLE: There’s Rampant Academic Fraud

EDITORS NOTE: This video was made possible by a generous grant from Colorado Christian University. Learn more at PragerU.com/CCU.

TRANSCRIPT

Year after year, Americans pour billions of dollars into colleges and universities.

I’m not talking about the outrageous tuition costs, living expenses, and fees – the debt pit students fall into. And I’m not talking about the tax money – our money – colleges and universities get from federal and state governments. I’m talking about the money Americans are handing over to these institutions of their own free will.

In 2017, that number was $44 billion. $44 billion in donations in one year from alumni and other donors. And for what? To enhance the education of America’s youth?

Do you really think our college graduates are better educated, more literate, more versed in classical philosophy and American history than they were ten, twenty, or fifty years ago?

If your child goes to college and spends four years partying, skipping class, and playing video games, consider yourself lucky. It’s when they actually listen to their radical professors that you’re in trouble.

So what have our institutions been doing with all this money?

Well, the University of Michigan’s Vice Provost of Equity and Inclusion makes $400,000 a year. The university spends close to eleven million dollars annually on diversity and inclusion staff and programs, according to a recent report.

What do you think Vice Provosts of Equity and Inclusion (and almost all schools have one now) do all day? They, and the small armies they supervise, spend all day, every day, looking for racism, sexism, classism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia and any other phobias they can dream up. If they don’t find some bias somewhere, they’re out of a job. So, guess what? They find it – even where it doesn’t exist.

The University of California at Santa Cruz now has an “activist-in-residence.” His job is to mint new leftist activists – as if we have a shortage.

Why are we voluntarily giving billions and billions of dollars to hopelessly corrupt institutions that overcharge, underdeliver and undermine the most basic values of Western Civilization? We should be starving this beast. Instead, we’re feeding it.

Are there exceptions to this rule? Colleges that are actually dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom? Of course, there are – and they are worthy of your financial support. But you can count them on two hands. The rest have a different mission. And they have more than enough coin to carry it out.

The aforementioned University of Michigan has an endowment of 12 billion dollars. But that’s small potatoes compared to Yale’s $30 billion or Harvard’s $40 billion. And donors keep giving them more.

It’s time to stop.

You’d be better throwing your money into a bonfire. That’s just a waste. But when you donate to your average university, you’re actually hurting your society.

You’re the reason kids – maybe your kids – are coming home:

• Loving socialism and hating free market capitalism; • Believing male and female don’t objectively exist; • Excusing rockets being shot into Israel, then blaming Israel for defending itself; • Romanticizing Che Guevara and reviling George Washington; • And dismissing America, arguably the most decent country ever created, as racist, genocidal, imperialist, white-supremacist, hate-filled, and misogynistic.

Your children are being fed a steady diet of this nihilism in grade school, middle school, and high school. But they have to come home for dinner every night.

College is where the leftist deal is sealed. They’re free of your influence and under the sway of their leftist professors and leftist peers.

Stop supporting institutions that don’t support your values; that, in fact, despise your values. And, believe me, they despise you when you’re back is turned. The only thing they love about you is your money.

Oh, you might say, I would never give money for all that diversity, equity, and inclusion nonsense! I designate my donations to the business school or the medical center. If you think that, you’re fooling yourself. Money is fungible. You can designate it for anything you want, but you can’t control what the university does with it.

I travel around the country every week trying to rescue kids from the leftist cult that is college. It’s bad enough that I have to battle administrators, professors, and leftist student bodies. I shouldn’t have to fight you, too.

College has become a big business. Most indoctrinate rather than educate. The best way to force them to change is to take away their cash. Your cash. Start today.

I’m Charlie Kirk, founder and president of Turning Point USA, for Prager University.

College president Rejects Motion to Suspend Israel Study Abroad Program backed by Antisemitic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib

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“Students and faculty of California’s Pitzer College voted Thursday to suspend the study abroad partnership with Israel’s University of Haifa, but college president Melvin Oliver is declining to take any action on the program, calling it an “academic boycott of Israel.”

In a slap in the face of Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and her antisemitic followers the President of Pitzer college rejected a move backed by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib to suspend the Israel abroad study program. This is more than the Democratic controlled Congress did in the face of Tlaib’s antisemitism. Thank you President Melvin Oliver.

Read the Free Beacon column:

College President Rejects Motion to Suspend Israel Study Abroad Program

Anti-Israel Pitzer College proposal backed by Rep. Rashida Tlaib

BY: Brent Scher

Students and faculty of California’s Pitzer College voted Thursday to suspend the study abroad partnership with Israel’s University of Haifa, but college president Melvin Oliver is declining to take any action on the program, calling it an “academic boycott of Israel.”

The anti-Israel proposal, backed by radical leftist groups and Democratic congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, won the support of the Pitzer College Council in a Thursday vote taken by both students and faculty. Oliver says the vote amounts only to a recommendation to the president and is declining to take it.

Oliver made numerous arguments against the proposal in a Thursday message to the academic community, including that it was “prejudiced” against Israel, would “curtail academic freedom,” and that it is not the school’s role to take political positions.

“Although some claim that this is not an academic boycott of Israel, I disagree,” Oliver wrote. “The recommendation puts in place a form of academic boycott of Israel and, in the process, sets us on a path away from the free exchange of ideas, a direction which ultimately destroys the academy’s ability to fulfill our educational mission. I categorically oppose any form of academic boycott of any country.”

READ MORE.