Tag: universities

‘What happens on campus doesn’t stay on campus,’ professor says at free speech event

“What happens on campus doesn’t stay on campus. For better or for worse,” Princeton University Professor Robert George said during a recent talk about how free speech ideas in higher education have filtered into the broader culture. 

George, a well-known conservative, spoke Friday at the event “Faithful Free Speech: From Campus to the Hill,” hosted by the American Enterprise Institute and Faith and Law, a non-partisan organization that serves congressional staff, integrating faith and policy. AEI is a think tank based in Washington, D.C. that defends human dignity and prioritizes the values of the nation’s founding. 

Pete Peterson, dean of Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy, spoke with George about the founders’ intention behind the First Amendment in connecting religion and speech.

George, the McCormick professor of jurisprudence at Princeton, quoted the Declaration of Independence, which says human beings’ rights are “endowed” by God. 

“In other words, the role of government is to secure rights that government did not create,” George said. “Those rights don’t come from the hands of kings or presidents or parliaments or Congresses or Supreme Courts. They come from no merely human power.”

The government’s job is to secure these rights by making sure “people do not become predators against each other, that people don’t violate each other’s rights,” he said. 

Recalling a quote from James Madison, George said, “Only a well-instructed people can be permanently free people. And the way we gain instruction is not simply by going to school. That’s important. It’s very important. But that’s not the only way.”

George continued, “We gain instruction by engaging with each other, by trading reasons and arguments, by doing business with each other in the proper currency of intellectual discourse.”

He urged Americans to pay attention to what is happening on college campuses because “what happens on campus really is vital to what happens in the broader society.”

He gave the example of how “hate speech” is now widely considered to be an exception to the First Amendment, an idea that began on college campuses. 

George said his students at Princeton are high achievers, valedictorians and top-level SAT scorers. But when he teaches Constitutional law and asks what types of speech are not protected by the First Amendment, they often mention “hate speech.”

“There is no such category which in our Constitutional jurisprudence constitutes an exception, and for very good reasons,” he said. 

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Why a Student With a 1590 SAT Score Was Rejected by 16 Colleges

Stanley Zhong did everything right. A 4.42 weighted GPA (3.98 unweighted). A 1590 SAT score (1600 is perfect). He’d even launched his own startup (RabbitSign).

Yet the 18-year-old Palo Alto-area graduate was stunned when he found himself rejected by 16 of the 18 schools he’d applied to, including multiple state schools.

“Some of the state schools, I really thought, you know, I had a good chance,” Zhong told ABC7 News. “I didn’t get in.”

Zhong’s story has begun to gather some media attention, which was the subject of discussion at a recent House Committee on Education and the Workforce hearing. Yet almost all of the stories failed to mention the likely reason Zhong was rejected: He’s Asian.

For years, colleges have been quietly discriminating against Asians in the admission process, admitting white, black, and Latino students with lower SAT scores and lower GPAs in the name of inclusivity. The problem for Asians is that, as a group, they tend to score really well.

This means there’s an abundance of highly qualified Asians applying to universities each year. This would not be a problem for Asian students if not for race-conscious universities, which, in recent years, have demonstrated a preference for social equity and racial balance over merit.

As a result, untold numbers of Asians have found themselves excluded from universities simply because of their race.

Harvard, which was sued in 2013 by Students for Fair Admissions for racial discrimination, is a high-profile example. Several years ago, the university released data showing that over an 18-year period (1995–2013), Asian American students outscored every other racial peer group, averaging an SAT section score of 767 (max 800). That is substantially higher than white people (745), Hispanic people (718), Native Americans (712), and black people (704).

In other words, Asian Americans had to outperform other racial peer groups to be admitted.

“[Asian Americans were] being held to a higher standard than [others], all else equal,” Duke economist Peter S. Arcidiacono wrote in a pretrial report.

The dirty secret was that Harvard, like most universities, was using racial discrimination to admit certain racial groups at the expense of others.

Many colleges and defenders of affirmative action, i.e., “positive discrimination,” refused to admit this was actually racial discrimination. Some supporters of the policy, however, had the intellectual honesty to do so.

“I can accept the trade-offs as the necessary cost of this policy,” Jonathan Chait wrote in a 2022 New York magazine article. “What I can’t accept is the refusal by Harvard and its defenders to admit what the policy is.”

Chait described their refusal as “gaslighting,” and the Supreme Court agreed. In a watershed 2023 decision, the court held that race-based admissions violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause.

The high court was right, but we should look beyond the legal problems of affirmative action.

America is built on the idea that all people should be treated equally, but today, we’re divided on the question of whether racial discrimination should be used so long as it results in preferred outcomes. The vast majority of people (73%) oppose race-based admissions, but it’s a policy supported by many liberals—indeed, demanded.

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‘Everybody Knew This Current Federal Administration Was Not Liking Black folk, Was Not Liking Latino Folk, and Was Not Down with Immigrants,’ says University President

The lingering effects of racism and white supremacy have tainted American thinking, or so claims one university president in The Golden State.

The Gateway Pundit spoke to Dr. Rick Addante, a neuroscientist and former tenured psychology professor with 25 years of experience in academia. In September 2025, the former professor was invited to an event hosted by the American Psychological Association (APA) Leadership Development Institute, featuring the president of California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH). Dr. Addante said attendees were notified that the event was being recorded and that they were permitted to share its contents.

On October 1, the former professor posted video clips on X of CSUDH president Dr. Thomas Parham addressing the virtual crowd.

According to Dr. Addante, “it is important for this big lede not to be buried.” That is, he argued, “the president of CSU says he sees it as his role to disrupt and dislodge white people, their beliefs, and more. That’s a big deal, and it’s appalling.”

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MIT Says It Will Not Sign Trump Admin’s Higher Education Compact

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has declined to sign onto the Trump administration’s proposed compact, which would mandate campus reforms in exchange for preferential access to federal funding.

MIT President Sally Kornbluth announced the decision on Oct. 10 in a campus-wide letter attaching her formal response to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who invited nine universities to sign the new agreement.

The proposed “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” would require participating universities to freeze tuition for five years, limit international student enrollment, and adopt the federal government’s biology-based definitions of sex and gender when it comes to sports or single-sex spaces.

Other provisions call for reinstating the SAT requirement for applicants, curbing grade inflation, prohibiting the use of race and sex as factors in admissions or employment, and reforming or dismantling departments that “purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”

MIT ‘Cannot Support the Proposed Approach’

In her response, Kornbluth acknowledged that MIT shares some of the administration’s stated goals, such as focusing on merit, reducing costs for students, and upholding free expression.

“These values and other MIT practices meet or exceed many standards outlined in the document you sent. We freely choose these values because they’re right, and we live by them because they support our mission—work of immense value to the prosperity, competitiveness, health, and security of the United States. And of course, MIT abides by the law,” Kornbluth wrote.

She also noted that MIT disagreed with a number of the demands, saying that they “would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution” and that the premise of the document is inconsistent with MIT’s core belief that “scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.”

“In our view, America’s leadership in science and innovation depends on independent thinking and open competition for excellence,” Kornbluth wrote.

“In that free marketplace of ideas, the people of MIT gladly compete with the very best, without preferences. Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.”

MIT is the first of the nine universities invited to join the compact to publicly reject it. The administration also invited Brown University, Dartmouth College, the University of Arizona, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Virginia, and Vanderbilt University.

It’s unclear why those particular institutions were chosen or whether other schools will be offered the same terms.

The Department of Education did not respond to requests for comment from The Epoch Times by publication time.

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Unhinged Oklahoma State University Professor Placed on Leave After Threatening and Reprimanding Student Who Spoke at Event Honoring Charlie Kirk

An Oklahoma State University student says he was reprimanded and threatened by a university staffer simply for wearing a Turning Point USA “47” hat while speaking in honor of Charlie Kirk.

Joshua Wilson, a junior and Senate University Chairman at OSU, says the confrontation came out of nowhere during a routine one-on-one meeting with a student government coordinator, News9 reported.

What started as a heartfelt tribute to Kirk, who was assassinated by a radical leftist, quickly devolved into a chilling lecture on “triggered” family members and veiled warnings about his future at the university.

Wilson said the hat, a white ball cap emblazoned with a gold “47” (for Donald Trump as the 47th President) and the Turning Point USA logo, wasn’t intended as a political statement.

He and a friend decided to speak briefly at a student government meeting to honor Charlie Kirk, who had visited the campus earlier this year as part of his Turning Point USA Campus Tour.

“Me and my friends were so distraught, but the first kind of thought that came to our mind was, ‘What do other students kind of think right now?” Wilson told News9. “If we’re this pained by it, if we’re worried about what may happen to us also, what are other students worried about?”

Donning their TPUSA hats, they stepped up to remind their peers that open dialogue, not censorship, is the bedrock of America.

“We thought, OK, we have our turning point hats, let’s go to student government and show our constituents they don’t have to be afraid to have a conversation and to speak about what they believe in, and that’s what we did,” Wilson said.

“It wasn’t something that was partisan. It wasn’t something that we were supporting Trump, you know, but it was a hat that symbolized that conversation is what built this country, what should maintain it.”

During the meeting, Wilson said his message was met with applause and support. No one, including the staff member who would later reprimand him, voiced any objections at the time.

“For me personally, it has nothing to do with partisan politics whatsoever, it’s just something I got at an event that meant a lot to me,” Wilson said.

“In that meeting, I hope that with the student government where I was giving my speech, I hope it was expressed that was not the issue, not partisan politics, but just the issue or the crux of the idea of why I brought the hat to campus was that students shouldn’t feel afraid, and we can go forward.”

A week later, Wilson said he was summoned to a private meeting by the staffer who had been present at his speech. He described feeling threatened and cornered.

During the meeting, which Wilson recorded and obtained by News9, the staffer admitted she was offended by his attire, saying:

“I have family who don’t look like you who are triggered by those hats and by that side.”

Wilson said he calmly explained that his hat was not about partisan politics, but about honoring free speech and the First Amendment. The staffer allegedly replied that if he “questioned that belief,” his year “might not be easy.”

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University adds ‘trigger warning’ to James Bond novel ‘Dr. No’

An entertainment staple for over 50 years, the suave British spy James Bond has been featured in numerous novels and 26 films, the most recent being “No Time to Die,” actor Daniel Craig’s last as Agent 007.

News broke this past week that the film franchise’s new owner, Amazon Studios, digitally removed 007’s handgun from various Bond actors’ poses. But after fan outrage, Amazon put the guns back … and offered no explanation, according to OutKick.

The Pierce Brosnan pose for “Goldeneye” looked particularly stupid.

Now the University of Portsmouth in the U.K. has included the Bond novel “Dr. No” on a list of 50 books that have trigger warnings, according to The Telegraph.

“Please note: James Bond films and novels are popular to this day but contain many problematic issues such as racism, misogyny and xenophobia,” the university said. “We will be discussing the problems with this text in all of our seminars.”

The school said it “encourages students ‘to engage with teaching texts in an informed way’ through content notes.”

Content warnings recognise the diverse lived experience of students and that there can be content they will find challenging or potentially distressing as a result of their experiences. It is our duty of care to our students to do so. The warning enables students to prepare emotionally, engage more deeply and discuss the issues raised by the content critically and constructively.

Ian Kinane, a lecturer at the University of Roehampton and editor of the International Journal of James Bond Studies, defended the trigger warning.

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Universities Took Over $60 BILLION in Foreign Gifts to Fund Radical Left Programs

For decades, American universities have taken billions of dollars from foreign governments and entities.

Nearly $60 billion in gifts and contracts has been funneled to colleges across the country, often without the required federal reporting.

This money is not harmless. It buys influence, shapes research priorities, and gives hostile nations access to sensitive information.

Ten of the nation’s top universities—Harvard, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Penn, MIT, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Yale, Georgetown, and Columbia—alone accepted more than $20 billion.

Harvard took in over $3.2 billion, Cornell nearly $2.8 billion, and Columbia more than $1.1 billion.

These are schools that set the tone for American politics, research, and culture.

They are also the same institutions that push left-wing ideology while taking money from countries that oppose the United States.

Federal law requires transparency on foreign contracts and gifts, but those rules are weakly enforced.

Universities often fail to comply fully, and Democrats have shown no interest in holding them accountable.

That means adversaries like China, Russia, and Qatar can spend massive sums to gain access to intellectual property and shape what is taught in American classrooms, often without the public ever knowing.

In his second term, President Trump has expanded efforts to expose hidden foreign influence in higher education.

His administration strengthened federal oversight by directing the Department of Education to pursue schools that failed to comply with reporting requirements. 

Universities are now compelled to disclose hundreds of millions in unreported foreign gifts and contracts, often from adversarial nations.

The administration has made compliance a top priority, warning institutions that secrecy would no longer be tolerated.

These investigations set a precedent, signaling to colleges that federal reporting requirements had teeth and that the flow of unmonitored foreign cash into America’s most elite schools would be confronted head-on.

Trump made clear that China and other adversaries were stealing American innovation and that universities had become one of their easiest targets.

When foreign governments fund programs on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and biotechnology at U.S. schools, they are buying a front-row seat to research that should be protected for America’s benefit.

When they fund cultural centers and academic programs, they are shaping what the next generation of American leaders believes about their own country.

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Rutgers University Professor Who Wrote Antifa Handbook Flees Country After TPUSA Petition for Him to Be Fired

Mark Bray, a Rutgers University history professor and self-proclaimed “Antifa expert,” has fled the United States to Spain after allegedly receiving “death threats” amid accusations that he is more involved with the far-left extremist movement than simply studying it.

The professor has been openly supportive of Antifa tactics, including writing the actual handbook.

Bray, dubbed “Dr. Antifa” by critics and students alike, denies any direct membership in Antifa, insisting in interviews, “I am not now, nor have I ever been, part of any kind of antifascist or anti-racist organization – I just haven’t. I’m a professor,” according to a report from The Guardian.

However, his 2017 book, Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, has fueled accusations of deeper involvement.

In the book, Bray pledged 50% of proceeds to the International Anti-Fascist Defense Fund, which he described as supporting “the legal or medical costs of people facing charges for organizing pertaining to anti-fascism or anti-racism.”

Conservatives argue this constitutes material support, potentially opening the door for federal investigations under Trump’s order designating Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization.

The controversy erupted when the Rutgers chapter of Turning Point USA (TPUSA) launched a petition calling for Bray’s dismissal.

The petition, hosted on Change.org, accuses Bray of being an “Antifa financier” and an “outspoken, well-known antifa member,” stating that his presence at Rutgers endangers students and promotes terrorist behavior.

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DHS arrests college professor with alleged Antifa ties for bringing a loaded gun to anti-ICE protest

college professor at Northeastern Illinois University, who believes Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are Nazis, was arrested in Chicago in late September after allegedly bringing a loaded gun to an anti-ICE protest.

Elias Cepeda, who is suspected of having ties to Antifa, and who is listed as a faculty member in the English department of the Chicago university, was arrested on Sept. 26 carrying a loaded gun along with multiple rounds of ammunition during President Donald Trump’s Operation Midway Blitz operation, according to the New York Post. 

“Elias Cepeda has suspected ties to the domestic terrorist organization ANTIFA and has a history of glorifying violence against—and the killing of—our brave law enforcement,” said Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin in a statement.

“Violent individuals like Cepeda are putting the public and our law enforcement’s lives in danger. Just two days after the horrific attack on ICE in Dallas, Cepeda brought a loaded gun and multiple magazines to our ICE facility in Chicago,” McLaughlin added.

“Thank God law enforcement intervened and arrested Cepeda before he could have potentially shot or killed anyone. Let this serve as a stark warning to any individual who wishes to do our law enforcement harm or any ANTIFA terrorist: President Trump and Secretary Noem will fight every day to protect and defend the men and women who keep our country safe from violent extremists and criminal illegal aliens alike.”

Cepeda already had a history of social media posts urging violence against ICE, while describing federal agents as Nazis and referencing Antifa. 

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Maryland State University Student Government Excludes Jewish Students From Vote On Boycotting Israel

On Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, the University of Maryland (UMD) Student Government Association (SGA) passed a boycott, sanctions, and divestment resolution against the state of Israel, 29-0 with one abstention. 

Because Jews fast, pray, and abstain from work on Yom Kippur, Jewish students, who comprise 20 percent of UMD’s student body, were not able to participate in the voting process. The bill was initially scheduled for a few days prior on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. Only two SGA members supported a motion that would have pushed the vote after the Jewish holidays. 

One SGA member claimed, in a statement to UMD’s student newspaper, The Diamondback, “The priority for us was to make sure that there was [sic] accommodations, and I believe SGA did provide them,” referring to proxy voting measures. 

This does not take into consideration the fact that observant Jews do not work or use electronics on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. 

“The timing denied our community the opportunity to engage in a fair and meaningful discussion,” said Meirav Solomon, a junior at UMD on the pre-law track. “This decision adds to the growing sense that Jewish students are not safe or heard on campus. SGA is meant to represent the entire student body, and that means ensuring that every community has a voice in decisions that impact them.”

The Trump administration has opened Title VI investigations into various universities, including Harvard and Columbia, for campus antisemitism. Given how Jewish students are being treated on UMD’s campus, there may very well be a case against the university, so long as leadership allows open hatred to continue unfettered.    

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