(Photo by Joe Kovacs)

[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire.]

By Nathan Harden
Real Clear Wire

Parents Defending Education (PDE) is an advocacy organization founded in response to concerns about the increasing influence of activist agendas in K-12 schools, particularly highlighted during the pandemic. Recently, PDE joined a Title IX lawsuit challenging the Biden Administration’s new rules on including transgender athletes in women’s sports. RealClearEducation had a conversation with Nicole Neily, the founder of PDE, about her organization’s objectives in promoting parental engagement and accountability in education, and–more broadly–the organization's efforts to influence the education system.

Can you tell us about the origins of Parents Defending Education (PDE) and what motivated its founding?

At the beginning of the pandemic, I was running a free speech group, Speech First, that focused on colleges and universities – but I became increasingly concerned with what I saw happening in our K-12 schools. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, districts across the country sent out missives about systemic racism and their commitment to antiracism, which mystified a lot of families. Unsurprisingly, many people were fearful about pushing back on this messaging. I think back to when I was growing up – schools didn’t send out notes about Rodney King’s beating, or the Iraq War, or elections in general!

During the fall of 2020, the Wall Street Journal ran an interview with the superintendent of Evanston Public Schools in Illinois, near where I grew up, in which he said he planned to allow black and brown children to return to in-person education before white children because of “anti-racism.” I remember screaming out loud when I read the article because this plan was not only immoral – it was unconstitutional. I decided to form a new organization made up of parents that would be dedicated to protecting K-12 schools through litigation and other means.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

In retrospect, I was fairly naïve because I assumed that most districts that engaged in such policymaking did so out of ignorance and didn’t realize they were violating the law. My initial plan included a program of sending dozens of letters to districts to notify them that they needed to course-correct. I assumed that they would, in fact, make good-faith efforts to change their policies. Three years later, however, it’s become abundantly clear that many education bureaucrats at all levels of government disagree with the underlying tenets of equality before the law and seek to not only change the law but to fundamentally transform American society. This is why our organization is needed now more than ever.

What are the key goals and objectives of Parents Defending Education in reclaiming schools from what your website refers to as “harmful activist agendas?”

The first objective is to educate people about what’s taking place in schools. I grew up watching GI Joe cartoons in the 80s, and the end of every episode had a “life lesson” that concluded “and knowing is half the battle.” It struck me during the pandemic that the vast majority of American parents don’t know what their families’ civil rights are in an education setting, nor do they understand how the education system works in general. In the spring of 2020, several of my Democrat friends from Chicago called me to ask how to get their schools to reopen – because they really believed that their elected officials cared about their input. But as we’ve seen in the years since, nothing could be farther from the truth. They cared about their money and their power, but certainly not our children’s welfare or academic achievement.

For decades, parents have been accustomed to dropping their children at the schoolhouse gates, assuming that their children would receive a solid education. But during COVID, families got a window into what their children were learning (or not learning) when Zoom school was in their living rooms. Families were not only unhappy; they were petrified that if they said the wrong thing, they would be the neighborhood QAnon crank for the rest of their lives. So they kept their mouths shut.

Parents Defending Education seeks to demystify the education space, translating policy and legal jargon into English, exposing problems, and investigating how some of these issues arose in the first place.

A second objective is engagement. Education used to be a partnership between schools and parents, working together in the best interest of a child. But today, many families aren’t fully aware of what their children are learning and are held at arms’ length. Parental involvement isn’t – or shouldn’t be – a partisan issue. Sadly, many people simply don’t know where to begin; our collective civic engagement muscles have atrophied from lack of use. At Parents Defending Education, we’ve created guides and portals for people to get involved. This includes basic questions to ask school officials, how to file a civil rights complaint, and comment portals for people to weigh in at the state and federal levels on policy reforms.

Every person has a different level of risk tolerance, so while some people might be willing to speak up at a school board meeting, others might be more reticent to do so. But even the hesitant parent might be willing to have a private conversation with an administrator or even to pass on a tip to us anonymously. Every person can do something. It’s been absolutely incredible over the past few years to watch thousands of people get off the sidelines and say, “If not me, then who – if not now, then when,” knowing full well that they’ll receive blowback from their communities for having the temerity to speak out. Courage is contagious, and we have witnessed so many brave mothers and fathers (and grandparents!) use their voices for the first time.

The final objective is accountability. For far too long, education officials have become accustomed to operating behind closed doors – wasting money on pet projects and then passing nine-figure bond initiatives to make up their shortfalls (while the rest of us must stick to a budget), teaching one-sided lessons, and lowering standards to mask that the quality of education in 2024 is less than it was 30 years ago. Through our tip line and an aggressive public records campaign, we’ve been able to expose what’s really going on and how districts and schools are operating with our tax dollars. If every teacher in America needs to think to him or herself, “Is this lesson plan going to end up on the national news tonight,” it forces them to decide whether their political activism is worth it. If every principal must think, “Do I know what’s going on in my building? Because I’m the one who’s going to be called for comment by the local press,” then they’re going to exercise greater oversight. And if every school board member must think “I’m going to lose my seat if we’re not delivering the educational experience that my constituents expect,” then budget and employment decisions will be made accordingly.

Could you describe some of the specific challenges or issues that PDE seeks to address within the education system?

Over the past three years, the issues have evolved, which is what makes this job interesting – no two days are ever the same! In 2021, nearly all the tips that we received were about race: the 1619 Project, BLM at School, and racially segregated “affinity groups” and “healing circles,” which excluded students and staff from programming based solely on skin color. In 2022 and 2023, most of the tips were about “gender identity”: compelled pronouns, lesson plans, bathrooms and locker rooms, overnight field trips, and athletics. Since 10/7, we’ve fielded hundreds of issues related to antisemitism in K-12 schools, which in my opinion is as pervasive as in higher education but has gone underreported. Outside entities influencing schools is another troubling area – be it foreign funding, progressive foundations, or race and gender consultants advising districts and providing “professional development” training for teachers.

Your organization recently joined a lawsuit against the Biden administration’s new Title IX rule changes. Can you explain the basis of this lawsuit and its significance in protecting students' rights?

A bit of background: Passed in 1972, Title IX is a mere 37 words long, and was written to prevent discrimination on the basis of sex in education settings. (“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”) In plain English, this means that an individual must be treated differently than another based on sex. Two decades ago, this was viewed largely in the athletics context.

Immediately upon taking office, the Biden Administration signaled its intent to undo Betsy DeVos’ Title IX rules – issuing guidance and beginning the notice and comment process to codify their radical changes. In 2022 and 2023, PDE submitted formal comments in opposition to these rules, and also created comment portals that helped over 62,000 people submit their own comments (approximately 25% of the total comments filed!).

The final rule was released in April 2024 and was every bit as terrible and illegal as anticipated. The most significant aspect of the rewrite is that the Education Department has redefined the word “sex” to include “sexual orientation and gender identity,” changing the meaning of the statute entirely. In 1972, the word “sex” meant what it still means today – the binary concept – and the Department has no authority to redefine the plain text of the law.

The rule is a direct assault on parental rights, including parents’ right to access their child’s information under FERPA and state laws. In response to public comments which raised concerns that the rule might bar a recipient from treating a student according to their biological sex if requested by the parents to do so, notifying a student’s parents of the student’s gender transition or gender identity, or letting parents access their child’s educational records (including information about their child’s gender identity), the Education Department conceded that the rule can require such results, even when state law guarantees these parental rights. PDE maintains a running list of districts that maintain “parental exclusion policies” with regard to students’ gender identities at school; as of May 7, we’ve identified 1,062 districts impacting more than 10.8 million children.

At a minimum, the new rule will force these parents to have difficult discussions about sex and gender identity with their children before the children are ready.

How does the new Title IX regulation affect the core mission of Parents Defending Education, particularly regarding concerns about privacy and due process in schools?

Since the Biden Administration’s rule was released, PDE has fielded more questions and concerns from parents about how this will impact their children and this surge will only worsen as the rule coerces school districts into adopting illegal policies. Before the Biden Administration’s Title IX rulemaking, some schools already had bullying and harassment policies that punished students who “misgendered” their peers, bathrooms and locker rooms were opened up to students based on “gender identity,” and students were housed on overnight field trips accordingly. Thanks to Biden’s rule, these policies will spread to countless more schools.

In what ways does Parents Defending Education collaborate with other organizations or stakeholders to achieve its objectives?

Several of my colleagues and I have worked in and around public policy for many years, which means that we’ve been able to leverage many preexisting relationships with think tanks at the state and national level – as well as federal policymakers, state attorneys general, and reporters.

Our team also works with over 300 parent groups across the country, sharing information and resources and regularly meeting with parent advocates around the country.

How does PDE engage with local communities and parents to raise awareness and advocate for changes in education policies?

Every district is different – so we work with the individuals who send us tips to determine how best to engage. Success means something different to everyone. Some people just want a lesson plan canceled, while others desire different outcomes like leadership changes or policy rescissions. The people who reach out to us know their communities best – so we’ll discuss tactics like which policymakers might be worth approaching (and at what level of government), what to say, whether it might be more constructive to go to the media to exert public pressure, and whether the legal system might be a viable option. We encourage people to start with an open mind by asking questions and to not assume ill will – but also to document their interactions and to elevate their concerns as needed.

Could you share any successful initiatives or outcomes that Parents Defending Education has achieved since its inception?

In 2021, we filed the public records requests that exposed collusion between the National School Board Association and the Biden Administration. Members of Congress and Senators called on both Attorney General Merrick Garland and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to resign, and 26 state affiliates of the NSBA quit the national organization.

In the wake of the NSBA scandal, the Biden Administration created a “National Parents and Families Engagement Council” to give the impression that they actually wanted parental engagement. But in so doing, it violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act because it was neither transparent nor politically balanced. PDE sued the Education Department in partnership with our friends at America First Legal, and rather than addressing the Council’s deficiencies, the Administration chose to shutter the Council completely – showing that it was little more than a Potemkin village.

PDE successfully sued Wellesley Public Schools in Massachusetts over racially segregated affinity groups and First Amendment issues; the district agreed to revise its policies.

PDE successfully sued Linn-Mar Community Schools in Iowa over its parental exclusion and compelled speech policies; the state of Iowa passed a parental notification bill during our suit, but the Eighth Circuit ruled in our favor on speech grounds.

A California district’s plan to put a Planned Parenthood clinic into a local high school was tabled indefinitely after PDE exposed it.

To date, PDE has filed 37 civil rights complaints with the federal Office for Civil Rights; 9 investigations have been opened, 4 resolved when districts agreed to open the segregated programming to all students, and 2 referred to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

Dozens of districts have retracted lesson plans after we’ve exposed them, including a Connecticut school walking back a “pizza and consent” lesson, the Los Angeles Unified School District removing posters that said “F*** the Police” and “F*** Amerikkka,” and a Virginia district removing “woke kindergarten” as a recommended resource.

Looking ahead, what are the key priorities or upcoming projects for Parents Defending Education in the coming year?

Thanks to our tip line and our relationships with parent organizations, we’re able to connect disparate stories to larger trends and identify problems on the horizon.

In the wake of last year’s Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard/UNC decision, we’re now watching education officials at all levels develop workarounds for racial preferences, which is absolutely an issue that will require attention in the future. School officials continue to treat students differently on the basis of race through the use of DEI hiring practices, segregated affinity groups and “healing circles,” because some education activists insist that students learn best from teachers with the same skin color.

Gender identity certainly isn’t going away any time soon – the new Title IX rules are going to be extensively litigated, and we believe they will eventually end up at the Supreme Court.

It’s important to remember that the antisemitism we’re seeing at universities didn’t magically occur when students first step onto college campuses; rather, that hatred is taught at far younger ages, through programs like ethnic studies and other curricula that frames human interaction through the lens of oppressor vs. oppressed.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

(NEW YORK POST) – The status of high school valedictorian is an honor that many parents may be thrilled to see their child achieve — but what if all of your kids are successful in clinching the title?

A central Florida family may have made history after all four daughters were named valedictorian in their respective high school classes — a feat that’s reportedly a 1 in an 11 billion chance.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

Tracey Rendina’s four girls — Ryleigh, age 18, Taylor, 20, Alisa, 22, and Makaley, 24 — all graduated from the same high school in different years and each one took home the coveted academic award.

Read the full story ›

Pro-Palestinian protesters

Jason Cohen
Daily Caller News Foundation

A state judge ordered on Friday thousands of striking academic employees at the University of California (UC) to pause their weeks-long effort protesting the Israel-Hamas war.

The strike commenced on May 20 at UC Santa Cruz and expanded to include six UC campuses, according to the university system’s website. Orange County Superior Court Judge Randall J. Sherman granted the restraining order request by UC lawyers who claimed the strike would inflict irreparable damage to students with finals approaching.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

“We are extremely grateful for a pause in this strike so our students can complete their academic studies,” associate vice president for Systemwide Labor Relations Melissa Matella said. “The strike would have caused irreversible setbacks to students’ academic achievements and may have stalled critical research projects in the final quarter.”

UC Santa Cruz Picket enters its 3rd day. #StandUpUC pic.twitter.com/O6hC7j9tKF

— UAW 4811 (@uaw_4811) May 22, 2024

The strike was carried out by the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), which represents over 40,000 employees throughout the UC system, according to its website. The union wants better treatment of its members who it says have been arrested and attacked while protesting “in solidarity with the people of Palestine.”

UC sued UAW and other union defendants on Tuesday, asking for the restraining order and alleging the union breached their contract.

“UAW’s rank and file members have … emphasized that their core objective for voting to strike is UAW’s political and social position,” the filing states. “For example, one member noted on X (Twitter) the international focus of the strike and made clear that the vote was about divestment and Palestine. Another pushed their department to vote for the strike stating ‘[T]he top demand that matters here is disinvestment. This is about Palestine first and our ability to work comfortably at UC second.’”

Universities have been facing pro-Palestinian protests for weeks, including students erecting encampments and taking over buildings in a bid to push schools to divest from Israel.

UAW did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

(FOX NEWS) – A teachers union that represents employees in the Portland Public Schools (PPS) released a guide on how to teach anti-Israel views in schools.

Oregon Educators for Palestine, in association with the Portland Association of Teachers (PAT}, released the handbook, titled "Know Your Rights! Teaching & Organizing for Palestine Within Portland Public Schools," allegedly in response to teachers being censored and facing "discrimination and harassment" at "the hands of PPS District leadership." The handbook alleges that teachers were censored for "teaching about Palestine, posting pro-Palestine sentiments in schools, and even those wearing Pro-Palestine messages."

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

They list examples of district censorship including of "student work on the topics of Settler Colonialism and Zionism" and staff members "wearing clothing with the phrase 'From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free,' claiming the phrase constituted hate speech and threatening to write up staff for insubordination if worn again."

Read the full story ›

A public interest organization, the Goldwater Institute, is taking issue with a "$140,000" college education in which students are told to "live like a bug."

But they are not taught the Constitution, the Civil War, or landmark Supreme Court cases.

It's part of colleges' abandonment of core educational missions in favor of indoctrination into "diversity, equity, and inclusion" discrimination programs.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

"The situation is particularly grim at the University of Arizona, where a real assignment in a course that fulfills the 'Diversity and Equity' (D&E) core curriculum requirement instructs students to 'live like a bug' by 'walking around with tissue paper 'wings'' so they can better understand the experience of 'marginalized' groups," the institute explains.

The organization recently completed a report on the ideological agenda being pushed in schools.

It revealed students are being required to believe "racism is deeply embedded in U.S. history, society, and institutions," and that "white people hold unearned privilege while people of color have not had equal access to the 'American Dream.'"

And, students are told to apologize if they say something and someone else objects.

"Resist the temptation to become defensive. Instead, apologize, self-reflect, learn, and do better next time," they are told.

"A course on the science of bugs that fulfills the D&E requirement requires students to experiment with 'living like a bug'—including by 'walking around with tissue paper 'wings''—in order to understand the experience of immigrants, people of a different social class, and other 'marginalized' groups," the report found.

Goldwater explained, "For years, leftists have plotted to turn colleges into breeding grounds for activists by infusing the poisonous ideas of DEI into every aspect of campus life, from admissions to faculty hiring to classroom indoctrination.

"In recent weeks, the consequences of this scheme became all too clear. College campuses turned into hotbeds for mob violence, unprovoked assaults, and anti-Semitic calls for terrorism and genocide—all while Jewish students were forced to live in fear as their schools refuse to protect their rights. Sadly, it should come as no surprise that the same intolerant campus leftists who can’t stomach conservative speakers have decided Jewish students are 'oppressors' who deserve to be harassed, or worse."

For 25 years, WND has boldly brought you the news that really matters. If you appreciate our Christian journalists and their uniquely truthful reporting and analysis, please help us by becoming a WND Insider!

Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@wndnewscenter.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

Audrey Hale shot and killed six people, including three children, at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, on March 27. (@nypost / Twitter)

Harold Hutchison
Daily Caller News Foundation

Writings of the transgender shooter who attacked a private school in Nashville reportedly included fantasies of an imaginary penis and descriptions of simulated bestiality sessions that would last hours, according to The Tennessee Star.

The Star obtained writings from Audrey Hale, the 28-year-old female shooter who identified as transgender, who killed three children and three adults at Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, before being engaged and fatally wounded by law enforcement March 27, 2023. The writings were retrieved from Hale’s vehicle, The Tennessee Star reported.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

“My penis exists in my head,” Hale wrote in a three-page essay called “My Imaginary Penis,” according to The Star. “I swear to god I’m a male.”

Hale also described instances in her writings where she would have a male human doll simulate sexual activity with a stuffed animal, getting so involved in the fantasies that she would miss gym, The Star reported.

In other writings, Hale wrote that she was “born wrong” and “my body does not make me a female,” The Star reported.

Hale also wrote about the time “I leave my body behind and the boy in me will be free; in the butterfly transformation” and added, “If God won’t give me a boy body in heaven, then Jesus is a f*****.”

Portions of Hale’s writings were leaked to conservative media figure Steven Crowder in November, prompting an investigation by authorities that led to seven officers being assigned to administrative duties. The Metro Nashville Police Department opposed the release of the writings.

The FBI also opposed release of Hale’s writings in a May 2023 memo also obtained by The Tennessee Star.

“Public access to legacy tokens will also facilitate false narratives and inaccurate information. For personal gain, self-professed ‘experts’ will proffer their perspectives on the motivations behind the attack,” the memo read. “Many of these pontificators will be inexperienced or untrained, and therefore inaccurate in their assessment, further confusing or potentially inflaming the public. This also may lead to unintended consequences for the segment of the population more vulnerable or open to conspiracy theories, which will undoubtedly abound.”

President Joe Biden, Congressional Democrats, media figures and celebrities demanded a ban on so-called “assault weapons” in the wake of the shooting.

The Metro Nashville Police Department declined to comment when contacted by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

(JUST THE NEWS) – A new parents bill of rights took effect Thursday in Washington, but State Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal is telling school districts to ignore it.

The measure approved by lawmakers back in March was introduced by a voter initiative. Supporters said it was a way to ensure parents don’t feel left out of their child’s education and, among other things, have access to medical or counseling records if children are questioning gender identity or sexual orientation.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

During a March public hearing on the bill, Jennifer Heine-Withee, with the Family Policy Institute, listed stories of parents who felt their rights were ignored by teachers and schools across the state, including children being taught about race, gender pronouns and sexuality.

Read the full story ›

By Zineb Williams
Daily Caller News Foundation

A college in New York will launch a program in the spring 2025 semester designed to teach “gender-diverse individuals” how to sneeze, cough and change their voices to “match their identities.”

Russell Sage College’s “Gender-Affirming Voice Program” will also teach attendees to “explore aspects of voice, like pitch, inflection, resonance, articulation, and loudness,” according to its website. The program is based on a similar initiative by The College of Saint Rose, and it will include 10 two-hour long sessions during each semester.

“We provide participants with the opportunity to explore their voice and communication goals in a safe, welcoming small group environment,” the website reads.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

The training will cover both language and nonverbal communication, according to the website. It will also include activities such as practicing “mindfulness” and “gratitude,” as well as small groups that “that promote the exploration of voice and communication.”

Several other universities have adopted similar initiatives.

The Colorado State University Health Organization organized workshops in 2023 on vocal feminization and masculinization for transgender and nonbinary students at no cost. The University of Wisconsin-Madison also funded a similar effort in February of last year.

Russell Sage College did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

(FOX NEWS) – A New York State school district apologized for using "exclusionary language" to promote an event for "students of color" after an anti-affirmative action group accused the educators of segregating students.

The Ithaca City School District (ICSD) promoted a Students of Color Summit 2024 on Ithaca High School’s campus that said the event was for "Students of Color in grades 6-12." The Equal Protection Project (EPP), a nonprofit that opposes racial discrimination in any form, caught wind of this and sent a scathing letter to Superintendent Dr. Luvelle Brown and Board of Education President Dr. Sean Eversley Bradwell.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

The letter, which has been obtained by Fox News Digital, featured an image of a poster used to promote the ICSD event which noted "students of color" were invited. The letter suggested that school board officials preserve records related to the event because a FOIL request would be served, and claimed an email was circulated by staffers stating that the event was "for students of color to interact with each other" and that "allies" are not invited.

Read the full story ›

By Kate Anderson
Daily Caller News Foundation

Ahead of the impending implementation of President Joe Biden’s latest student loan forgiveness plan, a new report published Wednesday alleges that the program is illegal and defies congressional authority.

Biden’s Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan is an income-driven repayment program that will cost an estimated $156 billion over the course of ten years and will go into full effect on July 1, according to Politico. A new report from DFI, a nonprofit focused on educational and labor policies, however, claims that the president’s plan is “illegal” and has “claimed legal authority far outside what Congress intended” when it approved the ability for the secretary of education to forgive limited amounts of student debt via income payments.

“Congress intended income-driven repayment to be a flexible repayment option with a last-resort loan forgiveness benefit that imposed negligible costs on taxpayers,” Jason Delisle, the report’s author, said in a press release. “The Biden administration’s SAVE plan runs roughshod over those intentions, and it may not survive pending legal challenges as a result.”

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

The SAVE plan sets payments based on 5% of an undergraduate’s income and also eliminates unpaid interest each month, according to the report. Total loan forgiveness can occur as soon as ten years into the program for those with debt under $12,000, whereas previously the plans required 20 to 25 years of payments before loan forgiveness was approved.

The report argues that when Congress approved income-driven repayments for student loans it did not intend for participants to “have balances canceled after 10 to 20 years of repayment, including months when their payments were $0.”

“Lawmakers did not originally intend for loan forgiveness to be a major benefit of income-driven plans and intended borrowers to repay for 20 or 25 years before having debt canceled,” the report states.

Additionally, the report claims that the law was initially intended to apply only to “low-income students” but that the Biden administration has done away with this provision and allowed the forgiveness to extend to students well into the middle and upper-middle class.

The Supreme Court struck down the administration’s previous attempt to enact widespread student loan relief for 40 million Americans in June 2023, ruling that the secretary of education did not have emergency authority to cancel student debt through the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act.

“It’s a pattern with this administration to stretch the law to the breaking point, and then hope both that Congress will be gridlocked and unable to respond and that no one will challenge them successfully in the courts,” Jim Blew, a co-founder of DFI, said in the press release. “We hope the courts, if not Congress, will let the administration know it cannot create a plan like SAVE and use federal student aid to buy votes and cater to special interests.”

The Department of Education did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

Large numbers of schools across America, run by leftists trained in the LGBT agenda, have adopted schemes to promote those alternative lifestyle choices to children – and keep the details a secret from parents.

It's a campaign that Wisconsin parents now are challenging before the U.S. Supreme Court.

A report at The Federalist explains the fight is from the Eau Claire district.

The report describes the district's gender-identity policy as "a big middle finger to the basic principles of parental rights."

Thus, the fight by parents.

The petition to the Supreme Court was filed by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty and America First Legal asking for intervention in the fight.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

It is in "Parents Protecting Our Children v. Eau Claire Area School District."

There, school officials are accused of facilitating "gender identity transitions at school" amid schemes to keep this hidden from parents."

Lower courts claimed parents weren't injured by the practice.

The report noted, however, "the parents are directly affected by the pro-transgender policy, WILL notes in the appeal to the Supreme Court. It’s a policy of secrecy that could keep them in the dark about a matter of urgent parental concern. And the erosion of parental rights through similar school policies is happening nationwide, the court filing asserts."

Luke Berg, deputy counsel for WILL, said, "Thousands of school districts across our country have these policies. If parents cannot challenge them until after their children are harmed, they have no way to protect their kids other than pulling them from public school."

The question facing the court is, "When a school district adopts an explicit policy to usurp parental decision-making authority over a major health-related decision — and to conceal this from the parents — do parents who are subject to such a policy have standing to challenge it?"

The filing charges that education industry officials in public schools now have made school "like Las Vegas: 'What happens at school stays at school.'"

The Eau Claire district boasts it wants to have "inclusive and welcoming environments that are free from discrimination, harassment, and bullying regardless of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression."

To that end, the school has teachers ask students what they want to be called as well as what bathroom and locker room facilities the students wish to use.

They also are to ask about what "transition plan," involving social, medical and surgical components, the students adopt.

The report noted the issue exploded into the national conversation when a staff member at Eau Claire North High posted a sign, "If Your Parents Aren’t Accepting Of Your Identity I’m Your Mom Now."

Teachers had been instructed that parents "are not entitled" to know some details about their own children.

Board president Tim Nordin openly has doubled down on the campaign, that it is "within the rights of the students and families."

But the facts are that parents have primary rights in the lives of their children, and the legal teams point out that courts have decided over and over that parents have a "fundamental constitutional right to make decisions concerning the rearing" of their own children.

For 25 years, WND has boldly brought you the news that really matters. If you appreciate our Christian journalists and their uniquely truthful reporting and analysis, please help us by becoming a WND Insider!

Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@wndnewscenter.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

(JUST THE NEWS) – Clearance of a North Carolina teen’s academic record for saying “illegal aliens” in a classroom setting is sought in a preliminary injunction filed Tuesday.

Christian McGhee, a 16-year-old at Central Davidson High in Lexington, and his parents Leah and Chad McGhee, sued the Davidson County School District Board of Education. The lawsuit filed May 7 seeks full clearance and removal of the mark on the student’s record, and Tuesday’s filing asks the court to order the school to reverse the suspension.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

The newest action also introduces excerpts of a recording involving a school administrator, who equated the phrase “illegal alien” to “the n-word.” Also in the recording, Assistant Principal Eric Anderson told the mother, Leah McGhee, her son should have said “those people that need a green card.” Anderson described the teacher by using the word “struggled,” and said it was because of “being so young and female.”

Read the full story ›

(NEW YORK POST) – A Wisconsin father was caught on camera shoving aside a school administrator to stop him from shaking his daughter’s hand during her high school graduation — an incident some are saying appears racially charged.

“That’s my daughter,” the father, who is white, was heard saying as he leaped to the graduation stage and shoved aside Baraboo School District Superintendent Rainey Briggs, who is black, in late May. “I don’t want her touching him,” the father continued in the footage as he pushed Briggs aside – just moments before his daughter was to shake his hand as she received her diploma.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

Briggs was heard telling the father to take his hands off him, while the daughter and others on stage looked on with alarm and confusion. The father was escorted out of the building and was later charged with disorderly conduct, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Read the full story ›

(MODERNITY) – A school in Switzerland has controversially announced it will trial tracking wristbands on children to keep tabs on their location.

As highlighted by Remix News, Swiss outlet Neue Zürcher Zeitung reports that the Letten after-school care centre in Birmensdorf will require kids to wear the Bluetooth tech at all times during care hours unless parents specifically opt out.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

The wristbands will track the wearers, with staff being alerted should a pupil wander outside the sanctioned location without prior authorization. The justification given for the tracking is that the number of children in the facility is always changing and that it is necessary to provide “high quality care.”

Read the full story ›

(DAILY WIRE) – A former Yale University student who was accused of sexual assault but acquitted at trial is suing 15 women’s organizations he says defamed him after the verdict.

Saifullah Khan was found not guilty in March 2018 but was subsequently expelled from Yale anyway. He sued the university and his accuser – and is now suing women’s organizations he says defamed him in post-verdict filings.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

While suing Yale and his accuser, who has not been named in court or the media, the 15 organizations applied to file an amicus brief with the Connecticut Supreme Court. The filing included a proposed brief, which Khan says included “several false and defamatory statements.”

Read the full story ›

Robert Schmad
Daily Caller News Foundation

Interviews conducted by The New York Times with former staff at Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University paint a picture of financial mismanagement, paranoia and sloppy administrative practices.

Kendi founded the Center for Antiracist Research in June 2020 following the death of George Floyd and, concurrent with a wave of activism sweeping the country, his center was showered with tens of millions of dollars from liberal philanthropists to fulfill its mission. Just a year later, however, fundraising dried up, staffers were voicing discontent and the center was in a state of administrative disarray, paving the way for its decline, the NYT reported.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

Before founding the center, Kendi rose to prominence for popularizing the idea that all actions are either racist or “anti-racist,” positing that indifference to purportedly racist policies is itself a form of racism. Kendi says he founded the Center for Antiracist Research to address the “seemingly intractable problems of racial inequity and injustice” in the United States, according to the NYT.

Kendi marketed a bold vision, seeking to create a comprehensive repository of data tracking the impact of purportedly racist policies across the country, the NYT reported. Donors flocked to Kendi and his ideas, dumping $40 million into his center in 2020.

Counted among donors to Kendi’s project were big players like George Soros’ Foundation to Promote Open Society, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.

Faith in Kendi’s project dried up fast however, with donations dropping to just $420,000 in 2021 as the willingness of donors to pay for racial justice initiatives dropped sharply after 2020, according to the NYT.

By 2021, Kendi was feeling like a failure, a sentiment he shared with Yanique Redwood as he was interviewing her to become the center’s executive director, the NYT reported.

Kendi ultimately gave Redwood the job, according to the NYT. Prior to starting her new role, Redwood conducted a series of interviews with the center’s staff, after the end of which she reported being worn out by all the frustration she encountered.

Staff, for instance, complained about being required to take on jobs they were neither hired to do nor qualified to complete.

“Everyone was overwhelmed,” Redwood told the NYT. “There were too many promises being made to funders. Products were being promised that could never be delivered.”

Staffers also told Redwood they were unsure of what the center’s specific mission even was. Once she actually started her job, Redwood uncovered total disorganization when examining the center’s finances.

“Nothing was in place,” she told the NYT. “It was unbelievable that an institution like that, with so much spotlight on it, just did not have systems. I understood why I was being brought in.”

In an attempt to rectify the confusion and frustration brewing at his center, Redwood advised Kendi to hold a retreat so his staff could air their grievances, the NYT reported.

During the retreat, Saida Grundy, a sociologist, accused Kendi’s vision of social change of being “a mile wide and an inch deep” and argued that the center needed a more specific goal than just “fighting racism,” according to the NYT. Several staff members agreed.

Early in the center’s history, stakeholders had attempted to dissuade Kendi from creating an all-encompassing repository of anti-racist data, urging him instead to constrain his focus to avoid sloppy data, overburdened staff and unoriginal work, the NYT reported. Kendi ignored their advice.

Research output at Kendi’s antiracism center was low, having produced just two pieces of original academic research between its founding and November 2023.

In addition to his inability to put forward a coherent vision for the center, staff also complained about what they viewed as paranoia on part of Kendi.

When the center began the 2021 academic year on Boston University’s campus, for instance, Kendi sent staff an email detailing “security protocols,” one of which instructed employees to not disclose the location of the center, according to the NYT. The email even included a script staffers were to use when asked about the center’s address.

“The paranoia is INSANE,” Grundy wrote to colleagues after forwarding them Kendi’s security email.

Redwood told the NYT that Kendi had been engaging in “secrecy and paranoid behavior.”

Kendi viewed himself as the primary target of right-wing activists and white supremacists, making him feel the security protocols were necessary.

Kendi was also apprehensive about information about the center leaking to the press, leading to some friction with staff, according to the NYT. One staffer, for instance, claims that he put off giving her information about the center’s finances for six months. Other staffers also reported that Kendi tended to withhold information to avoid conflicts.

Many of these conflicts came to a head when Kendi agreed on behalf of the center to partner with the diversity, equity and inclusion arms of the consulting firm Deloitte, according to the NYT. Staff were upset due to not being consulted over the decision and because Deloitte contracts for police departments and prisons.

“Why wasn’t this shared with the broader staff sooner, as a potential high-risk partnership that could impact the relationships we are forging with movement leaders?” one staffer said. “Why are we contemplating this partnership that arguably goes against our values?”

Kendi pushed back against these concerns by characterizing payments from corporations as a “form of reparations” and claiming that they would have total control over the products delivered to the consulting firm, according to the NYT. He called his detractors at the center “performative radicals.”

Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research has since pivoted away from its initially lofty goals to serve primarily as a conduit for academic fellowships, firing 19 of its 36 employees in September 2023, according to the NYT.

“In hindsight, and with the fuller knowledge of the organizational problems that arose, the university should have done more to insist on additional oversight,” a Boston University spokesperson told the NYT.

Boston University investigated the Center for Antiracist Research for mismanagement in 2023 though ultimately found no issues regarding its finances. The center faces an ongoing cultural inquiry, the NYT reported.

Boston University did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

Violence erupts at UCLA amid anti-Israel protests on Tuesday, April 30, 2024.

College campuses in the United States became the scene of pro-Palestinian "protests" starting immediately after Hamas terrorists from Gaza invaded Israel and butchered some 1,200 civilians, often through horrific torture like burning whole families together, last Oct. 7.

Now two of the organizations that orchestrated those "protests" are being sued.

For being propagandists for those Hamas terrorists.

A report from CBN explains the lawsuit filed in Virginia accuses American Muslims for Palestine and National Students for Justice in Palestine, both of whom espouse anti-Semitic views, of collaborating with Hamas terrorists to be their "propaganda division" in America.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

Arsen Ostrovsky, of the Jerusalem-based International Legal Forum, told CBN, "These groups are the primary drivers of what we're seeing happening across campuses in the United States, which have effectively become a second front Hamas since October seventh."

He is working in conjunction with Greenberg, Traurig, a U.S. legal team, and the National Jewish Advocacy Group.

"They are acting and serving in collaboration and coordination with Hamas, essentially as propagandists and collaborators on campus to try and promote the Hamas extremist ideology," he said.

Anti-Semitic "demonstrations" began at Columbia University right after Hamas' terror attack on Israel, and have spread from coast to coast.

Anti-Israel protests at Columbia University on Sunday, April 21, 2024

"Hamas issued a call to action. And the very next day, SJP and their affiliates throughout the United States – they answered that call. They answered that directive. They created a toolkit, a manifesto for chapters across the United States, echoing the language, the terminology, the instructions by the Hamas terror group, and propagated that across campuses," Ostrovsky explained to CBN.

The cases charges that those groups have become foot soldiers for Hamas.

"There are nine plaintiffs, including Americans and Israelis as well," Ostrovsky said, seeking compensation for the damages done.

They include victims and survivors of the Nova massacre.

The legal fight includes the goal of shutting down the groups by documenting their violations of the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act.

"They are the ones fomenting the hatred, the anti-Semitism, the harassment of Jewish students," Ostrovsky said. "We need to shut them down. And we can do that legally by branding them as a terrorist organization, as a collaborator of the Hamas terror group, and making sure once and for all they cannot be active on campus."

Muslim terrorists with Hamas fire a barrage of rockets against Israel on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023

He said ultimately the fight will be not only on physical battlefields, but also in courtrooms.

"Today what we're seeing is that the state of Israel is being demonized and vilified and delegitimized and painted as a pariah. Where we're seeing the international law not only being misused but being turned into an act of lawfare against us for the simple act of defending our citizens, trying to bring back our captives," Ostrovsky stated.

He said not only to terrorists in Hamas need to be held accountable, so do those who enable the agenda, that support them.

For 25 years, WND has boldly brought you the news that really matters. If you appreciate our Christian journalists and their uniquely truthful reporting and analysis, please help us by becoming a WND Insider!

Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@wndnewscenter.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

(THE COLLEGE FIX) -- The president of Sonoma State University retired after a suspension for cutting a deal with pro-Palestinian activists.

President Ming-Tung “Mike” Lee agreed to “divestment strategies,” in order to end an encampment on campus. However, he did so without proper approval, leading to his suspension for “insubordination,” according to Chancellor Mildred Garcia.

“That message was sent without the appropriate approvals,” the announcement stated.

Read the full story ›

Gov. Jared Polis, D-Colo., performs his own rendition of 'Feliz Navidad' on Christmas Eve 2023

For at least the third time, the state of Colorado's anti-Christian agenda has been cited – and condemned – by the federal courts.

The latest ruling said the state broke the law by excluding Catholic preschools from a universal preschool program – solely because those schools consider religious affiliate in making enrollment decisions.

It is the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty that explained a federal court ruling cites the state's illegal exclusion of those preschools from a program that funds 15 hours per week of free preschool to more than 40,000 families.

During its first year, it benefited families with children in private, public and faith-based preschools.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

But leftist activists inside the state's bureaucracy refused to authorize benefits to families who sent their children to St. Mary's and St. Bernadette's Catholic preschools because those institutions ask families to share their Catholic beliefs.

The court found, in its 101-page opinion, that the state's discrimination "created an unworkable scheme that breaches the appropriate limits on state power."

The court found the state had "no compelling interest" in its discriminatory policy.

"Last year, a different federal judge in Denver also issued a ruling against the state, in a case brought by a separate religious preschool raising similar claims," Becket reported.

"Of course a Catholic school shouldn’t be punished for caring about its students’ religion," explained Nick Reaves, a Becket lawyer. "Colorado richly deserves this injunction, as it did the earlier one."

The schools explained the state's discrimination violated the Free Exercise, Free Speech and Establishment clauses of the First Amendment.

Integral to the state's agenda is that it demands schools incorporate sexual orientation and gender identity ideologies into their programs. The state has plunged headfirst into that ideology since the election of homosexual Gov. Jared Polis.

The judge said, "The department has allowed faith-based providers to deny children and families equal opportunity based on their religious affiliation, or lack thereof, and has cited no compelling interest for permitting that discrimination while denying plaintiffs’ request for a related exemption. On that narrow basis, I conclude defendants have violated plaintiffs’ free-exercise rights and that judgment in favor of plaintiffs is warranted. I consequently grant Plaintiffs relief in the form of a limited permanent injunction, declaratory judgment, and nominal damages."

It ruled, "The court immediately and permanently enjoins defendants Lisa Roy and Dawn Odean, acting in their official capacities on behalf of the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, from requiring, as a condition for participation in the Colorado Universal Preschool Program, that the preschools operated by plaintiffs St. Mary Catholic Parish in Littleton and St. Bernadette Catholic Parish in Lakewood agreed to provide or provide eligible children an equal opportunity to enroll and receive preschool services regardless of religious affiliation for as long as defendants allow exceptions from the religious affiliation aspect of the equal-opportunity requirement set out in [state law] and in the Colkorado Universial Preschool Program Service Agreement.

The defendants were ordered to pay $1 nominal damages.

The total hasn't been announced, but Colorado taxpayers likely won't get off so easily in the attacks on Christianity earlier, under the administration of Polis.

It recently lost the 303 Creative case at the U.S. Supreme Court.

There, state officials demanded that a Christian web designer follow the state's anti-Christian "non-discrimination" mandate and promote events that violated the web designer's faith.

A judge recently ruled that the state – the taxpayers – must pay the costs and fees for the plaintiff in that caser.

Such cases, by the time they are all the way through the high court, can accumulate tens, or even hundreds, of thousands of dollars in lawyers' time and costs.

The leftist state's failed attack was on Lorie Smith and her 303 Creative company, through which she intended to create websites for couples being married.

However, the state demanded that should she begin that service, she also must provide the same services to same-sex duos, in violation of her Christian faith.

She sued for the First Amendment violation demanded by the state, and won.

The state earlier lost a similar battle with Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, who challenged the state's "non-discrimination" plan that also would require him to promote ideologies that violate his Christian faith.

In that case, the Supreme Court specifically cited Colorado's "hostility" to Christianity under Polis.

For 25 years, WND has boldly brought you the news that really matters. If you appreciate our Christian journalists and their uniquely truthful reporting and analysis, please help us by becoming a WND Insider!

Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@wndnewscenter.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

(ALGEMEINER) -- In May, the Zine club at North Carolina’s Carrboro High School made a post on social media celebrating their display in the school’s library that included the Do-It-Yourself Occupation Guide, which reads as a training manual for criminality and domestic terrorism.

The guide provides advice on how to disable alarm systems, break into buildings, and barricade doors. It calls for “organized looting” and “the seizing of buildings.” With accompanying pictures, the guide explains how to use tools such as an angle grinder, bolt cutters, and a crowbar to break into buildings. It advises, “A group may decide it is better to destroy or vandalize a space than to return it to its usual role in good condition.” In its first paragraph, the guide accuses Israel of “genocide” against the Palestinians.

The guide was removed from the library.

Read the full story ›

(THE COLLEGE FIX) -- The University of Pennsylvania now employs a vice provost solely focused on climate change.

The “Vice Provost for Climate Science, Policy, and Action” is tasked with “support[ing] Penn’s leadership in addressing the climate crisis,” according to the campus newspaper.

“This would include responsibilities such as implementing the campus-wide Climate and Sustainability Action Plan, leading academic programs in climate science and policy and enhancing education and training focused on climate mitigation and adaptation,” The Daily Pennsylvanian reported.

Read the full story ›

(THE COLLEGE FIX) -- Michigan State University currently has more than 140 employees working on 222 different “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” agenda items.

The salaries for those employees, some of whom work on DEI full-time, totals more than $18 million dollars according to a College Fix analysis. One of these goals included an “inclusive language” guide that instructed university employees not to say “America” or use Easter and Christmas imagery.

The Fix pulled the data from the latest “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” report for the public university in Lansing and used salary information from the school and government watchdog group Open the Books. In a few cases, The Fix estimated the salary for some employees based on the lowest salaries for personnel in comparable positions.

Read the full story ›

Katy Perry

(FAITHWIRE) -- Over the weekend, pop singer Katy Perry posted an edited version of Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker’s recent commencement address, during which he criticized President Joe Biden, so-called “Pride month,” and LGBT lifestyles.

Perry, a former judge on ABC’s “American Idol,” seemingly took issue with some of the LGBT-related comments Butker made during his mid-May graduation speech at Benedictine College, a small Catholic school in Atchison, Kansas.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by KATY PERRY (@katyperry)

The part of Butker’s address that garnered the most attention centered on his statements about women. He told the female graduates gathered for commencement that, ultimately, careers will be unfulfilling in comparison to becoming wives and mothers.

(See the original, unedited speech:)

Read the full story ›

Anti-Israel protests at Columbia University on Sunday, April 21, 2024

By Kate Anderson
Daily Caller News Foundation

A Columbia University alum has decided to ditch his alma mater by giving a $260 million donation to an Israeli university as protests continue to plague the ivy league college’s campus, according to a Monday announcement.

The donation was given to Bar-Ilan University in Israel, a public research university, by an American Jewish donor who was active in World War II, according to the announcement from Bar-Ilan’s President Prof. Arie Zaban during a Board of Trustees meeting. The donor, who wished to remain anonymous, formerly attended Columbia, which has been rocked by weeks of pro-Palestinian protests that have led to arrests and violent clashes with police.

“The donor, a man of broad academic education, believed that the development of Israel’s technological resilience relies primarily on breakthrough science,” Zaban said in the announcement. “During his visits to Israel, he recognized the significant impact Bar-Ilan University has made in key areas thanks to its science-based infrastructure and deep connections to all sectors of Israeli society.”

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

The donation will be used to develop “Deep Tech sciences” in the “energy, environment, cryptography, bio-convergence, quantum, AI, and natural language processing” fields, according to the announcement.

“We have a mission,” Zaban told the university’s board, according to the announcement. “Today, more than ever, Israel needs support and investment in its science and human capital. Our research-driven technological resilience is the key to a thriving society and economy.”

Amid weeks of tension on American university campuses, centering largely around Columbia, pro-Palestinian protesters have demanded that the university completely divest from Israel in opposition to its war with the terrorist organization Hamas. Columbia was forced to cancel their main commencement ceremony in May due to safety concerns and ongoing protests and police just recently broke up another encampment on school grounds over the weekend.

Other universities have also been chastised by donors for allowing the protests to get out of hand. Barry Sternlicht, a real estate mogul, called out his alma mater, Brown University, in May for conceding to protesters by agreeing to discuss divestment options, according to The New York Times.

Top donors to Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania also threatened to pull donations in protest of the universities’ administrations’ tepid response to the protests, according to CNN.

Columbia declined to comment.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

(THE COLLEGE FIX) -- A math professor’s two-year-old lawsuit against Saint Joseph’s University, filed in the wake of controversy over his social media posts criticizing slavery reparations and other comments, continues to wind its way through the court system.

Gregory Manco sued the institution he taught at for nearly two decades, as well as coached baseball for, alleging some administrators conspired with a few left-leaning alumni to effectively “cancel” him over tweets that ran afoul of progressive dogma.

The ordeal launched after an alumnus who received an “F” in Manco’s class back in 2017 discovered four years later that the mathematician tweeted from a then-anonymous “South Jersey Giants” Twitter account, the lawsuit alleges.

Read the full story ›

U.S. Air Force Academy cadet Sarah Willis competes on beam at a women's gymnastics meet in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Friday, Feb. 9, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Rayna Grace)

(THE COLLEGE FIX) -- The University of Washington Medical Center’s chief of medicine recently said that “science alone can’t solve the fairness debate on transgender athletes.”

According to The Spokesman-Review, endocrinologist Bradley Anawat claimed “there can be no scientific answer to what is fair […] there is never going to be a perfect answer and there is always going to be some level of controversy” regarding trans-female athletes.

Anawat noted sex-related athletic differences come about during puberty when those who experience “testosterone-based puberty” (aka boys) gain advantages over those who go through “estrogen-based puberty” (aka girls).

Read the full story ›

By Kate Anderson
Daily Caller News Foundation

Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) announced Monday to staff that it was changing its hiring requirements to no longer include a diversity, inclusion and belonging statement, according to the Boston Globe.

FAS, which is the university’s largest department, has required diversity statements for new hires for the past five years, according to the Boston Globe. Staff and faculty learned this week, however, that the school was dropping the requirement and would now ask applicants to tenure-track positions for a “service statement” that “describes efforts to strengthen academic communities, e.g. department, institution, and/or professional societies.”

Randall Kennedy, a professor at Harvard Law School, wrote in an op-ed for the Harvard Crimson, a student newspaper, in April that he believed it was time for the university to do away with the requirement.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

“Candidates for academic positions at Harvard should not be asked to support ideological commitments,” Kennedy wrote. “Imagine the howl of protest that would (or should) erupt if a school at Harvard asked a candidate for a faculty position to submit a statement of their orientation towards capitalism, or patriotism, or Making America Great Again with a clear expectation of allegiance? Such pressure constitutes an encroachment upon the intellectual freedom that ought to be part of the enjoyment of academic life.”

NEW: Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences has dropped its “diversity, inclusion, and belonging” statement requirement for faculty hiring, per an email sent today. They’ll ask for a service statement instead.

Institutions are backing away from diversity statements. pic.twitter.com/wUYrbfhLFY

— John Sailer (@JohnDSailer) June 3, 2024

Many schools have faced criticism over their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies in recent months, and some have made similar decisions to Harvard’s by eliminating their diversity regulations and departments. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) also banned diversity statements in applications for faculty in April, with President Sally Kornbluth previously telling the Daily Caller News Foundation that “compelled statements impinge on freedom of expression.”

FSA did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

(INDEPENDENT SENTINEL) – The daughter of The View” co-host Sunny Hostin celebrated her graduation from her $63,000-a-year New York City prep school, wishing for the complete destruction of Israel. She was mocking her Jewish peers. For a member of the Democrat elite who always scream about alleged Republican hate, this is the real hate.

“Now that I got my diploma: FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA, PALESTINE WILL BE FREE,” Paloma Hostin wrote in a Snapchat post obtained and shared on X by StopAntisemitism. That expression clearly calls for the destruction of Israel and the death of any Jew to make it happen.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

“And to all the mfs who screenshotted my stories and showed them to your parents trying to get me suspended or expelled, look at me now,” she continued.

Read the full story ›

(NEW YORK POST) – One of the top private schools in the country has “devolved” into a “hotbed of Jew-hate,” parents charge. A Jewish student who graduated from the Ethical Fieldston School in the Bronx was tormented by classmates calling him an “ethnic cleaner” and a “colonizer” and even witnessed a teacher give rabbis the middle finger at an assembly, according to his mom.

“Fieldston is a hotbed of Jew-hate and these terror-supporting students are the epitome of the ‘trigger warning’ generation,” Dr. Logan Levkoff said in an Instagram post.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

Levkoff’s Tuesday post came in response to a student letter that defended a classmate accused of vandalizing the school with anti-Israel graffiti and bashed Jewish parents. It claimed the parents were “intimidating” them and “suppressing” ideas not in line with “Zionist ideology.”

Read the full story ›

(NEW YORK POST) – It’s the preeminent civil rights issue of our day: the protection of girls in women’s sports. Last month’s stolen victory by a male runner in the girls’ 400-meter dash at the Washington state championships underscores a heightened sense of urgency for current and future generations of female athletes.

Lauren Matthew, West Valley School District’s top-seeded runner, is just the latest young woman to lose a title to a mediocre male claiming to be female. Naturally, the boy secured the championship by one second.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

It follows a similar victory over 100-meter gold medalist Aster Jones by a male runner in the girls’ 200-meter race in Oregon – another girl who, like Matthew, deserves to be recognized as the rightful champion in her state.

Read the full story ›

(THE COLLEGE FIX) – An academic journal has reversed course and rejected an article about abortion that it initially accepted, citing concerns about the author being a “white” “male,” according to an email from the editor obtained by The College Fix.

The article “Abortion Restrictions are Good for Black Women” by philosopher Perry Hendricks initially was accepted for publication earlier this year in The New Bioethics. However, the journal’s editors put it on hold after an abstract received criticism on social media. Now, Hendricks told The Fix the journal has rejected it.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

Editor Matthew James told Hendricks in a May 23 email that the journal rescinded its decision to publish his piece after a second peer review process, according to screenshots of the email Hendricks shared with The Fix.

Read the full story ›

Cops storm Columbia University university, bust 100 anti-Israel protesters

(NEW YORK POST) – Students at Columbia University set up a new anti-Israel encampment on campus Friday night as the school hosts alumni weekend.

The defiant demonstrators — members of Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine — set up camp on the Manhattan campus’ south lawns alongside a giant white party tent already in place for the alumni event festivities that end Saturday. “We’re back b****es,” declared one sign the protesters put up, video from the New York Times shows.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

Another banner redesignated the area – for the third time – a “Liberated Zone.” Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine confirmed the latest encampment at the Ivy League school in a Friday night social media post.

Read the full story ›

(GOOD MORNING AMERICA) – When 11-year-old Luke was getting ready to be adopted, he made one special request which was to invite his fourth-grade class at Brookland Middle School in Brookland, Arkansas, to watch his adoption get finalized in court.

"I told my attorney that it would be really necessary for my class to see my adoption. So I was really excited about just having my class be part of where I'm heading next, you know?" the Arkansas boy told "Good Morning America."

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

Luke's May 14 adoption was the culmination of months of bonding, a process he and his parents, Cassie and Bradley Kissinger, said was nearly instantaneous after they first met at a "connection event" hosted by Project Zero, an Arkansas nonprofit dedicated to promoting adoption.

Read the full story ›

Stanford University

[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire.]

By Ben Weingarten
Real Clear Wire

This summer the Supreme Court will rule on a case involving what a district court called perhaps "the most massive attack against free speech" ever inflicted on the American people. In Murthy v. Missouri, plaintiffs ranging from the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana to epidemiologists from Harvard and Stanford allege that the federal government violated the First Amendment by working with outside groups and social media platforms to surveil, flag, and quash dissenting speech – characterizing it as mis-, dis- and mal-information – on issues ranging from COVID-19 to election integrity.

The case has helped shine a light on a sprawling network of government agencies and connected NGOs that critics describe as a censorship industrial complex. That the U.S. government might aggressively clamp down on protected speech, and, certainly at the scale of millions of social media posts, may constitute a recent development. Reporting by RCI and other outlets – including Racket News' new "Censorship Files" series, and continuing installments of the "Twitter Files" series to which it, Public, and others have contributed – and congressional probes continue to reveal the substantial breadth and depth of contemporary efforts to quell speech that authorities deem dangerous. But the roots of what some have dubbed the censorship industrial complex stretch back decades, born of an alliance between government, business, and academia that Democrat Sen. William Fulbright termed the "military-industrial-academic-complex" – building on President Eisenhower's formulation – in a 1967 speech.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

RCI reviewed public records and court documents and interviewed experts to trace the origins and evolution of the government's allegedly unconstitutional censorship efforts. It is a rich history that includes the battles to defeat America's adversaries in World War II and the Cold War; the development of Silicon Valley; the post-9/11 War on Terror; the Obama administration's transition to targeting domestic violent extremism broadly; and the rise of Donald Trump.

If there is one ever-present player in this saga, it is the storied institution of Stanford University. Its idyllic campus has served as the setting over the last 70-plus years for a pivotal public-private partnership linking academia, business, and the national security apparatus. Stanford's central place, particularly in developing technologies to thwart the Soviet Union during the Cold War, would persist and evolve through the decades, leading to the creation of an entity called the Stanford Internet Observatory that would serve as the chief cutout – in critics' eyes – for government-driven censorship in defense of "democracy" during the 2020 election and beyond.

Stanford's Rise to Military-Industrial-Academic Complex Powerhouse

Although it bears the name of the railroad magnate who founded the school in 1885, Leland Stanford, the powerhouse university we know of today, represents the vision of another man, Frederick Terman.

The son of a Stanford psychology professor, Terman began his tenure at the campus where he was reared teaching electrical engineering during the 1920s and 1930s. He also harbored ambitions to turn the university and its surrounding area into a major high-tech hub to rival that of MIT on the East Coast.

Like his MIT colleagues, Terman was also deeply connected to the government's budding national security apparatus. During World War II he was tabbed to head Harvard's Radio Research laboratory, established by the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development to develop countermeasures against enemy radars. Through its good work, the lab would save an estimated 800 Allied bomber aircrafts.

Returning to Stanford with the insights and contacts he had developed during the war, Terman took over as the dean of the engineering school in 1946 determined to implement an ambitious plan: to use government funding to erect "steeples of excellence" in critical disciplines that would continually attract new investments in a virtuous cycle that would raise Stanford to preeminence among research institutions.

Terman would win Pentagon contracts to help fund Stanford's Electronics Research Laboratory and the Applied Electronics Laboratory, which included work on classified military programs, bringing Stanford firmly into the military-industrial-academic complex fold. Additional labs – some engaged in basic or theoretical research, and others applied research – followed, deepening the school's ties to the national security state during the Cold War.

While reportedly advising every major branch of the military, Terman cultivated ties with private industry. He encouraged graduates to start firms in nearby communities that would come to be known as Silicon Valley, and urged professors to consult.

In 1951, Terman helped establish the Stanford Industrial Park, a high-tech cooperative on university land that would attract electronics firms and defense contractors – the first such university-owned industrial park in the world. Its tenants would include among others Hewlett-Packard, GE, Eastman Kodak, and a host of other notables, later including the likes of Facebook and Tesla. Lockheed Martin would relocate its Missiles Systems Division to Silicon Valley in 1956 and go on to serve as the largest industrial employer in Silicon Valley during the Cold War.

Under Terman's leadership, first as engineering school dean and then as provost, Stanford and the firms it helped incubate and attract generated advances in everything from microwave electronics and electronic warfare, to missiles and satellites, and semiconductors and computers – meeting the demands of military and civilian consumers alike.

Stuart Leslie, author of "The Cold War and American Science: The Military-Industrial Complex at MIT and Stanford," wrote that "[b]y nearly every measure" Terman achieved his goal of challenging "MIT for leadership" in the sciences. The relationship Terman fostered between the feds and Silicon Valley companies would be responsible for producing "all of the United States Navy's intercontinental ballistic missiles, the bulk of its reconnaissance satellites and tracking systems, and a wide range of microelectronics that became integral components of high-tech weapons and weapons systems" during the Cold War, according to one study.

Leslie Berlin, formerly a historian of the Silicon Valley Archives at Stanford University, would write that "All of modern high tech has the US Department of Defense to thank at its core, because this is where the money came from" underwriting research and development.

One Stanford institution to which the money flowed with an indirect link to current controversies regarding social media censorship was the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). Incorporated on campus as a nonprofit in 1946, it would pursue lucrative contracts for often-classified military R&D projects. By 1969, SRI ranked third among think tanks in total value of defense contracts garnered.

Anti-war activists helped force Stanford to divest from the outfit in 1970 – though it would continue to work with government on an array of initiatives. Among them was one building on a Pentagon-backed project to network computers, known as ARPANET. In 1977, an Institute van would transmit data in what is regarded as the first internet connection.

Stanford would open an Office of Technology Licensing in 1970 to manage the university's growing IP portfolio. The office would execute thousands of licenses covering many thousands more inventions – sometimes in tandem with the security state. For example, Google was built in part on National Science Foundation-supported research; its development has also been tied to work done under a joint NSA and CIA grant.

Terrorism Rejuvenates and Transforms the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex

The 9/11 terror attacks in 2001 would reinvigorate and fundamentally transform a military-industrial-academic complex that had demobilized to an extent following the Cold War, during which it had been largely foreign-facing. It would come to see not only foreign clandestine communications but public conversations between Americans promoting disfavored viewpoints as national security concerns.

To combat jihadists, Washington demanded sophisticated new surveillance tools and weapons. When combined with the explosion in communications technology, and the creation of massive new reams of digital data that could be collected and analyzed, Big Tech would prove a natural supplier.

The advent of social media – including Facebook (2004), YouTube (2005), and Twitter (2006) – would significantly impact these efforts.

To the public, social media platforms comprised a digital public square that empowered citizens as journalists and enabled the free flow of ideas and information.

But governments and non-state actors, including terrorist groups, realized they could harness the power of such platforms, and use them for intelligence gathering, waging information warfare, and targeting foes.

Initially U.S. authorities focused almost exclusively on foreign jihadist organizations' exploitation of social media. That began to change when the Obama administration created a series of policies and associated entities – most of which worked closely with Big Tech and academia – targeting a broader array of adversaries.

In 2011, the Obama administration deployed its "Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States" strategy. While identifying Al-Qaeda as "our current priority," the policy broadened the national security apparatus focus to "all types of extremism that leads to violence, regardless of who inspires it."

That same year, the State Department stood up an entity aimed at "supporting agencies in Government-wide public communications activities targeted against violent extremism and terrorist organizations" that in 2016 would morph into the Global Engagement Center (GEC). It would serve as a broader "interagency entity" that would not only partner to build "a global network of positive messengers against violent extremism" including NGOs, but leverage data analytics "from both the public and private sectors to better understand radicalization dynamics online."

Also that year, the Defense Department announced its Social Media in Strategic Communication program, launched to "track ideas and concepts to analyze patterns and cultural narratives" as part of an effort "to develop tools to help identify misinformation or deception campaigns and counter them with truthful information, reducing adversaries' ability to manipulate events." Millions of dollars flowed to both Big Tech and academic hubs in connection with the project.

In conjunction with these programs, the Obama administration also consulted with outside advisors to study how jihadist groups engaged in online disinformation campaigns. Included among the advisors was Renée DiResta, future technical research manager of the Stanford Internet Observatory – which would later play a key role in the government's effort to identify and quell speech disfavored by the government.

With terrorist organizations increasingly exploiting social media platforms to proliferate propaganda and in pursuit of other malign ends, Silicon Valley came to play an increasingly key role in U.S. counterterrorism efforts. As Kara Frederick wrote in a 2019 report for the Center for a New American Security, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media companies:

… hired talent to fill gaps in their counterterrorism expertise, created positions to coordinate and oversee global counterterrorism policy, convened relevant players in internal forums, and instituted a combination of technical measures and good old-fashioned analysis to root out offending users and content. Major and minor tech companies coordinated with each other and with law enforcement to share threat information, drafted policies around preventing terrorist abuse of their platforms, updated their community guidelines, and even supported counter-speech initiatives to offer alternative messaging to terrorist propaganda.

Frederick, now at the Heritage Foundation, would know. A counter-terrorism analyst at the Department of Defense from 2010-16, she departed for Facebook where she helped create and lead its Global Security Counterterrorism Analysis Program.

Facebook's chief security officer during Frederick's tenure, Alex Stamos – future founder of the Stanford Internet Observatory – would boast that "there are several terrorist attacks that you've never heard of because they didn't happen because we caught them ... some local law enforcement agency … took credit for it, but it was actually our team that found it and turned it over to them with a bow on it."

"Once clearly public sector responsibilities," Stamos would add, "are now private sector responsibilities."

Trump's Election Catalyzes the Creation of the Censorship Industrial Complex

With government broadening its focus to domestic violent extremism and its nexus to social media, and a revolving door opening between the national security apparatus and the platforms, Donald Trump's election would prove a catalyzing event in the creation of what critics would describe as the censorship industrial complex.

His victory, which followed Brexit, another populist uprising that stunned Western elites, sent shockwaves from Washington, D.C., to Silicon Valley.

A narrative quickly arose that social media was to blame for Trump's unexpected win. It held that dark forces, especially Russia, had manipulated voters through dishonest posts, and that the platforms enabled Trump's victory through allowing supporters to advance corrosive conspiracy theories.

The national security apparatus sprang to action.

In January 2017, outgoing Obama DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson made protecting election infrastructure part of his agency's mandate. Subsequently:

• DHS would develop a Countering Foreign Influence Task Force focusing on "election infrastructure disinformation."
• The State Department's Global Engagement Center would broaden its interagency mandate to counter foreign influence operations.
• The FBI would establish a Foreign Influence Task Force to "identify and counteract malign foreign influence operations targeting the United States," with an explicit focus on voting and elections.

These key components of what would come to be known as the censorship industrial complex – one that would ultimately target the speech of Trump's own supporters and the president himself – emerged at the very time he was fending off the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy theory that gave rise to them.

Government concerns over foreign meddling in domestic politics would drive demand for putatively private sector actors, often with extensive government ties and funding, to engage in what the NGOs cast as research and analysis of such malign operations on social media.

In 2018, the Senate Select Intelligence Committee would solicit research, including from DiResta, on Russia's social media meddling – research that would bolster something of a pressure campaign against social media companies to get them to quit dithering on content moderation.

The committee also commissioned Graphika, a social media analytics firm founded in 2013, to co-author a report on Russian social media meddling. Graphika lists DARPA and the Department of Defense's Minerva Initiative, which funds "basic social science research," on a company website detailing its clients and research partners. It would serve as one of the four partners that would comprise the Stanford Internet Observatory-led Election Integrity Partnership – a key cog in government-driven speech policing during and after the 2020 election.

Another entity that would join the Stanford-led quartet is the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, established in 2016. Funded in part by the Departments of State – including through the Global Engagement Center – and Energy, the think-tank counts among its directors CIA chiefs and Defense secretaries. The lab's senior director is Graham Bookie, a former top aide to President Obama on cybersecurity, counterterrorism, intelligence, and homeland security issues. In 2018, Facebook announced an election partnership with the lab wherein the two parties would work on "emerging threats and disinformation campaigns from around the world."

The third of four entities later to join the Election Integrity Partnership was the University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public, formed in 2019. Stanford grad and visiting professor Kate Starbird co-founded the Center. The National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research have provided funding for Dr. Starbird's social media work.

That same year, the Stanford Internet Observatory emerged. Founded by Alex Stamos, who had led substantial research on Russia's social media operations while Chief Security Officer at Facebook and routinely interfaced with national security agencies throughout his cybersecurity career, the Observatory would serve as a "cross-disciplinary initiative comprised of research, teaching and policy engagement addressing the abuse of today's information technologies, with a particular focus on social media … includ[ing] the spread of disinformation, cybersecurity breaches, and terrorist propaganda."

The Observatory is a program of Stanford's Cyber Policy Center, which counts former Obama National Security Council official and Russian Ambassador Michael McFaul, among other notables on the faculty list with backgrounds in or ties to the security state.

Stamos stood up the Observatory with a $5 million gift from Craig Newmark Philanthropies – which also gave $1 million to Starbird's work. The Craigslist founder's charitable vehicle contributed some $170 million to "journalism, countering harassment against journalists, cybersecurity and election integrity," between 2016 and 2020, areas he argued constituted the "battle spaces" of information warfare – information warfare waged implicitly against President Trump and his supporters.

The National Science Foundation also provided large infusions of money to the sprawling network of academic entities, for-profit firms, and think tanks that would emerge in the "counter-disinformation space."

This network produced a mass of research and analysis redefining and expanding the perceived threat of free and open social media. It argued America was plagued by a pandemic of "misinformation," "disinformation," and "malinformation," with a nexus to domestic violent extremism that could be created and disseminated by almost anyone – thereby making everyone a potential target for surveillance and censorship.

Ideas authorities found troubling would come to be treated as tantamount to national security threats to be neutralized – as the future Biden administration would codify in the first-of-its-kind National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism.

DiResta described this paradigm shift in a 2018 article for Just Security – a publication incidentally also funded by Newmark.

"Disinformation, misinformation, and social media hoaxes have evolved from a nuisance into high-stakes information war," DiResta wrote.

She continued:

…Traditional analysis of propaganda and disinformation has focused fairly narrowly on understanding the perpetrators and trying to fact-check the narratives (fight narratives with counter-narratives, fight speech with more speech). Today's information operations, however, are … computational. They're driven by algorithms and are conducted with unprecedented scale and efficiency. … It's time to change our way of thinking about propaganda and disinformation: it's not a truth-in-narrative issue, it's an adversarial attack in the information space. Info ops are a cybersecurity issue.

This re-definition of what arguably amounts to speech policing of social media as security policy could be seen a year later when NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urged that "NATO must remain prepared for both conventional and hybrid threats: From tanks to tweets." (Emphasis RCI's)

The Censorship Industrial Complex Mobilizes for the 2020 Election

In the run-up to the 2020 election, DHS' Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which took as its mandate protecting election infrastructure, would expand its focus to include combatting misinformation and disinformation perceived as threatening the security of elections – regardless of its source. This would ultimately encompass the protected political speech of Americans, including speculation and even satire to the extent it called into question or undermined state-approved narratives about an unprecedented mass mail-in election.

Social media companies, chastened after having come under withering political and media attack for their content moderation policies during the 2016 election, would recruit dozens of ex-security state officials to fill their "Trust and Safety" teams dealing with policing speech to likewise combat this purported threat.

Frederick told RealClearInvestigations that Silicon Valley leaders believed the teams' past focus on Islamic terror, which receded under Trump, reflected a bias, requiring platforms to "reorient toward domestic extremism" – the new target of the political establishment.

Combining the platforms' political leanings with the tools they had developed to take on jihadists, in Frederick's words, would create a "powder keg" threatening to obliterate Americans' speech.

Still, the Constitution stood in the way to the extent the government wanted to police the platforms' speech. In the run-up to the 2020 election, both federal authorities and like-minded NGOs recognized a "gap:" No federal agency had "a focus on, or authority regarding, [identifying and targeting for suppression] election misinformation originating from domestic sources," as the Stanford Internet Observatory-led Election Integrity Partnership would put it. DiResta acknowledged any such project faced "very real First Amendment questions."

In response, the government helped create a workaround via that very Election Integrity Partnership – a government driven,  advised, and coordinated enterprise run by NGOs to surreptitiously surveil and seek to censor speech that did not comport with government-favored narratives on election administration and outcomes.

One hundred days from the 2020 election, the Stanford Internet Observatory, alongside Graphika, the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, and University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public launched the EIP as a "model for whole-of-society collaboration," aimed at "defending the 2020 election against voting-related mis- and disinformation."

As RCI previously reported, the project had two main objectives:

First, EIP lobbied social media companies, with some success, to adopt more stringent moderation policies around "content intended to suppress voting, reduce participation, confuse voters as to election processes, or delegitimize election results without evidence. …

Second, EIP surveilled hundreds of millions of social media posts for content that might violate the platforms' moderation policies. In addition to identifying this content internally, EIP also collected content forwarded to it by external "stakeholders," including government offices and civil society groups. EIP then flagged this mass of content to the platforms for potential suppression.

As many as 120 analysts, records show, created tickets identifying social media content they deemed objectionable. They forwarded many tickets to officials at platforms including Google, Twitter, and Facebook which "labeled, removed, or soft blocked" thousands of unique URLs – content shared millions of times.

An RCI review of the nearly 400 of those tickets produced to the House Homeland Security Committee found that government agencies – including entities within the FBI, DHS (CISA), and State Department (GEC) – involved themselves in nearly a quarter of the censorship tickets. Those tickets almost uniformly covered domestic speech, and from the political right; in dozens of instances, the project made "recommendations" to social media companies to take action.

The tickets RCI reviewed illustrated the project's efforts to push social media platforms to silence President Trump and other elected officials.

One EIP analyst would say of the effort that it "was probably the closest we've come to actually preempting misinformation before it goes viral."

In response to RCI's inquiries in connection with this story, CISA Executive Director Brandon Wales shared a statement reading in part: "CISA does not and has never censored speech or facilitated censorship. Such allegations are riddled with factual inaccuracies."

Given "concerns from election officials of all parties regarding foreign influence operations and disinformation that may impact the security of election infrastructure," Wales said, "CISA mitigates the risk of disinformation by sharing information on election security with the public and by amplifying the trusted voices of election officials across the nation" – work he indicated is conducted while protecting Americans' liberties.

Dr. Starbird told RCI that:

Falsehoods about elections - whether accidental rumors about when and how to vote or intentional disinformation campaigns meant to sow distrust in election results - are issues that cut to the core of our democracy. Identifying and communicating about these issues isn't partisan and, despite an ongoing campaign to label this work as such, isn't 'censorship.'

The Censorship Industrial Complex Persists Despite Scrutiny

All had come full circle. Stanford had once again connected the security state to Silicon Valley for a project involving both basic and applied research aimed at perceived foes – studying how narratives emerged, and then seeking to get offending ones purged.

That project would again garner new funding from the security state in the form of a $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation split between the Stanford Internet Observatory and the University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public for "rapid-response research to mitigate online disinformation." Their partners in the EIP would receive millions more from the federal government under the Biden administration.

The relationship between DHS' Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and EIP would only grow. As RCI reported:

In the days following Nov. 3, 2020, with President Trump challenging the integrity of the election results, CISA rebuked him in a statement, calling the election "the most secure in American history." The president would go on to fire CISA's director, Christopher Krebs, by tweet.

Almost immediately thereafter, Krebs and Stamos would form a consultancy, the Krebs Stamos Group. In March 2021, Krebs would participate in a "fireside chat" when EIP launched its 2020 report.

CISA's top 2020 election official, Matt Masterson, joined SIO as a fellow after leaving CISA in January 2021. Krebs' successor at CISA, Director Jen Easterly, would appoint Stamos to the sub-agency's Cybersecurity Advisory Committee, established in 2021, for a term set to expire this month.

Director Easterly would appoint Kate Starbird … to the committee. Starbird chaired the advisory committee's since-abolished MDM (Mis-, Dis-, and Mal-Information) Subcommittee, focusing on information threats to infrastructure beyond elections.

SIO's DiResta served as a subject matter expert for the now-defunct subcommittee. DHS scrapped the entity in the wake of the public furor over DHS' now-shelved "Disinformation Governance Board."

Starbird, her University of Washington colleagues, and a former student member of the Stanford Internet Observatory who had matriculated to the Krebs Stamos Group would publish a report in June 2022 building on their EIP efforts, titled "Repeat Spreaders and Election Delegitimization: A Comprehensive Dataset of Misinformation Tweets from the 2020 U.S. Election." Its publication coincided with, and seemed aimed at buttressing the partisan House January 6 Select Committee's second public hearing.

Documents obtained via FOIA from the University of Washington and recently published by Matt Taibbi's Racket News and Substacker UndeadFOIA, suggest the committee's chief data scientist met with Starbird and DiResta in January of that year to discuss the report the EIP produced following the 2020 election and its underlying data – a report that linked mis-, dis-, and mal-information regarding the 2020 election to the capitol riot.

In the interim, EIP would morph into the Virality Project, which would be used to target dissent from public health authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic – dissent those authorities argued could lead people to die, as dissenting views on the 2020 election spurred the capitol riot.

Among those targeted by the government for silencing, and who social media companies would censor, in part for his opposition to broad pandemic lockdowns, was Stanford's own Dr. Jay Bhattacharya – one plaintiff in Murthy v. Missouri (Dr. Bhattacharya and Taibbi were recipients of RealClear's first annual Samizdat Prize honoring those committed to truth and free speech). As he sees it, the Virality Project helped "launder" a "government … hit list for censorship," which he finds "absolutely shocking" and at odds with the Stanford's past commitments to academic freedom and general "sort of countercultural opposition to government overreach."

As chilling as these efforts were, a House Homeland Security Committee aide told RCI:

EIP and VP were largely comprised of college interns running basic Google searches. Imagine a similar effort leveraging artificial intelligence to sweep up and censor ever greater swaths of our online conversations. We are at the beginning of the problem, not the end, which is why it is so vital to get right today because without action, tomorrow could be far worse.

It is unclear whether such action is forthcoming. Oral arguments in Murthy, heard this past March, suggested the Supremes may diverge from the lower courts. A federal district court found, and an appellate court concurred in the view that in coordinating and colluding with third parties and social media companies to suppress disfavored speech, government agencies had likely violated the First Amendment. Those courts barred such contact between agencies and social media companies during the pendency of the case – an injunction the nation's highest court stayed over the objections of Justices Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch.

At least one companion case targeting the likes of the Stanford Internet Observatory, and its Election Integrity Partnership and Virality Project as co-conspirators with the federal government in violating Americans' speech, Hines v. Stamos, is pending.

GOP legislation to deter and/or defund the activities illustrated in these cases has languished in Congress, but oversight efforts have raised the cost for NGOs to continue partnering with the government.

When asked in June 2023 about the Stanford Internet Observatory's future plans, Stamos told the House Judiciary Committee, which has been probing alleged public-private censorship efforts, that "Since this investigation has cost the university now approaching seven figures legal fees, it's been pretty successful I think in discouraging us from making it worthwhile for us to do a study in 2024."

Bhattacharya responded in an interview with RCI, "Why is Stanford putting so much of its institutional energy into [defending] this [the Observatory]?"

"It seems like they are putting their thumbs on the scale partly because they're so closely connected with government entities."

Months later, according to his LinkedIn profile, Stamos would depart from the Observatory, while remaining a part-time Stanford Adjunct and Lecturer in Computer Science.

On the eve of oral arguments in the Murthy case, Stanford University and its observatory castigated critics for promoting "false, inaccurate, misleading, and manufactured claims" regarding its "role in researching and analyzing social media content about U.S. elections and the COVID-19 vaccine."

Stanford called on the Supreme Court to "affirm its right to share its research and views with the government and social media companies."

It vowed the Internet Observatory would continue its work on "influence operations."

Starbird has echoed Stanford. In response to a series of questions from Taibbi pertaining to the trove of FOIA'd documents Racket obtained, she said:

Our team has fielded dozens of public records requests, producing thousands of emails. Not one confirms the central claims of your thesis falsely alleging coordination with government and platforms to "censor" social media content. But, instead of acknowledging that fact, abuse continues of the Washington State public records law to smear and spread falsehoods based on willful misreadings of innocuous emails, ignorance about scientific research, and, in several instances, a lack of reading comprehension.

She too vowed that: "At the Center for an Informed Public, our research into online rumoring about election procedures and our work to rapidly identify and communicate about harmful election rumors will continue in 2024."

Stanford's Internet Observatory and the University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public will not be spearheading the Election Integrity Partnership for 2024 or future election cycles however, per a link to the EIP's website to which a Stanford spokesperson referred RCI in sole response to our queries.

Some experts are doubtful alleged social media censorship is going away anytime soon. "I don't know how to ‘put the genie back in the bottle,'" said Frederick.

"There's a thing about intel analysts in general where you have a sense of superiority because you have access to things that the plebes don't. But, you know, these people have taken their G-d complexes to the next level and turned it against their neighbor."

Of the alleged speech police, she said "they're drunk with power obviously and they think they know what's best for us."

Amb. Alberto Fernandez, vice president at MEMRI and a former leader of the precursor to the State Department's GEC, an observatory stakeholder that had itself funded adjacent efforts, told RCI "there needs to be transparency and preferably, a ‘firewall' of some sort between the Feds and social media."

In May, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) – who had himself submitted an amicus brief siding with the agencies in the case, contra Republican colleagues led by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan – revealed that in the wake of the oral arguments in Murthy, federal agencies had resumed communications with social media companies.

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), who had originally brought the Murthy case as Missouri attorney general, replied: "It appears DHS, FBI and potentially other agencies are quietly ramping up their efforts to censor Constitutionally protected speech ahead of the 2024 election."

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

The American Center for Law and Justice has declared a victory in its fight for a public school teacher who was told it was illegal for her to pray where students could see her – even in a parking lot.

The fight involves teacher Staci Barber and the Katy, Texas, Independent School District.

The ACLU said the judge hearing the case ruled "that since the school has updated its policy in response to our demand letter," there now is no "language in the Employee Handbook that explicitly prohibits praying in the presence of students."

The legal team reported, "It is a tremendous win for our client because she can now pray when she desires as this case continues to trial."

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

District officials had hauled the teacher "into her principal's office" for gathering with two friends and fellow teachers to pray at a school flagpole earlier.

School officials claimed then "it was against the law" for them to pray "where students could see them."

Faced with the ACLJ's challenge, the district "removed some language from its policy."

But, the legal team said, "our client was still unable to engage in any prayer in the presence of students or to pray publicly, even off the clock, when she was on school grounds."

The result was a lawsuit that was filed, and the resulting court decision at a preliminary point in the resolution of the case.

When the case was developing, WND reported the case lists as defendants the district and Bryan Rounds, a principal at Cardiff junior high.

The ACLJ pointed out, "Every year millions of people gather at school flag poles to pray before the school day begins. The ACLJ is very proud to stand in support of See You At The Pole, a prayer rally for students and participating adults to lift up their schools in prayer. Our client has prayed at the pole every year on behalf of her students.

"This year she had gathered with two friends and fellow teachers to pray at the school flagpole. The school principal called these teachers into his office. He told them that they could not pray at the pole or in the presence of students because if they did so, students may see and join in. He told them that it was against the law for them to pray publicly where students could see them and then pointed them to a school policy that prohibited teachers from praying in the presence of students."

For 25 years, WND has boldly brought you the news that really matters. If you appreciate our Christian journalists and their uniquely truthful reporting and analysis, please help us by becoming a WND Insider!

Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@wndnewscenter.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

(ZEROHEDGE) – One Arizona high school teach is resigning over his students' addictions...to their phones. The constant use of smartphones in his classroom has driven Sahuaro High School’s Mitchell Rutherford to tell Fox News last week that he is "giving up" being a biology teacher because he can't control phone usage.

"I have been struggling with mental health this year mostly because of what I identified as basically phone addiction with the students," he commented.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

After being a teacher for 11 years, he has resigned. He said last week that he has implemented a "variety of lesson plans" to try and make it clear to his students the negative effects of constant phone usage. "Here's extra credit, let's check your screen time, let's create habits, let's do a unit on sleep and why sleep is important and how to reduce your phone usage for a bedtime routine, and we talked about it every day and created a basket called ‘phone jail,’" he told Fox News.

Read the full story ›

(THE COLLEGE FIX) – Students who sued the University of Chicago for tuition refunds due to COVID-19 closures have reached a nearly $5 million settlement agreement with the school.

The private Illinois university finalized the class-action lawsuit settlement with the students last week, agreeing to pay $4.95 million, according to the Chicago Sun Times.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

Students affected by the university’s 2020 decision to switch to online classes due to COVID-19 could receive $25 or more from the settlement, the report states.

Read the full story ›

(NEW YORK POST) – Ezra Toczek, 5, got more than a gold star from his preschool teacher — he received a liver. The young child was put on the transplant list in February after being diagnosed with end-stage liver disease, and subsequent liver failure, as a result of damage to the organ suffered at birth.

But in March, his former preschool teacher Carissa Fisher applied to become a living donor — someone who is healthy and donates an organ or a part of an organ to someone in need of one — after hearing of Ezra’s condition. Last week, she learned she had been approved.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

On Saturday, May 25, Fisher arrived at the Toczek family’s Western New York home to deliver the good news in person, with a stuffed animal, balloons and a handmade sign in tow.

Read the full story ›

(NEW YORK POST) – Bruhat Soma was unbeatable before he arrived at the Scripps National Spelling Bee, and neither the dictionary, nor his competitors, nor a lightning-round tiebreaker challenged him on the way to victory.

Bruhat spelled 29 words correctly in the tiebreaker, beating Faizan Zaki by nine, to win the title on Thursday night. He receives a trophy and more than $50,000 in cash and prizes. The 12-year-old seventh-grader from Tampa, Florida, had won three consecutive bees before taking the stage at a convention center outside Washington for the most prestigious spelling competition in the English language.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

“I always want to win. And this was, like, my main goal,” Bruhat said. “It didn’t matter if I won all those other bees. This is what I was aiming for. So I’m just really happy that I won this.”

Read the full story ›

Sen. Fetterman in Harvard hood

(NEW YORK POST) – Sen. John Fetterman told Yeshiva University graduates Wednesday that he was “profoundly disappointed” in Harvard University’s inability to address antisemitism on campus before removing the ceremonial crimson academic hood representing his alma mater.

The Pennsylvania Democrat expressed his disapproval of the Ivy League school during his commencement address at the private Orthodox Jewish university, which bestowed on him its “Hero of Israel” award, the institution’s highest honor.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

“I have been profoundly disappointed [in] Harvard’s inability to stand up for the Jewish community after Oct. 7,” Fetterman, 54, told the new grads at Louis Armstrong Stadium in Queens.

Read the full story ›

(JUST THE NEWS) – Paul Tice, senior fellow for the National Center for Energy Analytics, took the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal to criticize the climate change curriculum in New Jersey public schools.

The educational materials, Tice explained, are not just found in sections of science courses, but in all school subjects. Districts are encouraged to insert lessons on climate change into English language arts and mathematics. In foreign language classes, students discuss the impacts of climate change “on the target language of the world.”

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

In the state’s Visual and Performing Arts standards, students are required to “Research global issues, including climate change, using multiple research methods to inform original dances expressed through multiple genres, styles, and varied cultural perspectives.”

Read the full story ›

(JUST THE NEWS) – More than two million Americans aged 55 and older still have student loan debts as of 2022, according to a new survey released Wednesday.

The Federal Reserve Board’s 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances found that 2.2 million United States citizens aged 55 and above are struggling to pay off their debts, just as they head towards the retirement. The student loan debt is even impeding their ability to retire, the survey found, because roughly half of the respondents are making less than $54,600 a year, according to CBS News. But those borrowers, on average, owe approximately $58,000.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

“Three policies would help minimize the negative impacts of student debt on retirement savings: student loan forgiveness, income-based repayments – key components of the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan – and preventing garnishment of Social Security benefits to repay student loans,” an analysis of the data said. The report was published by The New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis.

Read the full story ›

Robert Schmad
Daily Caller News Foundation

Indiana University is violating students’ First and 14th Amendment rights through its “far-reaching” bias reporting policy, a civil rights organization alleges.

Speech First filed a federal lawsuit against Indiana University on Wednesday arguing that the school is violating the rights of students by enacting a speech policy that “is designed solely to deter, discourage, and otherwise ‘prevent’ students from expressing disfavored views about the political and social issues of the day.” Under the policy, students can report others for “any conduct, speech, or expression, motivated in whole or in part by bias or prejudice meant to intimidate, demean, mock, degrade, marginalize, or threaten individuals or groups” on some aspect of their identity, like race or gender identity, according to Indiana University’s website.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

After a report is filed, the bias response team may draft a “response plan,” refer students to on-campus resources or “engage” with the individual who was reported, according to the university’s website.

Indiana University’s website claims that its bias reporting system does not “impinge on free speech rights and academic freedom” and points out that the bias response team itself cannot impose disciplinary actions. The bias response team can, however, recommend that students accused of bias be hit with formal or informal sanctions, according to the lawsuit.

“Indiana taxpayers should be furious that their hard-earned dollars are funding a tyrannical administration that has taken a page out of the playbook of history’s most oppressive regimes,” Speech First executive director Cherise Trump said of the case. “IU’s Bias Response Team encourages students to report on their peers anonymously if they so much as question the prevailing dogma.”

Speech First argues that the university’s anti-bias policy is so broad that it could apply to “something as simple as asking why the Biden Administration has added ‘gender identity’ as a protected class under Title IX” or “stating that unchecked illegal immigration will lead to an increase in crime,” according to a press release.

“Speech First’s members who attend the University are suffering concrete injuries as a direct result of the University’s unconstitutional policies and actions,” the lawsuit claims. “These students want to engage in speech covered by the University’s bias incidents policy, but they credibly fear that the expression of their deeply held views will be considered ‘biased,’ ‘marginaliz[ing],’ ‘demean[ing],’ ‘intimidating,’ and the like,” it continues.

Similar bias reporting systems have faced legal scrutiny before. Montclair State University, a public institution in New Jersey, for instance, agreed to disband its “Bias Education Response Taskforce” after being sued by Alliance Defending Freedom, a non-profit Christian legal advocacy group, Campus Reform reported. Montclair’s bias team sought to sanction expression determined to be “motivated by bias or prejudice.”

Speech First has also challenged bias response teams at the University of Texas, the University of Michigan and the University of Central Florida, with all three institutions eventually shuttering them, according to the lawsuit.

Indiana University did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

Nick Pope
Daily Caller News Foundation

The Biden administration announced it is handing out $900 million to pay for green school buses, while American public school students continue to perform poorly in the aggregate.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the recipients of the funding for green school buses to fight climate change, with schools in 47 states receiving some funding. The spending comes as American public school students continue to struggle to make up for learning disruptions caused by COVID-19 lockdown policies, as a 2022 review by the National Assessment of Educational Progress found that only 31% of eighth grade students met or exceeded grade-level proficiency in reading, a decrease from 2019.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

“President Biden believes every child deserves the opportunity to lead a healthy life and breathe clean air, and his Investing in America agenda is designed to deliver just that,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said of the funding. “With today’s latest round of funding, we are transforming the nation’s school bus fleet to better protect our most precious cargo — our kids — saving school districts money, improving air quality, and bolstering American manufacturing all at the same time.”

Kamala Harris on her favorite parts of the Inflation Reduction Act:

“I have a particular fondness, I must tell you, for electric school buses. I love electric school buses.” pic.twitter.com/1Ta71U1qnP

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) October 19, 2022

The green school bus push is part of the Biden administration’s broader, $1 trillion-plus climate agenda, which seeks to slash emissions in nearly every facet of American life.

Educational outcomes for American students have generally tanked since the pandemic, when some Democrats and teachers’ unions pushed for prolonged school closures and remote learning. Some of the nation’s struggling school districts were among the awardees announced Wednesday by the EPA.

In Maryland, Prince George’s County Public Schools received more than $5 million to acquire more than 15 green buses, according to the EPA. Only 21% of third graders in the Prince George’s County system were proficient in math in 2023; less than 10% of sixth, seventh and eighth grade students were proficient in math last year, according to The Washington Post.

In Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City School District is set to receive more than $8.5 million to buy green school buses, according to the EPA. Philadelphia public school students are also struggling academically, with only 15% of middle school students and 43% of high school students scoring proficient in math while 24% of middle schoolers and 41% of high school students testing as proficient in reading, according to U.S. News.

The EPA also awarded more than $8.5 billion to the public school system in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to purchase at least 25 green buses for students. At Bridgeport’s schools, less than 16% of students met the state’s standards in reading and less than 7% in math during the 2022-2023 school year, according to CTPost.

The EPA and the White House did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

(ZEROHEDGE) – You're about to meet a group of New York University graduates with fresh degrees, likely burdened with a few hundred thousand dollars in debt unless their elite liberal parents footed the bill. Many companies are increasingly viewing woke degrees as liabilities rather than assets.

If these graduates are lucky – and don't end up as Starbucks baristas – they will have a bright and colorful future at some woke mega-corporation. There, they will be placed in non-productive managerial roles to advance destructive ESG and DEI movements.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

It all starts at NYU classrooms, where the kids are being uploaded the woke mind virus by activist professors. These kids are being brainwashed into not improving society but, in fact, being managers to spread wokesim to dismantle Western society.

Read the full story ›

In a nation where the Constitution protects freedom of speech, and its Supreme Court has ruled that right extends to students in schools, a stunning case has developed in Kentucky where school officials punished an honor-winning senior for speaking about Jesus.

The Christian Post has documented the case involving Micah Price, who got his diploma, finally, five days after he was punished by officials at Campbell County High.

Price's offense was that he went "off-script" and encouraged classmates to find Christ, in his graduation speech.

Supt. Shelli Wilson told a local broadcast outlet Price was chosen by a principal to deliver an "approved" speech. Officials said they would allow him to thank his "Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

They banned him from further comments, but when he was at the podium, he told classmates, "He is the light. He is the way, the truth and the life.," a paraphrase of a popular Bible verse.

He explained school officials immediately ordered him to appear before the school board and "explain."

And they withheld his diploma.

Later, he met only with principals in his school, and was given his diploma.

"An answered prayer. We got the diploma," he said.

He added, "I did go against the rules. I should have been punished which I do agree with. … I simply cannot go anywhere without mentioning what my Lord and Savior has done for me and just what he's brought to me and my life. I did deserve to be punished but through Christ we prevail."

This brave young man, Micah Price preached the saving grace of Jesus Christ at his high school graduation and then was denied his diploma after…

pic.twitter.com/uwnLPTMe5G

— Jon Root (@JonnyRoot_) May 30, 2024

For 25 years, WND has boldly brought you the news that really matters. If you appreciate our Christian journalists and their uniquely truthful reporting and analysis, please help us by becoming a WND Insider!

Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@wndnewscenter.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

(THE COLLEGE FIX) – Seven colleges received a perfect score for their core curriculum, according to a higher education reform group.

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni added an “A+” score to its “What Will They Learn” grades for the first time in the nearly 30-year history of its report card. Of the seven colleges, four are Catholic, one is Orthodox Christian, one is Protestant, and another is a public university in Virginia.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

Those seven schools are: “Christopher Newport University, Patrick Henry College, Thomas Aquinas College in California, Thomas Aquinas College in Massachusetts, Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, the University of Dallas, and the University of Saint Katherine,” according to the latest rating.

Read the full story ›

(Photo by Joe Kovacs)

(THE COLLEGE FIX) -- Aspiring part-time costume library managers at Nebraska Wesleyan University must show their commitment to diversity in order to get hired.

The open position “will oversee both the Nebraska Wesleyan University costumes and props libraries and coordinate efforts to make sure the costumes and props are available to internal and external customers and patrons,” according to the university listing.

Since “diversity” is a “source of strength,” at the college in Lincoln, “[a]pplicants are encouraged to demonstrate how they are able to enhance and embrace this University core value in a diversity statement submitted as part of their application materials.”

Read the full story ›

(THE COLLEGE FIX) -- Harvard University will no longer take sides on controversial public issues under an institutional policy announced Tuesday.

The change comes in response to criticism of the university’s handling of antisemitism, its initial response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, and its decision to fly a flag on campus in support of Ukraine in the conflict with Russia.

Interim President Alan Garber introduced the policy in an email Tuesday based on recommendations from a Institutional Voice Working Group, The Crimson student newspaper reports.

Read the full story ›

A school district in Florida accepted funding from a local church, and in return promised a sponsorship status that included the church's name on a banner on campus.

Now the district apparently has reneged, and a legal team is investigating.

It is Liberty Counsel that confirms it has written to officials with the Broward County Public Schools over their discrimination against Cooper City Church.

The district, the report said, "unconstitutionally" removed the church’s sponsorship sign from Cooper City High School while keeping other community sponsor signs on display on campus.

The church wants the sign reinstated, and treatment equal to other sponsors.

The district, so far, has refused to respond after its "Office of Legislative Affairs" ordered the sign killed.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

The district's action, explained Liberty Counsel, "violates the First Amendment and its Free Speech, Free Exercise of Religion, and Establishment Clauses, as well as both Florida law and U.S. Supreme Court precedent."

The original deal came about in 2023 when Cooper City Church reached an agreement with the school over its "Partners in Education Sponsorship" program.

As a "Gold Level" sponsor, the church was supposed to be acknowledged on a banner, the school website and in the yearbook. Also during home games.

"Contrary to the agreement, the church is also not currently listed on the school’s website as a partner or sponsor, and it is unclear whether all other sponsorship benefits have been canceled," Liberty Counsel said.

The legal team explained in its letter to the school the U.S. Supreme Court has held that a church cannot be deprived of a benefit available to others "solely on account of religious identity," as that violates the Constitution.

In fact, the court also has ruled that "when government does not speak for itself, it may not exclude speech based on 'religious viewpoint'" because doing that is "impermissible viewpoint discrimination."

"The church has the right to become a community sponsor within the district’s Partners in Education sponsorship program, without giving up its religious identity or beliefs," the legal team explained.

The church is seeking restoration of the sponsorship acknowledgement, observation of all other "Gold" sponsorship requirements and removal of the discriminatory prohibition in the school's practices.

The report said the church's contribution to the district was $1,000.

And the legal team told the district it was prepared for "further proceedings" should the dispute remain unresolved.

For 25 years, WND has boldly brought you the news that really matters. If you appreciate our Christian journalists and their uniquely truthful reporting and analysis, please help us by becoming a WND Insider!

Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@wndnewscenter.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

(THE COLLEGE FIX) -- A Claremont McKenna College professor was dragged through a yearlong investigation over racism allegations — and ultimately cleared — after he accused a black student of plagiarism, according to a recently published report.

Professor William Ascher, a distinguished scholar whose CV notes he has worked as a professor of government and economics at the conservative college for nearly 25 years and also previously served as dean of faculty, faced the probe after he reported the student to the school’s Academic Standards Committee.

The investigation, which launched in January 2023, was brought to light in a May 10 article in the Claremont Independent student news outlet, which linked to a five-page account of the case penned by Ascher in December 2023 at the conclusion of the ordeal.

Read the full story ›

By Rebeka Zeljko
Daily Caller News Foundation

As Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has pushed school choice initiatives, leading to a spike in charter and private school enrollments, public schools are shutting down.

Across the state, public school enrollment is declining. Duval County Public School District, the sixth-largest school district in Florida and 20th largest in the country, is now considering campus closures due to dramatic dips in their enrollment.

Broward County Public Schools, Florida’s second largest school district, has evaluated plans to close up to 42 campuses over the next few years. The Miami-Dade county has also experienced a substantial decline in enrollment rates. Of the roughly 68,000 privately enrolled students from 2019-2023, more than a third of them came from Duval, Broward and Miami counties, according to data from the Florida Department of Education.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

“If your product is better, you’ll be fine. The problem is, they are a relic of the past — a monopolized system where you have one option,” Chris Moya, a Florida lobbyist representing charter schools, told Politico. “And when parents have options, they vote with their feet.”

In March of 2023, DeSantis signed legislation promoting school choice for parents and students. The bill eliminated restrictions based on financial eligibility and got rid of school enrollment caps.

Gov. DeSantis Signs School Choice Legislation https://t.co/WMWAs96csy

— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) March 27, 2023

In 2023, private school enrollment from pre-kindergarten to 12th grade increased by nearly 29,000 students from 2022, according to findings from the Florida Department of Education. In 2023, 31 Florida school districts had 10% or more of their total pre-kindergarten to 12th grade students enrolled in private schools, according to the same report.

School choice and private school enrollment has been steadily rising over the last decade. Since 2013, over 600 new private schools were established in Florida, and about 120,000 students opted for private education over public, according to the Florida Department of Education.

Florida public schools, including Duval County schools, have faced scrutiny for promoting unpopular social causes like critical race theory and barring graduation ceremonies from being held in churches. In February 2023, Duval County had to cancel a survey that asked students as young as 10 years old about their sexual activity and gender identity.

In 2022, five public school boards were flipped by conservatives in Florida. As a result, Miami-Dade County, Sarasota County, Duval County, Martin County and Clay County then had conservative majorities on their school boards.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

(Photo by Joe Kovacs)

A new student-led Bible club has been approved at a school in California after seven months of "anti-Christian hostility" from school officials.

The report comes from Dean Broyles, of the National Center for Law & Policy, which wrote to school officials explaining the students' right to have their own club in the Oceanside Unified School District.

"This flagrant mistreatment and abuse of these courageous religious student leaders and other OHS students who desire to participate in the A-Team Bible Club is one of the most egregious examples of government anti-Christian religious discrimination and hostility that I have seen in my nearly thirty years of practicing law," Broyles explained.

He cited the opposition from OHS ASB cashier and clerk Robbin Pollard.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

"Pollard’s actions and communications towards these Christian students were arbitrary, capricious and discriminatory. Such state anti-religious bigotry is unacceptable and is unlawful. But this is precisely what happens when the state delegates too much unchecked discretionary government power to a single ‘gatekeeper,’ who either does not know the law or does not care to abide by it. The OHS ASB, particularly Pollard, owes these student leaders an apology."

He said the law requires government to be neutral, not hostile, toward religion.

Part of that, he said, is "Accommodating religious students on campus by giving them equal access."

His report on the dispute explained how the school had thrown up "relentless red tape and overt religious discrimination."

The breakthrough, the approval from the board, happened only days after the district got an 18-page letter from NCLP charging the school with anti-Christian hostility.

"The student leaders attempting to launch the Christian Club had endured more than seven months of significant anti-Christian hostility and blatant religious discrimination from a rogue teacher at Oceanside High School since first attempting to form the club at the beginning of the 2023-2024 school year," he said.

The report noted the Religious Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, the Equal Access Act and OUSD’s own policies and regulations protect such student-led clubs on high school campuses.

Pollard, the report said, repeatedly had claimed to the students that there were too many Christian clubs on campus and they would have to wait a year.

The first meeting of the A-Team Bible Club was held just days ago.

For 25 years, WND has boldly brought you the news that really matters. If you appreciate our Christian journalists and their uniquely truthful reporting and analysis, please help us by becoming a WND Insider!

Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@wndnewscenter.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

(THE COLLEGE FIX) -- The University of California Los Angeles medical school is admitting underqualified racial minorities in the interest of diversity, according to a report in The Washington Free Beacon.

The report, published today, is based on interviews with medical professors and officials, many of whom have knowledge of the admissions process. The Free Beacon also obtained emails and “internal data on student performance.”

A professor said in the article that while there are “good graduates” from UCLA, “a third to a half of the medical school is incredibly unqualified.”

Read the full story ›

U.S. Air Force Academy cadet Alexis Odom participates in College Match Day, a U.S. Tennis Association showcase event, in Orlando, Florida, Saturday, Feb. 17, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Joshua Hastings)

By Mary Lou Masters
Daily Caller News Foundation

Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey believes that concerns over males competing in female sports are based on “overgeneralized” and “unfounded assumptions,” according to a June 2023 letter obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Casey wrote the letter in response to an individual asking about “transgender youth participation in athletics,” just months after announcing his bid for reelection in what has become one of the nation’s more competitive Senate races this cycle. The senator emphasized his support for what he believes to be the benefits of “allowing transitioning youth to participate in athletics in their affirmed gender” in the letter obtained by the DCNF.

“The decision to transition is a profoundly significant and challenging one that young adults make after careful consideration. This is a conclusion that young adults reach after extensive consultation with their medical providers and loved ones, and with the knowledge of the tremendous social obstacles that unfortunately lie ahead,” Casey wrote.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

“All young people should have the opportunity to enjoy recreational sports and have their personal dignity respected,” Casey added. “In a world where transgender youth face a disproportionate risk of bullying, harassment, and violence, allowing transitioning youth to participate in athletics in their affirmed gender can provide enormous social and psychological benefits. Rather than stigmatizing vulnerable youth, I believe we can and should create inclusive and informed guidance that allows all students to flourish.”

Sporting associations like FINA, the International Cricket Council, the International Angling Sport Federation, the International Cycling Union and the British Cycling have cracked down on biological men competing in women’s sports following years of backlash on the issue.

While there have been concerns over men’s natural advantage in competing with women — like the University of Pennsylvania’s Lia Thomas, who won the 500-yard women’s final in the 2022 NCAA championships — there has also been a concern over female athletes’ safety.

Peyton McNabb, a high school volleyball player in North Carolina, received a concussion during a match from a male’s spike in September 2022; Francesca Needham, an English transgender soccer player, allegedly broke a female’s knee during a game in October 2023; and a female Massachusetts field hockey player got her teeth knocked out by a male player in November 2023.

The senator also argued for enacting policies and legislation that “respect both athletic competition and inclusion,” according to the letter.

Casey cosponsored the Equality Act in 2021, which would require schools to permit biological men to compete in women’s sports, allow individuals to use whichever bathroom coincides with their “gender identity” and add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as protected classes to existing nondiscrimination laws. The legislation was passed by the Democratic-controlled House in 2021, but stalled in the Senate.

“I believe LGBTQ+ individuals, like all individuals, should be able to live and flourish in a safe and welcoming environment without fear of harassment or discrimination,” Casey wrote in the letter after emphasizing his support for the legislation.

Casey, who has served in the upper chamber since 2007, will face-off with former hedge fund CEO David McCormick, the Republican nominee, in November.

While public polling has shown Casey leading McCormick all cycle, several recent surveys have indicated the race is tightening, according to FiveThirtyEight’s compilation.

A New York Times/Siena College poll released May 13 found Casey ahead by two points among likely voters; a Fabrizio, Lee & Associates/Impact Research poll published May 7 showed the senator leading by four points among likely voters; and an Emerson College poll out April 30 also indicated McCormick was down by four points.

The Cook Political Report has Casey’s race in the “Lean D” column, along with Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s and open seats in Michigan and Arizona.

Neither Casey’s office nor campaign responded to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

(NEW YORK POST) – A much-anticipated internal report about anti-Semitism at elite Collegiate prep school admitted that some faculty members blamed “wealthy and influential” Jewish parents for tensions at the school following Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack.

Finger-pointing faculty, parents and students skirted close to “one of the oldest and most pervasive anti-Semitic tropes,” the report, obtained by The Post, conceded. The report was compiled in March and released on May 17.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

The findings came in the wake of a November 2023 letter to head of school David Lourie and Board of Trustees president Jonathan K. Youngwood – and signed by more than 100 Jewish parents – which said the school’s internal response to the Hamas butchery “did not meet the moment.”

Read the full story ›

Col. Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, in a briefing May 27, 2022

Harold Hutchison
Daily Caller News Foundation

Family members of the victims of a mass shooting in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, filed a lawsuit against Meta, the owner of Instagram, Friday, according to multiple reports.

Two teachers and 19 children died in the May 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde before Border Patrol agents stormed the classroom and fatally shot the perpetrator. The lawsuit also targets Activision, the maker of the Call of Duty video game franchise, and Daniel Defense, which made the rifle used in the shooting, CBS News reported.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

“It accuses the gaming company of desensitizing young men to acts of mass violence and grooming them to seek out weapons like those featured in Call of Duty.” https://t.co/72wH9q0C02

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) May 24, 2024

“[The shooter] was targeted and cultivated online by Instagram, Activision and Daniel Defense,” attorney Josh Koskoff said in a statement released to CBS. “This three-headed monster knowingly exposed him to the weapon, conditioned him to see it as a tool to solve his problems and trained him to use it.”

The law enforcement response to the shooting drew criticism from the Justice Department in a January report, while a Texas House of Representatives committee slammed “shortcomings and failures” in the law enforcement response in a report issued in July 2022. Over 300 officers waited outside the school for 77 minutes until the gunman was killed.

The CEO of Daniel Defense came under fire from Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts during a July 2022 House Oversight Committee hearing. The company is already facing at least one other suit related to the Uvalde shooting, according to The Associated Press.

Koskoff secured a $2 million settlement with the city of Uvalde over the response Wednesday, shortly before filing the suits.

“There is a direct line between the conduct of these companies and the Uvalde shooting,” Koskoff said, according to NBC News.

Meta, Daniel Defense and Activision did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

(THE COLLEGE FIX) – Critical race theory and “identitarianism” are having concerning effects on the sciences, according to the head of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

Robyn Blumner, (pictured) president and CEO of the Center for Inquiry and executive director of the Dawkins Foundation, spoke with The College Fix in a phone interview last week about her concerns with the shift away from merit-based scholarship and individualism.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

“The identitarian project is very closely aligned with post-modernist views of race and racial essentialism and critical race theory and this idea that we are our immutable characteristics and that is the most salient feature of who we are as we go through society, rather than the individualism that each of us bring to our humanity,” Blumner said.

Read the full story ›

(THE COLLEGE FIX) – “Internalized racism” may explain the preference some Asian women have for white men, according to a study in the journal, Sex Roles.

“Path analyses showed that internalized racism was associated with stronger dating preference toward White men and weaker dating preference and physical attraction to Asian men,” Bryn Mawr College Professor Thomas Le wrote with co-author Lydia Ahn. The latter teaches at Arizona State University.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

The paper hypothesized “the implicit exclusion of Black and Latino men may stem from anti-Black messaging that some Asian Americans hear from their parents.”

Read the full story ›

(LEGAL INSURRECTION) – The West Virginia male athlete at the center of the state’s Protect Women’s Sports Act defeated females in track events over 700 times, according to a new court filing.

Becky Pepper-Jackson became national news after five female athletes refused to compete against him in the shot put. The court filing is connected to the case to stop President Joe Biden’s administration from changing Title IX to protect males in female sports.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

The Education Department’s reinterpretation of Title IX equates sex and gender, allowing males to participate in female sports, locker rooms, showers, bathrooms, etc.

Read the full story ›

(DAILY FETCHED) – A healthcare organization operating within Seattle public schools has announced it can offer “gender-affirming” hormone treatment to children, according to emails from a health center program manager.

Neighborcare Health, a healthcare organization that runs clinics in Seattle middle and elementary schools, said that hormone treatments were now included in the “gender-affirming care” it could offer, The Daily Wire reported.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

The Neighborcare Health team wanted to share an exciting new update to our School-based Health Center services,” the email from a Program Manager for Neighborcare Health reads. “Our program will begin offering comprehensive, evidence-based, gender-affirming care services to our students and families who need them.”

Read the full story ›

(PEW RESEARCH) – At a time when many Americans are questioning the value of a four-year college degree, economic outcomes for young adults without a degree are improving.

After decades of falling wages, young U.S. workers (ages 25 to 34) without a bachelor’s degree have seen their earnings increase over the past 10 years. Their overall wealth has gone up too, and fewer are living in poverty today.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

Things have also improved for young college graduates over this period. As a result, the gap in earnings between young adults with and without a college degree has not narrowed.

Read the full story ›

(NEW YORK POST) – A Harvard University commencement speaker went dramatically off script to blast the Ivy League school for barring a handful of those involved in a disruptive anti-Israeli encampment – before more than 1,000 students also staged a walkout.

Shruthi Kumar, the Harvard senior selected to deliver the English address Thursday, pulled out a piece of paper containing controversial remarks hidden up the sleeve of her gown and took aim at university leaders over the decision to deny more than a dozen students their diplomas.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

“As I stand here today, I must take a moment to recognize my peers — the 13 undergraduates in the Class of 2024 that will not graduate today,” Kumar told the crowd, according to a video posted by Harvard. “I am deeply disappointed by the intolerance for freedom of speech and their right to civil disobedience on campus,” she said of the protests, which famously replaced the American flag with a Palestinian one.

Read the full story ›

Alem Hadzic delivers valedictorian speech hours after burying his father

(TODAY) – High school class valedictorian Alem Hadzic was unusually somber before delivering his commencement speech on May 16. “People were coming over to wish me luck and I was kind of blowing them off,” Hadzic, who lives in Texas, tells TODAY.com. “In my head, I was thinking, ‘Can I do this?’”

Unbeknownst to his peers, Hadzic, 18, had just come from his father's funeral. Miralem Hadzic died of pancreatic cancer at age 52.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

Somehow, Hadzic's legs carried him to the podium. Then he delivered a powerful speech that has been seen and shared by thousands on social media. “My father died yesterday, May 15, 2024, and I attended his funeral today, right before graduation,” Hadzic told the audience, his voice thick with emotion. “That’s why my shoes are muddy and my arms are shaking. I had to carry him to his grave and bury him."

Read the full story ›

(THE COLLEGE FIX) – “Whiteness” has become a religion to many Christians in a way that allows racism to continue in America, according to two sociology scholars.

Michael Emerson, a sociologist and fellow at Rice University in Texas, and Glenn Bracey, a professor of sociology at Villanova University in Philadelphia, make the case in their new book “The Religion of Whiteness: How Racism Distorts Christian Faith.”

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

“It’s a unified system of beliefs and practices that worships or sacralizes, not some God in this sense, but whiteness,” Emerson told Religion News Service in a recent interview. “Whiteness is the god. It declares that everything else that isn’t supporting whiteness is profane, it’s wrong, it needs to be shunned.”

Read the full story ›

(THE WASHINGTON STANDARD) – With the United Nations and other powerful international players demanding more, government schools across Illinois will soon be required to indoctrinate every student with man-made “climate change” propaganda. But despite a brouhaha about the scheme, children across the state are already being bombarded with global-warming hysteria.

The new mandate is included in legislation that has already cleared virtually every hurdle on the route to becoming law. If signed, schools would be required to teach children that human activities are causing global warming, along with supposed “solutions” to this alleged crisis.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

“[B]eginning with the 2026-2027 school year, every public school shall provide instruction on climate change, which shall include, but not be limited to, identifying the environmental and ecological impacts of climate change on individuals and communities and evaluating solutions for addressing and mitigating the impact of climate change,” the bill states.

Read the full story ›

(THE BLAZE) – A group of 130 Republican lawmakers sent a letter on Friday to the United States Department of Education demanding the Biden administration reverse its federal student loan "forgiveness" plan that requires American taxpayers to foot the bill for student borrowers.

An April report from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found that the administration's sweeping debt cancellations could add up to $750 billion to the national deficit.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

Last year, the Supreme Court rejected the administration's attempt to unilaterally zero out federal student loan debt for borrowers. Since then, the White House has rolled out multiple smaller but similar programs through its Saving on a Valuable Education Plan, a new income-driven repayment plan that sets monthly payments based on borrowers' income.

Read the full story ›

Cops storm Columbia University university, bust 100 anti-Israel protesters

Kate Anderson
Daily Caller News Foundation

University presidents admitted to members of Congress Thursday that few students involved in the pro-Palestinian protests had been suspended or expelled despite holding encampments and violating university policies for weeks.

Northwestern University President Michael Schill, Rutgers University President Dr. Jonathan Holloway and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Chancellor Dr. Gene Block appeared before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce to testify regarding antisemitism concerns on campus. Republican ranking Chairwoman Virginia Foxx asked the university leaders how many students had been expelled or suspended in the wake of pro-Palestinian encampments.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

“My question is for all three of the presidents,” Foxx said. “All of your universities have been hotbeds of pervasive antisemitism. Please tell me how many students have your university suspended? How many students have been expelled for antisemitic conduct since October 7?”

Schill replied that to his knowledge no students had been either suspended or expelled but that they are conducting investigations and that there have been “terminations of staff.” Hollaway did not say whether any had been expelled but that four were suspended.

“We have ongoing investigations as well, but I can report that we’ve suspended four people and then 19 others have experienced other levels of disciplinary consequences,” Holloway told Foxx.

WATCH:

Block did not say whether any students at UCLA had been expelled or suspended but that the university is conducting investigations.

“We have, I believe, over 100 active investigations right now,” Block said. “We’re evaluating 100 cases since October 7, of both antisemitism and Islamophobia.”

“So very few students have received any kind of disciplinary action from your campuses,” Foxx concluded.

The Los Angeles Police Department was forced to intervene when violence broke out between pro-Palestinian protesters and anti-Israel counter-protesters, resulting in one person being transported to the hospital via ambulance. Internal university communications documents later showed that UCLA had declined to have a larger police presence at the protest before the fighting broke out. Over 200 people were arrested after police broke up the encampment, according to NBC News.

Northwestern reached a deal with protesters after a week of pro-Palestinian encampments popping up on campus by agreeing to revisit proposals to divest from Israel, according to The Associated Press. Northwestern has also received over $690 million since 2007 from Qatar, which has been known for harboring Hamas for years.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

By Kate Anderson
Daily Caller News Foundation

California Democrats announced Wednesday that they were reviving a bill barring school districts from adopting policies notifying parents that their child wants to transition.

California Republicans failed to pass a bill in 2023 that would have required schools to inform parents if their child wished to transition but several school districts implemented individual policies anyway causing an uproar from transgender activists, according to the Fresno Bee. In response, Democratic Assemblyman Chris Ward and the state’s LGBTQ Caucus announced they were gutting a bill proposed earlier in the year regarding mental health services in schools to now focus on prohibiting school districts from requiring educators to notify parents of a student’s gender identity, according to a press release.

The newly amended bill titled the “Support Academic Futures and Educators for Today’s Youth Act (SAFETY Act)” would make California the first state to ban transgender notification policies, according to the press release.

“Teachers should not be the gender police and violate the trust and safety of the students in their classrooms,” Ward said. “Parents should be talking to their children, and the decision for a student to come out to their family members should be on their own terms. The SAFETY Act simply ensures that conversations about gender identity and sexuality happen at home without interference from others outside of the family unit.”

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

Among the bill’s supporters are California Superintendent Tony Thurmond, Becca Cramer-Mowder, legislative advocate at ACLU California Action and state Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta, according to the press release. Bonta filed a lawsuit against the Chino Valley Unified School District in August 2023, claiming that the district’s policy requiring parental notification was discriminatory and “wrongfully endangers the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of non-conforming students.”

Parental rights advocates who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation, however, argued that the bill would strip parents of their constitutional rights. If passed, Jonathan Zachreson, co-founder of Protect Kids California and a school board member at Roseville City School District, told the DCNF it is likely that parents and possibly teachers will sue over the law.

“Anytime politicians want to force schools to keep secrets from parents about their own children, there is always cause for concern. Schools simply should not be complicit in the secret social transition of children,” Zacherson said. “Parents and teachers have already successfully sued school districts for having secrecy policies similar to what this bill would require. Nothing in this bill could prevent parents or teachers from suing school districts and the state over this unconstitutional bill. If passed, it likely would be overturned in the courts.”

“If the bill is re-written as Assemblyman Ward says, it would threaten the right of California parents to direct the care and upbringing of their children,” Alex Nester, an investigative fellow with Parents Defending Education, further explained to the DCNF. “This would be detrimental for California families. It is not the job of schools to decide if and when a child should socially transition. It’s frightening that some districts are providing minors access to serious, life-altering medical services—including in some cases referrals for plan B, abortions, and even hormone replacement therapy—while at the same time, states like California have low medical ages of consent.”

The bill will also include protections to ensure “school staff are not retaliated against for refusing to forcibly out a student,” according to the press release. Wenyuan Wu, the executive director for the Californians for Equal Rights F0undation, told the DCNF that she was concerned that this provision in the bill would incentivize “activist teachers” to impose their will on vulnerable students.

“Underage children cannot consent to irreversible gender transition procedures. In classroom settings, they are not voluntary participants and are a captured audience,” Wu said. “Activist teachers who help children transition or hide the ever-changing gender identities can not be trusted by the parents and the community to protect the kids. More often than not, these activist teachers not only provide support but also actively coax, co-opt and inculcate students into the secular religion of cultural Marxism. They should not be entitled to immunity.”

Ward and the LGBTQ Caucus did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

By Harold Hutchison
Daily Caller News Foundation

A North Carolina school district that suspended a student for using the term “illegal alien” failed to provide all public records pertaining to the incident that were requested by a parental-rights organization, the group told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Christian McGhee, a 16-year-old student at Central Davidson High School, received a three-day suspension in April for using the term “illegal aliens” during class while asking the teacher for clarification on a vocabulary assignment, prompting his parents to file a lawsuit against the Davidson County Board of Education. Parents Defending Education (PDE) filed a records request about the suspension, but received only four emails totaling eight pages that were provided to the DCNF.

“It is possible that said emails so requested may contain confidential student/educational records under FERPA that would not be subject to a public records request and/or to the extent that such emails can be provided pursuant to your request, they may have to be heavily redacted or not provided at all,” a representative for the district told the parental-rights group, referencing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

The Davidson County Board of Education and Davidson County Schools Superintendent Gregg Slate did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the DCNF.

A spokesperson for PDE told the DCNF that McGhee’s parents were not involved in the records request, nor were they in contact with the parental-rights group. A spokesperson for the Liberty Justice Center, which is representing the parents, declined to comment on the PDE records request.

McGhee eventually withdrew from Central Davidson High School and transferred to a homeschooling program after receiving threats due to the suspension, according to court documents.

BREAKING We have filed a lawsuit against a North Carolina school board on behalf of Christian McGhee, a 16-year-old student whose question about the word “aliens” in class led to a harsh suspension & false accusations of racism by his own school.

We proudly stand beside… pic.twitter.com/GvCB5H0wlm

— Liberty Justice Center (@LJCenter) May 7, 2024

Christian McGhee had returned to his class after using the restroom and arrived to find the class discussing aliens, leading him to he ask whether the class was discussing aliens from space or illegal aliens, Dean McGee, an attorney with Liberty Justice Center representing McGhee and his parents, told the DCNF.

“A Latino boy in class turned around and said, ‘Hey, I’m going to kick your ass,’” McGee said. “It was said jokingly, and class moved on as normal until later, a girl in class brought up the Latino student’s comment about kicking Christian’s ass, and that’s when the teacher called the assistant principal.”

Despite both boys telling the assistant principal that the comments were not a big deal, the assistant principal viewed Christian’s use of the term “illegal alien” as a racial slur and issued the suspension, McGee told the DCNF. McGee referred the DCNF to Liberty Justice Center’s complaint against the Davidson County Board of Education when asked for more details about the assistant principal’s conduct.

The term “alien” is defined in 8 USC 1101 as “any person not a citizen or national of the United States.” The term “illegal aliens” is used in multiple parts of the United States Code, including 8 USC 1182, 8 USC 1252c and 8 USC 1366.

“The parents are looking to clear his record and essentially vindicating his constitutional rights to both free speech and due process,” McGee told the DCNF when asked what McGhee’s parents wanted from the litigation. “And his parents are also looking for damages.”

McGee said the parents were not seeking a specific dollar amount, but would leave it for a trial if the school district did not settle the case.

Student discipline was not the only area where the Davidson County Schools appeared to withhold information. In training documents acquired via a public records request from PDE, the school system appears to instruct counselors on techniques to hide information about a student’s gender identity.

“Don’t write down anything or email anything you wouldn’t want a parent to see/know,” the presentation PDE provided to the DCNF said.

“It’s clear through these incidents that Davidson administrators feel emboldened to push a political agenda on students,” PDE investigative fellow Alex Nester told the DCNF. “Whether punishing student speech or encouraging staff to exclude parents from sensitive information about their kids, it’s clear that Davidson administrators are more interested in virtue signaling their political correctness than doing right by the families and students they serve. It’s shameful.”

PDE reported ten previous incidents in North Carolina, including two school districts that have policies to conceal the gender identity of a student from parents.

Parents sued school districts over efforts to transition children socially without the parents’ knowledge in Florida and Wisconsin. A 12-year-old girl reportedly attempted suicide in Florida while administrators were carrying out a social transition without informing her parents, Fox News reported.

“The district quite literally is letting ideology dictate when and how they follow federal law—they do this to avoid transparency with parents and with the greater public,” PDE Director of Outreach Erika Sanzi told the DCNF. “To make matters worse, they are actively telling teachers how to circumvent federal law so that they can withhold vital information from parents about their own children. Totally indefensible across the board.”

This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!

(THE COLLEGE FIX) -- A federal civil rights complaint has been filed against a Massachusetts Institute of Technology program that excludes white students.

Shortly thereafter, the school appears to have edited the webpage to state that “participation is open to all students regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, and national origin,” according to a College Fix review this morning.

However, this does not make the program legal, according to the complainant.

Read the full story ›

By Kate Anderson
Daily Caller News Foundation

Two civil rights groups filed a lawsuit against Harvard University Wednesday alleging that the Ivy League institution had been ‘deliberately indifferent’ to acts of anti-Semitism on campus for years.

Universities have been hit with a wave of criticism in recent months over their handling of anti-Semitism following the Hamas terror attack in the Jewish state in October 2023 that left over 1,200 Israelis dead and prompted hundreds of pro-Palestinian protests. The lawsuit, which was filed by the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education (JAFE), argues that Harvard not only has allowed anti-Semitism to run rampant for years but even more so since Oct. 7.

“In recent years, and especially in the last few months, Jewish and Israeli students have been subjected to cruel antisemitic bullying, harassment, and discrimination,” the lawsuit says. “And when Harvard is presented with incontrovertible evidence of antisemitic conduct, it ignores and tolerates it. Harvard’s permissive posture towards anti-Semitism is the opposite of its aggressive enforcement of the same anti-bullying and anti-discrimination policies to protect other minorities. As Plaintiffs and their members have experienced, Harvard has been deliberately indifferent to the pervasive anti-Semitism on campus, creating an unbearable educational environment.”

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!

The House Committee on Education and the Workforce opened an investigation into Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in December 2023 after the colleges’ presidents refused to clarify what was considered antisemitic behavior under their policies. The lawsuit, however, explains that Harvard’s troubled history with anti-Semitism began long before the investigation was opened.

The plaintiffs claim in the filing that a professor at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) told several Jewish and Israeli students, also referred to as HKS Members, that the “existence of a ‘Jewish state'” was equal “to ‘white supremacy,’ and threatened them with ‘consequences’ if they did not get on board with his material on the subject. The professor also allegedly forced the students to listen to “their classmates’ anti-Israeli diatribes.”

“The professor also encouraged the teaching fellows to conduct a class exercise on Palestinian solidarity, and the classmates taunted the HKS Members by organizing a class picture, in which they and teaching fellows wore ‘keffiyehs’ as a symbol of Palestinian support and opposition to the HKS Members’ identities,” according to the lawsuit. “The professor appeared in the picture as well. Administrators then circulated that photo to other HKS students.”

After the Jewish students complained, an investigation was launched and determined that the school had “created ‘a hostile learning environment,’ denied HKS Members ‘a learning environment free from bias,’  and ‘denigrated’ them ‘on the basis of their Israeli national origin and Jewish ethnicity and ancestry.'” Harvard did not dispute the findings but the plaintiffs claimed that the school’s leadership kept the disciplinary proceedings confidential and that the students are unaware if any action took place.

Additionally, one Jewish student was assaulted on Oct. 18 by a mob of “anti-Israel” protesters, who shouted “’Shame! Shame! Shame!’ in his face” and hit the student “in the neck,” according to the lawsuit. Despite footage showing the event and identifying the assailants, Harvard has reportedly taken no action against the individuals responsible, claiming that it must wait for a criminal investigation to conclude.

Ken Marcus, the founder and chairman of the Brandeis Center, told the DCNF that the Brandeis Center has made several attempts to encourage Harvard to take the problem of anti-Semitism seriously but that instead, the university has continued to tolerate “an awful environment for Jewish students going way back before October 7.”

“Harvard’s refusal to deal with anti-Semitism smells of arrogance,” Marcus explained. “They’ve heard over and over again, including from their own people, that they need to deal with the problem and yet they refuse to do so. It is as if they believe that they are above the law.”

Harvard did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

SUPPORT TRUTHFUL JOURNALISM. MAKE A DONATION TO THE NONPROFIT WND NEWS CENTER. THANK YOU!