Tag: universities

California Passes Reparations in College Admissions, Despite Prop 209

The California legislature passed a bill last week that would provide reparations to descendants of slaves in the form of college admissions — despite Proposition 209, which forbids the use of race in college admissions.

The bill, AB 7, provides that California State University, the University of California, independent institutions of higher education … and private postsecondary educational institutions … may consider providing a preference in admissions to an applicant who is a descendant of slavery.” It applies to anyone “who can establish direct lineage to a person who, before 1900, was subjected to American chattel slavery.”

Proposition 209, passed in 1996 and reaffirmed by California voters in 2020, bans the use of race in college admissions and for other public purposes. Supporters of AB 7 say that “descendant of slavery” is race-neutral.

The Los Angeles Times reports that AB 7 is only one of several reparations bills passed by the legislature:

Earlier this week, the Democratic-led Legislature also passed Senate Bill 518, which would create a new office called the Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery. That bureau would create a process to determine whether someone is the descendant of a slave and to certify someone’s claim to help them access benefits.

The legislature also approved Assembly Bill 57, by Assemblymember Tina McKinnor (D-Hawthorne), which would help descendants of slavery build generational wealth by becoming homeowners.

…

The Legislature also passed McKinnor’s AB 67, which sets up a process for people who said they or their families lost property to the government through “racially motivated eminent domain” to seek to have the property returned or to be paid.

Newsom will now consider the bills. He signed a formal apology for slavery last year, after declining to back bills that would have provided cash reparations.

California entered the Union as a Free State in 1850.

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Top university administrator calls Charlie Kirk assassination ‘fair’ due to stance on guns: ‘No prayers’

An assistant campus director at George Washington University took to social media shortly after the assassination of Charlie Kirk and said it is “fair” that Kirk was gunned down due to his support of gun ownership and the Second Amendment. 

“If nothing else, it is fair, in a nation where children get massacred by gun violence on the regular, the people who advocate for continued gun ownership at the expense of those children are not immune from the consequences of their advocacy,” Anthony Pohorilak, Assistant Director of Academic Initiatives at George Washington University’s Mount Vernon Campus, posted on his personal Facebook after Kirk was killed.

“No thoughts no prayers,” the GWU employee added. 

The Facebook post, exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital, received 37 likes and love reactions from Pohorilak’s friend group.

The George Washington University website lists Pohorilak, who uses the pronouns “He/Him” in his bio, as working for the Campus Living & Residential Education department.

“The George Washington University unequivocally condemns all forms of violence,” a university spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement.

“As a university with one of the most politically engaged campus communities in the country, we believe everyone is entitled to their beliefs, and no one should ever be subject to violence for expressing their views. This individual employee is not authorized to speak on behalf of GW, and his opinions do not reflect those of the university.”

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Survey Finds ONE IN THREE College Students Think Some Level of Violence is Acceptable to Stop Campus Speech They Don’t Like

One point that has been made repeatedly over the last 48 hours is that Charlie Kirk was assassinated while exercising one of our most basic rights, the right to free speech.

When Kirk visited college campuses, he was not protesting, he was engaging in peaceful, intellectual discussions, question and answer sessions and/or debate with students who participated freely.

So how would anyone think of killing him for doing this? Well, a survey which was released just a day before Kirk was murdered, shows that an astonishing number of college students believe that violence is an acceptable way to stop campus speech they don’t like.

The College Fix reported:

1 in 3 students say some level of violence acceptable to stop campus speech

One in three students believe some level of violence is acceptable to stop a campus speech, according to the results of a large-scale survey released Tuesday by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

The survey, which questioned more than 68,000 students at 257 colleges and universities nationwide on a variety of free speech topics, asked: “How acceptable would you say it is for students to engage in the following actions to protest a campus speaker? Using violence to stop a campus speech.”

Two percent said “always acceptable,” 13 percent said “sometimes acceptable,” and 19 percent said “rarely acceptable,” or about one-third of those surveyed.

When broken down by political beliefs, 7 percent of students who identified as liberal said it’s “always acceptable” to use violence to shut down speech — while 8 percent of students who identified as conservative did.

“More students than ever think violence and chaos are acceptable alternatives to peaceful protest,” FIRE Chief Research Advisor Sean Stevens said in a news release. “This finding cuts across partisan lines. It is not a liberal or conservative problem — it’s an American problem.”

“Students see speech that they oppose as threatening, and their overblown response contributes to a volatile political climate.”

A majority of students surveyed — 54 percent — also responded it was acceptable to block other students from attending a campus speech: 3 percent said “always acceptable,” 19 percent said “sometimes acceptable,” and 32 percent said “rarely acceptable.”

This is an indictment of our entire system of education. Schools are failing to educate our students about our most basic God-given rights and the respect that they deserve, especially in an education setting.

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Utah College Student Reported Suspicious Man on Losee Center Roof to FBI After Spotting Him Twice in Two Weeks Before Charlie Kirk Assassination — Says Suspect Matches Person of Interest and Was Confronted by Professor

A Utah Valley University student revealed to CNN that he spotted a suspicious man walking on or near the roof of the Losee Center twice in two weeks before Kirk was assassinated.

Even more alarming, he says the man he saw bears a striking resemblance to the person of interest whose photo has now been released by police.

The Utah Department of Public Safety released four additional photos of the suspected Charlie Kirk assassin on Thursday night.

Earlier in the day, the FBI had unveiled the first batch of images of the person of interest in the assassination.

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Threat to ‘Kill All Charlie Kirks’ Spray-Painted on Seattle College Campus

A threat to “KILL ALL CHARLIE KIRKS” has been spray-painted on the sign of a Seattle, Washington college within a day of the Turning Point USA founder’s public assassination on a Utah college campus.

Seattle-based reporter Jonathan Choe shared a photo on social media showing the alarming message scrawled across the bricks in front of Seattle Central College.

“This is obviously a threat,” Choe wrote. “But what the far-left doesn’t realize is that this madness is actually catalyzing reasonable Americans to now say, ‘WE ARE ALL CHARLIE KIRK.’”

“Courage is contagious and the movement will continue,” he added.

Another disgusting message was spotted on a sign carried by a radical in downtown Seattle, reading “Charlie Kirk shot hell yes!!”

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Cornell excluded white evolutionary biologist in ‘diversity hire’ search, complaint alleges 

Cornell University is facing an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigation after allegations lodged against the Ivy League institution that faculty search committees deliberately excluded highly qualified white applicants.

America First Policy Institute first lodged the complaint in June, citing internal emails that spelled out how candidates were passed over as part of Cornell’s “diversity hire” process. In mid-July, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission launched an inquiry into the matter.

In late July, evolutionary biologist Colin Wright joined the battle against Cornell, stating he applied there in 2020 but now understands, thanks to those whistleblower emails, he never stood a chance because he is white. 

Wright’s complaint is just the latest headache for Cornell, which saw more than $1 billion in federal funding frozen by the Trump Administration in April in part due to allegations of civil rights violations. 

The administration is currently in negotiations with Cornell to resolve the allegations. Cornell has publicly denied the allegations.

“The EEOC has been extraordinarily vigilant and dedicated to addressing discrimination, and we are grateful for their seriousness in this matter,” said Leigh Ann O’Neill, chief of staff at AFPI’s Center for Litigation.

“Cornell, by contrast, has been stonewalling,” she told The College Fix on Tuesday. “We submitted our client’s demand on August 1, and here we are on September 9 with no accountability whatsoever from the university.” 

Wright’s administrative EEOC complaint is the first step before he can file a lawsuit.

 ‘I was denied the chance to compete’

“America First Policy Institute released internal Cornell emails showing the university conducted an effort to recruit what the search committee referred to as a ‘diversity hire.’ One committee member described the process bluntly: ‘What we should be doing is inviting one person whom we have identified as being somebody that we would like to join our department and not have that person in competition with others,’” Wright wrote in a July 30 Wall Street Journal op-ed.

“That ‘somebody,’ who is black, was selected not because of research excellence, but because of race. I was denied the chance to compete—so were other academics who might have been qualified,” Wright wrote.

He argued the search committee violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which “prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin,” as per the EEOC’s website.

Wright, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, did not respond to multiple requests from The College Fix seeking comment.

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Third of US students say violence is acceptable response to speech

Over a third of US students believe it is acceptable to use violence to stop a speech on campus, according to a new survey.

The Foundation of Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has published its 2026 College Free Speech Rankings, an annual review of American universities’ speech protections and climate of open inquiry. When asked whether using violence to stop a public speaker on campus is acceptable, only 66% of students responded that the tactic is “never acceptable”. Meanwhile, 15% responded that violence is always or sometimes acceptable, with a further 19% saying that it was “rarely acceptable”. The combined 34% is a record figure.

FIRE’s rankings have been running since 2020, and this year’s instalment arrives off the back of continued protests on national campuses over the war in Gaza, as well as the Trump administration’s attempts to withhold funding from institutions whose speech policies are perceived as illiberal. Earlier this month, a federal court ruled that funding cuts imposed by the administration on Harvard violated the university’s rights. In July, Columbia University paid the White House a $200 million settlement having been accused of failing to prevent antisemitism on campus.

The 34% of students who at least occasionally defend the use of violence to interrupt a speech is an increase from the 32% who said the same last year. In 2022, that figure was 20%. There are also record numbers of students who think it is acceptable to shout down speakers (71%) and to block other students from attending a speech (54%).

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California Professor Indicted for Assaulting Federal Agents During Marijuana Farm Raid

A federal grand jury indicted a professor at California State University Channel Islands who is charged with throwing a tear gas canister at federal agents executing a search warrant at a marijuana farm in Camarillo this summer. The grand jury returned the indictment on Wednesday.

Jonathan Caravello, 37, of Ventura, California, is charged with one count of assault on a federal officer using a deadly or dangerous weapon. Caravello, who is free on $15,000 bond, is expected to be arraigned in the coming weeks in the United States District Court in Los Angeles.

According to the indictment and court documents previously filed in this case, on July 10, federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and United States Border Patrol executed a high-risk search warrant at a marijuana farm sitting on a 160-acre property in Camarillo. A group of protesters gathered near law enforcement personnel around the farm’s entrance and used their bodies and their vehicles to impede law enforcement from exiting the location.

According to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District of Los Angeles, protesters became violent, throwing rocks at the government vehicles attempting to depart the location because of the danger posed by the protesters. The thrown rocks broke windows and side-view mirrors, among other damage to the government vehicles driven by authorities participating in the immigration enforcement action.

The indictment indicated law enforcement agents on the scene in Camarillo deployed tear gas to assist with crowd control and ensure officer safety. The measure also allowed law enforcement to depart the location. Border Patrol agents rolled tear gas canisters by protesters’ feet at which time the indictment alleged Caravello ran up to one of the canisters and attempted to kick it. After the canister rolled past him, Caravello turned around, ran towards the canister, picked it up, and threw it overhand back at Border Patrol agents.

Border Patrol agents eventually arrested Caravello, who continuously kicked his legs and refused to give agents his arms during the arrest.

Breitbart Texas reported in July that federal officials were offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the arrest of another suspect in the assaults on agents during this operation.

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Fake Students Plague California Community Colleges, Displacing Real Enrollees

California’s community colleges are grappling with a surge in fraudulent enrollments, with 1.2 million fake applicants last year accounting for nearly 30 percent of new students, blocking real students from classes and costing millions in stolen financial aid, according to college officials.

The problem, exacerbated by the shift to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, affects at least 90 of the state’s 116 campuses, said Marvin Martinez, chancellor of the Rancho Santiago Community College District, and Jeannie Kim, president of Santiago Canyon College.

Before the pandemic, most classes were in-person, making fraud more difficult, Martinez said. But with 80 percent of courses moving online, bots and fake students can enroll from anywhere, including other states or countries.

“It’s happened on a massive scale,” Martinez told Epoch TV’s California Insider host Siyamak Khorrami.

“What’s made this situation of fraudulent enrollment so different than anything that I’ve seen before in my 36 years in higher ed is that it’s happened in almost 80 percent now of the campuses.”

At Santiago Canyon College, fall 2024 enrollment initially spiked 10 percent to 13 percent, Kim said, but faculty discovered many registrants were fraudulent. In one anthropology course, administrators raised the enrollment cap by 30 daily, only for bots to fill slots instantly, leaving just 12 to 15 genuine students. 

Faculty identified fakes through non-engagement, identical assignments, or invalid contact details, like phone numbers tied to businesses or defunct entities. Removing fraudulent enrollments cut the college’s headcount by 10,000 to 12,000 spots, with some bad actors enrolled in up to five classes each.

The fallout is severe. Real students are denied access to required courses, delaying graduations, certificates, and transfers to four-year universities.

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Wisconsin Democrats Fight to End Campus Carry for Self-Defense

Wisconsin Democrats, led by state Sen. Kelda Roys (D), are pushing a ban that would end licensed concealed carriers’ ability to be armed for self-defense on college campuses.

On September 4, 2025, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Daily Cardinal reported on Roys’ proposed ban, noting that it would “make it illegal for anyone — including those who have concealed carry licenses — to possess a firearm anywhere on university or college property.”

Roys commented on the ban, saying, “When people have unfettered access to firearms, we can’t live free from the fear of gun violence.”

She did not point to any gun crime committed on campus by a licensed concealed carrier.

It is worth noting that the ban would exempt police officers, although police have historically been convicted of gun crimes at a higher rate than concealed carry permit holders.

On May 27, 2017, Breitbart News pointed to data John Lott drew from concealed carry permit revocations and quoted him: “Permits have been revoked for firearms-related violations at rates of thousandths of one percentage point. Civilian permit holders are less likely than police officers to be convicted of a firearms violation.”

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