Tag: universities

Capitalism fuels ‘racism,’ is ‘difficult to survive’: Iowa State U. lecture

Capitalism is an “oppressive system” that is “incredibly difficult to survive,” a financial coach said during a recent lecture at Iowa State University.

The “Anti-Capitalism Personal Finance Lecture” featured Leo Aquino, a “non-binary Filipinx writer, journalist, and financial coach” known for “their commitment to uplifting BIPOC and LGBTQ+ stories,” according to the event description.

During the lecture, Aquino advocated for an “anti-capitalist” budgeting approach that encourages people to reframe their relationship with money to prioritize well-being over profit, mainly benefiting queer and trans-identifying individuals.

The speaker defined anti-capitalism as “the belief that financial systems do not need to adhere to capitalist values for us to survive.”

An anti-capitalist personal finance perspective supports workers’ abilities to control their labor and decide how profits are invested. It requires people to redefine their “definition of wealth,” Aquino said.

The speaker encouraged students to stop blaming themselves for their financial situations and start questioning the underlying system.

Aquino defined capitalism as “an economic system where workers are required to sell [their] labor for a wage in order to survive.”

The financial coach said this system prioritizes profits over people while causing burnout, depression, and anxiety. “[Capitalism] is an oppressive system profiting from our lack of financial literacy and interpersonal conflicts around money.”

Further, capitalism “necessitates racism, ableism, homophobia, colonialism, and other forms of oppression to perpetuate conflict.” It “has forced people from marginalized communities to do unrealistic things to survive in an oppressive system,” Aquino said.

The speaker contrasted traditional budgeting, defined as a monthly estimate of income and expenses, with anti-capitalist budgeting, described as a “neutral space for us to practice compassionate data analysis.”

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Education Department Finds University of Pennsylvania Violated Title IX Over Transgender Swimmer

The University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) remains in violation of Title IX regulations lingering from a transgender athlete who won an NCAA women’s swimming title for the school in 2022, and will have 10 days to resolve the issue before the matter is referred to the Department of Justice, federal officials said on April 28.

The announcement was made after the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights sent the notice of noncompliance to UPenn President Larry Jameson.

Jameson was informed that complying with current NCAA regulations and President Donald Trump’s February executive order prohibiting males from competing in women’s sports is not enough to satisfy compliance requirements. As a punitive measure, the federal government is requiring UPenn to relinquish that athlete’s 2022 championship title and issue an apology to the female athletes he defeated.

The Ivy League school is also expected to issue a statement noting that all its athletic programs comply with Title IX.

Title IX is a federal regulation implemented in 1972 that prohibits educational institutions receiving federal funding from engaging in sex discrimination and assures fairness for NCAA women’s sports programs. President Joe Biden, whose administration preceded Trump’s current term, amended it to allow transgender participation in sports, and Trump reversed that under his executive order.

UPenn must also restore to female athletes their rightful records, titles, and honors, “or similar recognition for Division I swimming competitions misappropriated by male athletes competing in female categories.”

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US Universities Don’t Like Unmasking Their Foreign Donors. A New Trump Order Aims To Make Them.

For decades, federal law has required U.S. universities to disclose the sources of large foreign donations to the federal government. But the Biden administration sparsely enforced the law, allowing foreign nationals from adversarial countries to funnel cash to top American schools and stay anonymous.

In some cases, it’s unclear whether the schools themselves are keeping close track of the foreign money they accept. In early February, the Washington Free Beacon filed state records requests with 11 public universities for the identities of foreign donors that gave the schools more than $20,000 in the past two years. Some, like the University of California, Los Angeles and University of Michigan, said it would take months of searching or more than $1,500 in fees to provide an answer.

That won’t fly with President Donald Trump, who last week signed an executive order outlining more robust enforcement of the Higher Education Act of 1965’s foreign donor disclosure requirements. In some cases, it already appears to be spurring action. Another recipient of the Free Beacon‘s records requests, the University of California, Berkeley, for weeks did not respond. On Friday, shortly after Trump signed the order and launched a foreign funding investigation into the school, it sent a list of major foreign donors from 2023 and 2024.

Trump’s order calls on Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to “take appropriate steps to reverse or rescind any actions by the prior administration that permit higher education institutions to maintain improper secrecy regarding their foreign funding,” a reference to the Biden administration’s unusual policies that shielded foreign donors. Historically, the Department of Education disclosed foreign donor names in a public database. During the Biden administration, it stopped publishing names, instead only releasing the countries where each donation came from.

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Harvard Quietly Trained Members of Chinese ‘Paramilitary Organization’—After the US Sanctioned It Over Uyghur Genocide

Harvard University quietly trained members of a Chinese “paramilitary organization” on two occasions after the U.S. government sanctioned the group for its role in the Uyghur genocide. The Ivy League institution could face “a big legal problem” as a result, according to one foreign policy expert.

In 2019, Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health partnered with Beijing’s National Health Security Administration (NHSA) to launch an annual health financing course, training government staffers from across China. Harvard originally noted in a blog post that officials with the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) participated in the inaugural training, but that language was scrubbed following a Washington Free Beacon inquiry.

The Trump administration sanctioned the XPCC in 2020 “in connection with serious rights abuses against ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region,” describing it as a “paramilitary organization … that is subordinate to the Chinese Communist Party.” But Harvard continued to train its members, once in 2023 and again in 2024. On those occasions, the Ivy League university didn’t include their participation on its webpages.

China-focused research group Strategy Risks first uncovered the 2023 training in a recent report titled, “Beijing Exercises Strong Influence Over Multiple Areas of Harvard University.” XPCC officials’ 2024 involvement, noted on the NHSA’s website, has not been previously reported.

The revelation comes as Harvard faces mounting challenges, with the Trump administration freezing more than $2 billion in federal funding over the university’s failure to combat campus anti-Semitism. Since the sanctions restrict U.S. entities from engaging with the XPCC, Hudson Institute senior fellow Michael Sobolik believes Harvard could face legal trouble, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.

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‘Reminiscent of the KKK’: Columbia Janitors Sue Protesters Who Took Over Hamilton Hall

The Columbia University janitors who were held hostage during the violent takeover of a campus building last spring are suing their alleged captors for battery, assault, and conspiracy to violate their civil rights, according to a copy of the suit reviewed exclusively by The Free Press.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court on Friday evening by Torridon Law and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law on behalf of Columbia janitors Mario Torres and Lester Wilson. It alleges that over 40 Columbia students and “outside agitators,” some but not all of whom were arrested by police following the takeover of Columbia’s Hamilton Hall last April 29, “terrorized” both Torres and Wilson “into the early morning of April 30th, assaulted and battered them, held them against their will, and derided them as ‘Jew-lovers’ and ‘Zionists.’ ”

The occupation of Hamilton Hall occurred almost exactly a year ago, and both Torres and Lester say they have been struggling to cope ever since. The lawsuit states both men suffered physical injuries the night of the occupation, and that they have also been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder that has required ongoing medical care. Neither has been able to return to work, and are instead “subsisting on interim Workers Compensation payments” which are “inadequate” to pay for their basic needs and medical bills, according to the suit.

“Mario and Lester are decent, honest, hardworking men who have been through hell. None of this ever should have happened,” said Tara Helfman, one of the Torridon lawyers on the case.

The lawsuit describes the protesters, the majority of whom “donned masks and hoods to conceal their identities,” as “reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan.” It claims they “are part of a broad pro-Hamas, anti-Semitic network of organizations, groups, and cells that are connected through a largely untraceable underground communications system. They promote and resort to violent and illegal tactics, and are motivated by invidious discrimination against Jews and supporters of Jews.”

The Brandeis Center also filed a federal lawsuit late Friday on behalf of two students, a professor, and a rabbi at the University of California, Los Angeles, alleging that several groups, including National Students for Justice in Palestine, Faculty for Justice in Palestine Network, American Muslims for Palestine, and Westchester People’s Action Coalition, engaged in “a coordinated campaign of egregious acts of racial exclusion, intimidation, and assault” to “intimidate Jewish students, faculty, and staff.”

The “occupiers” named in Torres and Wilson’s lawsuit include leaders of Columbia’s most vocal anti-Israel groups like the Columbia University Apartheid Divest Coalition, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voices for Peace. Other defendants are people not associated with the university who were allegedly involved in the building takeover, including James Carlson, described in a New York Post story as a “longtime anarchist” and as the son of millionaires, and Lisa Fithian, a professional protest trainer and “lifelong agitator.” Also named in the suit is The People’s Forum, a far-left activist group responsible for organizing many of the anti-Israel protests at Columbia and across New York City.

Over 40 protesters, including Carlson, were arrested and charged with trespassing in the days after the Hamilton Hall occupation. But Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office dropped the charges, claiming the charges would have been “extremely difficult” to prove because the protesters wore masks and covered security cameras.

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Trump administration opens foreign-funding investigation into UC Berkeley

The Department of Education has opened an investigation into whether the University of California, Berkeley, failed to disclose the extent of its international funding, as the Trump administration trains its sights on foreign dollars flowing into U.S. higher education.

The department initiated Friday a Notice of Investigation and Records Request following a review that found the university’s foreign-funding disclosures under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 “may be incomplete or inaccurate.”

The probe comes a week after the department requested records from Harvard University about its disclosures under Section 117, which requires that educational institutions receiving federal funds must disclose foreign gifts and contracts that exceed $250,000.

Berkeley drew transparency concerns for reportedly failing to disclose $220 million in funding from the Chinese government for the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, a research partnership, prompting a 2023 House investigation.

Even so, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the Biden administration never opened a probe into the potential violation of Section 117 at Berkeley – or any other university.

“The Biden-Harris administration turned a blind eye to colleges and universities’ legal obligations by deprioritizing oversight and allowing foreign gifts to pour onto American campuses,” Ms. McMahon said in a statement. “Despite widespread compliance failures, no new Section 117 investigations were initiated for four years, and ongoing investigations were closed prematurely.”

She said that “I have great confidence in my Office of General Counsel to investigate these matters fully, and they will begin by thoroughly examining UC Berkeley’s apparent failure to fully and accurately disclose significant funding received from foreign sources.”

Dan Mogulof, Berkeley’s assistant vice chancellor for communications, said the university is cooperating with federal investigators.

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Stop All Federal Funding Of Universities

The Trump administration has found itself in a dispute with Harvard University. It began when the President’s team sent several Ivy League universities a list of changes they expected the schools to make.

The move is part of a new right-wing strategy which recognizes that we currently live under a vague, necessarily politicized system of civil rights law and aims to begin interpreting civil rights laws in ways more in line with the values and social aims of the right.

By threatening to withhold federal funds, the administration was able to get schools like Columbia University to agree to enact changes like banning masks, granting campus police more powers, and appointing an administrator to oversee the Middle East Studies Department with the authority to crack down on rhetoric about Israel that the administration considers antisemitic.

Harvard, however, refused to abide by the administration’s demands. As a result, Trump froze a little over $2 billion in federal funds going to the school last week and announced plans to freeze an additional $1 billion earlier this week—all while threatening to withhold all $9 billion the Ivy League school receives from the federal government each year if they refuse to agree to the President’s demands.

The showdown is largely being framed as either a battle to protect academic freedom from an authoritarian president or an overdue effort to rescue one of the nation’s oldest universities from the radical far-left administrators leading it off course.

But as politicians, pundits, and university officials battle over which characterization is accurate and, therefore, what ought to happen next, few are paying any attention to one of the more outrageous details that this dispute has brought attention to: that taxpayers are being forced to send $9 billion a year to one of the wealthiest colleges in the world.

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Trump Order Focuses on ‘Secret Weapon’ to Reshape Colleges

President Trump issued new executive orders Wednesday targeting US colleges and the accrediting organizations that oversee them, part of his campaign against “wokeness” and DEI efforts in higher education. One order calls for tougher enforcement of Section 117 of the Higher Education Act. This federal law, passed in the 1980s, requires colleges to disclose foreign gifts and contracts of $250,000 or more. The White House claims Harvard and other universities have violated this law, which has been “unevenly enforced,” per the AP. A second order aims to shake up the bodies responsible for accrediting colleges, which then allows them to accept federal financial aid; Trump has referred to this move as his “secret weapon” to remake higher education, the Wall Street Journal reports.

  • One order directs the Education Department and the attorney general to increase enforcement and possibly withhold federal money from institutions that violate disclosure rules. The administration aims to “end the secrecy surrounding foreign funds in American educational institutions” and protect against “foreign exploitation.” Concerns over financial ties between higher education institutions and foreign countries, especially China, have been persistent among Republicans and have been reignited during the recent dispute between the White House and Harvard University. One Republican representative says he believes China uses academic ties to “indoctrinate students” and steal US research.
  • Another order focuses on organizations known as accreditors, which set the standards colleges must meet to access federal financial aid. Trump has criticized the current system, calling it “dominated by Marxist Maniacs and lunatics.” The new order instructs the government to suspend or terminate accreditors that, in the administration’s view, discriminate against colleges due to DEI requirements. Some accreditors have already dropped or stopped enforcing DEI criteria following previous pressure from Trump. “Revoking accreditation is an existential threat for these universities,” explains one research fellow. “If you lose Pell grants and lose student loans, for most colleges that means you’re done.”

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Harvard Sues Trump Administration Over $2.2 Billion Federal Funding Freeze Amid Crackdown on Woke Campuses

Harvard University has filed suit against nine federal agencies in the Trump administration after the federal government froze more than $2.2 billion in multi-year research grants and $60 million in contracts.

The move was led by a coalition of executive departments, including Defense, Education, and Health and Human Services.

On April 11, the Department of Health and Human Services, along with other federal agencies, issued Harvard a letter demanding sweeping reforms if it wished to continue receiving federal research funding. The demands included:

  • Shuttering of all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs;
  • A university-wide “viewpoint audit” to eliminate leftist ideological monocultures;
  • Forced hiring and admissions practices to ensure conservative representation;
  • Defunding and disbanding of radical pro-Hamas student groups;
  • And complete transparency on foreign funding sources.

These measures, according to the government, were necessary to combat antisemitism and restore ideological balance in an institution long captured by left-wing radicals.

President Garber of Harvard fired back, stating, “The administration’s prescription goes beyond the power of the federal government. It violates Harvard’s First Amendment rights and exceeds the statutory limits of the government’s authority under Title VI.

“And it threatens our values as a private institution devoted to the pursuit, production, and dissemination of knowledge. No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” he added.

But the Trump administration isn’t backing down. Sources told Harvard that an additional $1 billion in research funding may soon be revoked, and the Department of Homeland Security is now threatening to revoke Harvard’s international student program. The IRS is also reportedly eyeing Harvard’s tax-exempt status.

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FAFO: George Mason University Student Who Called for Violence Against Trump Administration Gets Evicted and Referred to Law Enforcement by School

A student at George Mason University in Virginia named Nicholas Alexander Decker recently published an essay calling for violence against members of the Trump administration and Trump supporters.

He has since been evicted from his apartment, and the school referred his essay to law enforcement. In other words, he is entering the ‘find out’ phase of his life.

It’s amazing how the left thinks nothing of calling for violence over politics when they don’t get their way.

Fairfax County News reports:

George Mason University contacts law enforcement after student posts essay on political violence

George Mason University said it has referred a student’s essay to state and federal law enforcement after it sparked concern online.

While GMU did not respond to a FFXnow request to specify which essay, a social media post from GMU comes after a student’s Substack post titled ‘When Must We Kill Them?‘ went viral in conservative circles.

The essay questions when resistance to President Donald Trump’s administration should become violent.

“If the present administration chooses this course, then the questions of the day can be settled not with legislation, but with blood and iron,” the essay said. “In short, we must decide when we must kill them.”

The essay does not explicitly call for violence against any administration officials, but argues that Americans should have a threshold at which they turn to violent revolution. It claims that it may be best to “wait for elections, but if it should threaten the ability to remove it, we shall have no choice.”

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