Arizona State University, long known as one of America&#8217;s biggest party schools, is now offering a bachelor&#8217;s degree for aspiring influencers. 
The university&#8217;s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication recently unveiled a Bachelor of Arts in Content Creation, a program designed to prepare students to &#8220;become an influencer and strategic storyteller who thrives in the rapidly evolving creator economy.&#8221;
According to the university, the program is aimed at students who &#8220;dream of monetizing&#8221; their social media presence. Courses include How To Become An Influencer, On-Camera Presence, Podcasting, Social Media Foundations, The Digital Audience, and Interpersonal Influence.
ASU says the degree goes beyond creating social media posts.
Students will study multimedia production, audience analytics, personal branding, social media strategy, and integrated communications while participating in internships, brand partnerships, and content creation trips in Phoenix, Los Angeles, and abroad.
Jessica Pucci, senior associate dean at the Cronkite School, <a href="https://www.azfamily.com/2026/07/21/learn-how-be-an-influencer-with-asus-content-creation-major/">said</a> students will analyze performance metrics across multiple platforms, test different content strategies, and use data to grow their audiences.
Their senior capstone project requires students to spend an entire semester creating content on a platform such as TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube while demonstrating measurable audience growth. 
&#8220;They will have a platform of their choice with real content and real followers and a real audience behind them,&#8221; Pucci said. 
University officials say the program reflects the rapid growth of the creator economy, which Goldman Sachs <a href="https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/articles/the-creator-economy-could-approach-half-a-trillion-dollars-by-2027">projects</a> could reach nearly $480 billion by 2027. 
Supporters say the coursework teaches practical skills that many successful creators eventually have to learn through trial and error.
But the announcement has also drawn plenty of skepticism <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/07/24/lifestyle/arizona-state-university-now-offers-a-content-creation-major/?utm_campaign=nypost&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter">online</a>, with critics questioning whether students need a four-year degree to learn skills many internet personalities developed on their own.
Arizona influencer Anna Elizabeth, who also works as a medical assistant, said she wishes the program had existed when she began building her online audience. 
&#8220;How do I get brands to notice me?&#8221; she said. &#8220;It&#8217;s a little bit difficult to understand that portion if you haven&#8217;t done it for a long time.&#8221;
Even some faculty members questioned whether the degree justifies its cost. ASU philosophy professor Owen Anderson asked on <a href="https://x.com/dr_owenanderson/status/2080107269468066231">X</a> whether the major would satisfy new federal accountability standards requiring degree programs to improve graduates&#8217; earning potential compared to workers without a college education.
Arizona State is not the first university to embrace the influencer economy. Syracuse University recently established a Center for the Creator Economy, while Graceland University and Arizona&#8217;s Grand Canyon University offer degree programs focused on digital content and social media.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL: OCT 14 Washington at Arizona State

Infamous Party School Launches Hilarious New Major

Arizona

Arizona State University

College

Education

higher education

Influencers

Instagram

Podcast

podcasts

Social Media

TikTok

Universities

YouTube

A New York town is facing backlash from residents over a proposal to place an Islamic all-boys school in a Long Island residential neighborhood. 
Residents of the hamlet of Bay Shore raised concerns over a plan from the United American Muslim Association to convert a former Catholic school building into an Islamic boarding school for boys. Members of the neighborhood <a href="https://www.facebook.com/saxonsaysno/">group</a> “Saxon Says No” showed up in force to a zoning meeting Tuesday to voice their opposition to the school. 
The group says that the Town of Islip, which oversees the hamlet, would be bypassing zoning regulations if it approves the project without input from locals. 
“This appeal is about zoning, due process, and protecting a residential neighborhood. We respect every person&#8217;s constitutional right to worship,” the opposition group <a href="https://communitywatch.ai/the-appeal/">said</a>. “This appeal is not about religion — it is about whether the Town of Islip is properly applying its own zoning laws.”
Many residents believe that the proposed 120-student boarding school would bring increased traffic to the area as well as lead to groups of roving teenage boys running throughout the neighborhood. 
“The proposed use by the new property owner is far more intensive than what is appropriate for a quiet residential neighborhood,” Saxon Says No leader Kevin Colgan said during a meeting on the project, <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/07/24/us-news/long-island-residents-fume-over-all-boy-muslim-boarding-school-in-residential-neighborhood/">according</a> to The New York Post. 
“This is about protecting the integrity of our zoning laws — not opposing any individual or organization — zoning laws exist to preserve the character, integrity, and quality of life within our neighborhoods while ensuring that land uses are appropriate for their surroundings,” Colgan added.
The building being proposed for the school was sold to the United American Muslim Association for $5 million by the Roman Catholic Montfort Missionaries. It used to be a Catholic school, but has not been used for that purpose in decades. 
The New Jersey-based United American Muslim Association describes itself as an organization seeking to “provide permanent solutions” for Muslims in North America “primarily by providing appropriate places to worship and providing an Islamic education for the youth.”
One local, Anna Chan, said her family purchased a home in the neighborhood with the belief that it would remain a residential area. 
“When my family chose to purchase this home 10 years ago — we relied on the zoning protections when making one of the largest investments of our lives — a community of single-family homes where the zoning was intended to preserve its residential character,” she <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/07/24/us-news/long-island-residents-fume-over-all-boy-muslim-boarding-school-in-residential-neighborhood/">said</a>. 
Bay Shore resident Elizabeth Byrne argued that the school would completely reshape the neighborhood’s family-focused feel. 
&#8220;I just feel like it&#8217;s going to totally compromise the environment and the history that has been here for years,&#8221; she <a href="https://longisland.news12.com/2026/07/22/islip-town-to-hold-public-hearing-today-on-proposed-islamic-boarding-school-in-bay-shore/3W9QjN4ZmFuV115h2DgbLQ">said</a>. &#8220;I think it&#8217;s going to destroy it.&#8221;

Islamic moon – the sign on the mosque

Former Catholic School Could Become Muslim-Only Boarding School

Islam

Long Island

Muslims

New York

A teachers&#8217; union boss said during a keynote speech at an American Federation of Teachers (AFT) conference that President Donald Trump makes her reach for the alcohol.
Rhonda “Randi” Weingarten, the president of AFT, routinely — and publicly — disagrees with Trump and many other top Republicans, and she said as much in her keynote speech.
After welcoming the crowd, she mocked the White House’s Independence Day celebration, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/weingarten-gestures-wildly-anti-trump-rant-later-says-drives-her-drink">according</a> to Fox News. “While you missed the UFC cage fight on the White House lawn, it’s not too late to check out the tire marks in the Reflecting Pool,” Weingarten said.
During the following <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNWaPpSIm5o">panel discussion</a>, Weingarten asked what keeps them up at night with the many things “confronting the country.”
“Because part of what authoritarians do — and also part of what Donald Trump does — whether you consider him an authoritarian or not, is the throwing out of so much stuff that people just throw up their hands and say: ‘Oh no, what are we going to do? All I want to do is stay home and’ — for those of us who drink — ‘have a glass of wine’ — or for me, some vodka,” she said.
Weingarten became progressively more upset as she ranted about Trump and “oligarchs” such as Elon Musk.
“But this is what they don’t have: the power of the people,” she said, becoming increasingly animated.
“That is not a mere slogan. It is the potential to work together, to bargain together, to protest together, to vote together, to act together, to bring about change — real, lasting, life-improving change,” Weingarten said.
“That is the power and potential of our movement and of the A – F – T,” she said, lengthening the organization’s acronym dramatically as she claimed that the AFT could work for “good” against “corruption.”
Weingarten went on to say that she wants an America built where “the trans nurse, the Palestinian teacher, the Jewish student, and every person, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or place of origin, feel welcome, safe, and valued.”
“And one more thing: We get sh*t done,” Weingarten said. “My apologies to the children.”

Teachers Union Boss’s Trump Confession? Pass The Vodka

Alcohol

American Federation of Teachers

Donald Trump

Politics

Randi Weingarten

Introduction
For generations, Americans assumed that sending a child to college was the safest financial decision a family could make. Today, that assumption deserves far more scrutiny. For many students, college remains an excellent investment. For others, it may become the biggest financial mistake of their lives.
In <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/why-americas-colleges-are-far-more-fragile-than-they-appear-part-i?row=0&amp;elementPosition=1&amp;rowType=Web+Search+Overlay" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Parts I</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/why-americas-colleges-are-far-more-fragile-than-they-appear-part-ii?row=0&amp;elementPosition=4&amp;rowType=Web+Search+Overlay" target="_blank" rel="noopener">II</a> of &#8220;Why America’s Colleges Are Far More Fragile Than They Appear,&#8221; we were descriptive, outlining the mounting financial pressures facing colleges and universities, pressures that have reshaped the economics of higher education in ways families can no longer ignore.
This article is prescriptive. Rather than diagnosing higher education’s structural problems, we want to help families make better decisions before investing tens — or even hundreds — of thousands of dollars in pursuit of a college degree. College deserves the same level of scrutiny as buying a home or starting a business. Yet many families conduct almost no financial analysis before making this six-figure investment. They focus on dreams, traditions, prestige, and acceptance letters while overlooking financial risk.
Increasingly, that is a costly mistake that could haunt them for decades.
The premise that all students are “above average” and ready for college is fiction. According to the <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/bps/?utm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">National Center for Education Statistics</a>, 43% of students who enter postsecondary education complete no credential after six years. Most of those dropouts — roughly 60-70% — have student loan debt when they leave. Federal student loan balances now exceed<a href="https://thecollegeinvestor.com/student-loan-debt/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> $1.8 trillion</a>, or about $40,000 per borrower, not including another $40,000 on average for parents using Parent PLUS loans.
The fastest-growing cohort of student loan debtors is <a href="https://www.newamerica.org/insights/seniors-with-student-loans-15-years-of-debt/?utm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">seniors aged 60+</a> — not because so many elderly are going back to school, but because they are turning 60 while still carrying old debt, or borrowing for their younger relatives. This group has grown sixfold since 2004, and their debt has grown 19-fold.
Employers think today’s college graduates are less prepared for jobs. A <a href="https://www.luminafoundation.org/resource/aligning-education-and-work/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2026 Lumina-Gallup report</a> found that 58% of employers believe the class of 2026 is less prepared than graduates a decade ago. Another study found 75% of <a href="https://workplaceintelligence.com/college-graduate-skills-study/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HR managers</a> believe most college educations are not preparing people for their jobs, and 91% say onboarding recent graduates costs more because they lack readiness. The same study found that 85% of graduates themselves say they wish their college had better prepared them for the workplace.
One likely contributor is that so many of them weren’t prepared to enter college at the outset. According to a new analysis of scores from <a href="https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/act-only-1-in-5-high-school-graduates-in-2023-fully-prepared-for-college/2023/10?utm_source=perplexity" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ACT college-admissions tests</a>, only one in five high schoolers in the class of 2023 graduated ready to succeed in their core introductory college classes.
Many graduates also struggle to find jobs aligned with their credentials. For years, <a href="https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:explore:unemployment" target="_blank" rel="noopener">40–45%</a> of college graduates have worked in roles that do not require a degree. Nearly <a href="https://freopp.org/whitepapers/does-college-pay-off-a-comprehensive-return-on-investment-analysis/?utm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">half of master’s degree programs</a> leave students financially worse off.
A college degree still provides value for many students — but the value of a diploma now varies widely depending on the institution, its cost, the student’s likelihood of graduating, and the chosen field of study.
Meanwhile, many institutions have expanded recruitment far beyond the traditional college‑bound population. Financial pressures have pushed schools to pursue enrollment growth aggressively, including among students who may not be academically or financially prepared for the challenges ahead. As we previously outlined, many institutions now target these groups specifically — often including underrepresented students who face greater risks.
Of course, some students attend college for reasons unrelated to economics. Wealthy families, or students seeking the educational or social experience, may not prioritize cost‑value analysis. But for everyone else — the overwhelming majority of the market — a far more critical assessment is essential. That assessment begins with this fundamental question: Does college make economic sense for me? Answering that question should involve an unbiased financial analysis.
Assessing the Odds and Risk
With the cost of a degree at a top‑tier university often exceeding $300,000, a non‑wealthy family would be unwise not to evaluate the likely economic costs and rewards. Historically, many families avoided such analysis — confident that the economic payoff would exceed the cost, or citing a student’s “passion” as justification. Few parents would buy their teenager a $300,000 Ferrari simply because he was passionate about sports cars. Yet many spend comparable sums on degrees without demanding any evidence that the investment will pay off. The financial stakes — and potential damage — are similar even at less expensive schools if the family cannot truly afford the investment.
Return on Investment (ROI)
Colleges often highlight “the college premium,” noting that graduates tend to earn more than non‑graduates. <a href="https://www.aplu.org/our-work/4-policy-and-advocacy/publicuvalues/employment-earnings/?utm_" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Schools</a>, and even the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2020/beyond-bls/the-college-payoff-a-look-at-income-and-wealth-premiums.htm?utm_" target="_blank" rel="noopener">federal government</a>, frequently imply this is a causal relationship — a classic error of conflating correlation with causation. This is like claiming gym memberships cause longer lifespans. In reality, the correlation reflects underlying factors: higher incomes, healthier lifestyles, better diets, and lower smoking rates.
Additionally, college ROI projections often rely on one or more flawed assumptions:
Assumption #1: The student graduates. 
Only <a href="https://nscresearchcenter.org/yearly-progress-and-completion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">61%</a> of first‑time, full‑time undergraduates finish within six years. <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ987305.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Underprepared students</a> have even lower graduation rates and are a growing portion of the overall student population. Some <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2024-report-economic-well-being-us-households-202505.pdf?utm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">60—70%</a> of those who leave college without a degree take student loan debt with them, and they are <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/use-work/resource-library/report/statistics-brief/federal-student-loan-debt-burden-noncompleters?utm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">five to six</a> times more likely to default on those loans than graduates.
Assumption #2: College takes four years. 
The average time to graduate is <a href="https://www.earnest.com/blog/average-time-to-earn-degree" target="_blank" rel="noopener">five to six</a> years, with only <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=569" target="_blank" rel="noopener">44%</a> finishing in four. Additional years mean more tuition, room and board, fees, and living expenses. With college inflation at 3–4%, years five and six cost 16% and 20% more than year one. ROI calculations rarely include this.
Assumption #3: The major never changes. 
Up to <a href="https://www.clrn.org/what-percentage-of-students-change-their-major/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">70% of students change their major</a> at least once, often to less rigorous and less lucrative majors — <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2018/2018434/index.asp?utm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">especially true between STEM and non‑STEM fields</a>, and with <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272775718304680?utm_source=chatgpt.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">women disproportionately</a> making this switch. Only <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10863898/?utm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">10-15%</a> of students who begin as “pre‑med” matriculate into medical school. The earnings expectations vary greatly across these majors, making huge differences in long-term ROI projections.
Assumption #4: Opportunity costs don’t matter.
Two major opportunity costs are often overlooked:
<ul>
<li aria-level="1">Alternative uses of the money</li>
</ul>
Assume that a family is considering spending $35,000 per year to fund a student’s education. Alternatively, investing $35,000 per year in an S&amp;P 500 index fund for five years at a conservative 9% annual return would yield $228,000 after five years — and $1.97 million after 25 more years with no additional contributions. Might that be a better investment — especially for one of the four out of five students whom ACT identifies as unprepared for college?
<ul>
<li aria-level="1">Lost earnings during college</li>
</ul>
The median annual wage for non‑college graduates is $47,500. Four or five years of earnings — and savings — must be included in any realistic ROI analysis.
Assumption #5: Wage premiums stay high. 
The wage premium for college rose sharply from the <a href="https://www.frbsf.org/wp-content/uploads/wp2025-01.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1980s through the early 2000s</a>, but since the mid-2010s, <a href="https://www.frbsf.org/research-and-insights/publications/economic-letter/2023/08/falling-college-wage-premiums-by-race-and-ethnicity/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the premium has been largely flat or slightly down</a>. More recently, a number of bachelor’s programs have been projected to have <a href="https://www.universityherald.com/articles/80290/20260419/college-majors-worst-return-investment-2026-ranked.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">negative ROIs</a>.
Conclusion
Families should approach the college decision with the same discipline they would apply to any major investment: understand the risks, weigh the expected return, and make decisions based on evidence rather than emotion. Doing so will not eliminate risk, but it can greatly improve the odds that a college education, if chosen, becomes a sound investment rather than a costly mistake.
Our purpose is not to discourage students from attending college. Rather, it is to encourage informed decision-making based on evidence instead of flawed assumptions. College remains one of America’s greatest institutions when the right student chooses the right school and the right course of study at the right price. But it is not a one-size-fits-all path to prosperity, and the downside risks are far greater for some than others.
College is neither a guaranteed ticket to prosperity nor a decision that should be made on faith or passion. It is an investment. Like any investment, it should be evaluated on expected return, probability of success, and financial risk. Families who approach college with that discipline will make better decisions — and avoid turning one of life’s biggest possible opportunities into one of its biggest financial mistakes.
***
Greg Salsbury, Ph.D., serves on the Board of Advisors for <a href="https://starrs.us/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">STARRS.US</a> and is the former president of Western Colorado University. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, an M.A. from the University of Illinois, and an M.A. from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at USC.
John Kawauchi, MBA, is a former VP of Enrollment Management and Marketing at Western Colorado University and Lake Superior State University, after spending most of his career in Retirement Planning and Product Marketing in the Financial Services industry. He earned his MBA from the University of Chicago and a B.S. from Cornell University.

Students of human medicine in Leipzig

Why College Can Be The Biggest Financial Gamble You’ll Ever Make

Angie Sullivan, of the &#8220;I&#8217;ve Had It&#8221; podcast, told her cohost Jennifer Welch that she was inherently distrustful of parents who actually enjoy spending time with their children.
Sullivan made the comments in the broader context of a conversation about homeschooling — which she also does not like, for a variety of reasons — and she said that it was &#8220;weird&#8221; to imagine mothers wanting to spend all of their time with their children.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
‘I’ve Had It’ co-host Angie Sullivan on homeschooling&#8230;.
“You would not believe how many people in Bible study homeschool their kids, and you just think, ah, I worry about that.”
“I just think homeschooling is a bad idea from soup to nuts. I don’t care if you’re a nuclear… <a href="https://t.co/GKbhROgDGs">pic.twitter.com/GKbhROgDGs</a>
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) <a href="https://x.com/CurtisHouck/status/2077129530045559032?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 14, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Sullivan began by suggesting that it was a red flag that so many women involved in Bible study also chose to homeschool their children.
&#8220;You would not believe how many people in Bible study homeschool their kids, and you just think, eeehhhh, I worry about that. And then you see those witness booklets or whatever they&#8217;re called that the Duggar&#8217;s used, and they&#8217;re like, top out at eighth grade &#8230;&#8221; she said, scrunching up her face in obvious revulsion in a clear attempt to tie all Christians and homeschoolers to the Duggar family&#8217;s more recent trials.
&#8220;I just think homeschooling is a bad idea from soup to nuts. I don’t care if you’re a nuclear physicist. I think it’s just f*cking weird as f*ck that you want your kids around you all day, every day, and all night,&#8221; she added, suggesting that she would have strapped her own children to her back and &#8220;crawled&#8221; if that was the only way to get them out of her house and to school each day — if only just &#8220;to get them where I wasn&#8217;t.&#8221;
&#8220;So, I don’t trust somebody that wants to be with their kids 24/7. I think a lot of dumb people do it because it’s just easier, and that’s a concern,&#8221; she said, arguing that homeschooling was somehow &#8220;easier&#8221; for parents than putting children on the bus and washing their hands of the entire situation.
She then complained that kids who homeschooled could get all their work done in a few hours because they were not tied to the school&#8217;s schedule, arguing that gave the kids too much free time: &#8220;I just can’t think of very many good things about homeschooling.&#8221;

One Story. One Future: GLAAD Celebrates Pride 2025

Popular Leftist Podcaster Doesn’t Trust Moms Who Like Their Kids

Liberal Woman Doesn't Trust Moms Who Actually Like Their Kids

Homeschooling

Jennifer Welch

Media

A black historian is no longer employed at Tufts University after it was revealed that her prize-winning book cited sources that didn’t exist. 
Initial reviews praised Kerri K. Greenidge&#8217;s book — titled &#8220;The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery In An American Family&#8221; — for her focus on the slaveholding Grimke brother fathering children with an enslaved woman. Previous histories had focused more on the Grimke sisters — Sarah and Angelina — who had rejected their heritage and become prominent abolitionists, also championing women&#8217;s rights.
The book retold the story through the sisters’ biracial nephews, citing letters from the University of Michigan’s archive that apparently are not there. But when Greenidge was confronted with that information, she suggested that her work was only under scrutiny because she was black.
“I am heartbroken that a field I have given my life to can treat me this way,” Greenidge said in an interview on Friday. “The attack on black women academics is real.”
She claimed she has never fabricated anything, but admitted some citations could be misattributed. “Are there citations that were misattributed? Probably.” 
Myra C. Glenn, a retired professor of American history at Elmira College, <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/932227">first</a> raised concerns about the book’s credibility in a March 2024 review. “All too often Greenidge lacks the evidence to substantiate many of her major claims. Her work is also riddled with factual errors and repeatedly omits needed endnotes.”
Glenn <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/932227">alleges</a> that Greenidge negatively portrayed the two abolitionist sisters as being “alternately cruel and relentlessly judgmental” toward their bi-racial nephews without evidence. Glenn argues the negative portrayal of the sisters ultimately “serves a larger purpose” by laying the foundation for the book’s central narrative. 
Another allegation claims Greenidge fabricated a dramatic scene by writing that the Grimké sisters &#8220;led thousands of antislavery women through prayer&#8221; and helped them escape the burning Pennsylvania Hall during an anti-abolitionist mob attack in 1838. Glenn said that numerous sources had previously documented that no one was in the building as it burned. 
After Glenn expressed her doubts, other scholars followed. The book, labeled one of the 10 best books of 2022 from Publishers Weekly, is no longer listed on Greenidge’s author page. Patrick Collins, a spokesman for Tufts University, told the New York Times that Greenidge was no longer employed by the university on Thursday. While the email did not specify whether Greenidge left the university or was terminated, Collins said the university had recently become aware that the book &#8220;contained multiple errors of fact and failed to give appropriate credit to the work of another.” 
Like Collins, Greenidge declined to detail the nature of her departure but did criticize Tufts&#8217; peer review panel. Greenidge claimed two of the panelists were hostile toward black women in academics and that the university’s review was prompted by a white female scholar. Greenidge said that she plans to get a restraining order against that woman. 
Collins responded saying, “The independent review by outside experts in the field was fair, fact-based, thorough, and objective. We stand by the review and strongly deny any allegations of bias.”
Problems with Greenidge’s “The Grimkes” ultimately led to questions about her book “Black Radical.” Stephen Fox, a historian who wrote a book on the same story, said, “It seems well done, except when you look at the footnotes. I started to think maybe it wasn’t just sloppy,” before adding “I think it’s something deeper.”

Pretty African American Woman

Black Historian Cries Racism After Scholars Call Out Fabricated Citations

Racism

The state of Texas recently implemented a new education curriculum that includes passages from the Old and New Testaments. Committed secularists, liberal and progressive religious leaders, and even many evangelicals quickly pounced on the inclusion of Hebrew and Christian texts in the state’s educational program.
CNN breathlessly <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/texas-is-poised-to-require-millions-of-students-to-study-bible-stories/ar-AA26zDMV?ocid=BingNewsVerp">warned</a> that “Texas is on the verge of requiring its more than 5 million public school students to study Bible stories, as the state emerges as a leader in a national conservative effort to infuse Christian teachings into American classrooms.” But Texas is not proposing theocracy, or implementing some sort of evangelical proselytization program. It is doing what Americans have done since 1776: ensuring that students have the best and most comprehensive education in order to make them citizens of a republic dedicated to the proposition &#8220;that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.&#8221;
The American republic just had its 250th birthday, and ever since the 13 colonies cast their lot among the independent and sovereign nations of the world, education has formed a vital part of the United States’ republican identity. Certainly, the new American union saw state churches and the oppressive religious structures of the Old World as a cumbersome inheritance they could, and did, cast off. But that was not something the colonists agreed on at the outset of the American Revolution in 1775, nor was it the reason for their Declaration of Independence in 1776.
The late Joyce Appleby, one of the 20th century’s great historians of the era of American independence, noted that even though the elites who began the war for independence believed the revolution was for a regime dedicated to natural rights, most of those same elites “saw few radical implications in this affirmation of natural rights.” John Adams, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and most of the revolutionaries who eventually identified with the Federalist Party “expected continued federance; they supported the authority of patriarchal families, established churches, and legitimate governments.” The Federalists who wrote the United States’ constitution were not secularists, and they were comfortable with the Bible as a essential part of the schooling that made good republican citizens.
Of course, Thomas Jefferson and his Jeffersonian Republicans did work to remove religion from the oversight of government, but not even Jeffersonians believed that the Bible could safely be removed from the sources of knowledge that made educated citizens. And therein lies the basic confusion about what Texas is doing: Secularists, and evangelical Christians, believe learning the Bible is an intrinsically religious act. Reading the Bible is certainly a religious act for Christians and Jews, but the Bible is also a major source of the moral framework of Western Civilization that gives modern Americans the freedoms we enjoy. The reason it is good for Texas’ public school children to know the Bible is the same reason it’s good they know <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-ancient-lesson-christopher-nolan-may-have-completely-stripped-out-of-the-odyssey">Homer</a>; it’s an important part of the Western canon and a vital piece of the catechesis that creates cultural literacy necessary for liberal democracy. 
The Bible is full of the folk tales found in classical Jewish literature; the Old Testament tells of Moses and Pharaoh, David and Goliath, King Solomon’s wisdom, Joshua and the walls of Jericho, Gideon’s small band of warriors, and so much more. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey tell stories of Achilles, Agamemnon, Hector, Paris, Helen, Odysseus, Penelope, and other figures of Greek mythology. The United States too has its folklore: Pecos Bill, Mike Fink, Daniel Boone, David Crockett, John Henry, and Paul Bunyan are the American versions of those Biblical and Greek figures, and they are all — Hebrew, Greek, and American — important for young Americans to know and learn about. The American republic can only have a healthy society if its citizens are educated enough to know not only that Paul Bunyan, Hercules, and Goliath are all big strong men, but that they are each an example of a very different type of big strong man.
Understanding the moral dimensions of the Bible is vital for the formation of a moral republic. But if secularists, and also some evangelicals, have their way, American students in the 21st century will not have the opportunity to learn the great moral stories their parents and grandparents did. Both groups are arguing that the any reading of the Bible must be a religious act and therefore cannot be done by public schools. This proposition is a twin form of religious and secular fundamentalism that says a pupil cannot study the Bible as literature. The Bible is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, sources of moral literature the West has. It would be a grave mistake to rob American students of its moral and literary influence. Texas has decided to give that gift to its public school students. Other states should do the same.
***
Miles Smith IV is an associate professor of history at Hillsdale College.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

GettyImages-YLF_031

The Battle Over America’s Moral Foundation Is Back

Bible

History

Public Schools

Religion

Upstream

People don’t read as many books as they once did, and that makes me sad. I love books. I want everyone to love books and for children to learn to love reading. And yet, for over 30 years, most children have learned to hate reading, and they have now become adults who hate to read.
Why? Because their schools taught them to.
In 1987, California adopted a destructive and now discredited method of teaching reading called Whole Language. Whole Language rejected phonics and instead treated words like symbols. Teachers stopped saying, “sound it out.” For example, a child would be taught to recognize the word, “frog” but could not sound out any other word starting with “fr.” When confronted with words like “friend” or “freeze,” the child would have to be “cued” with a picture or a hint. As a result, children learned to guess. Some learned to do it well and eventually came to phonetic pronunciation on their own. Many did not and remained functionally illiterate, able to read only what they could recognize, but unable to “sound out” words they had never seen before.
By the early 2000’s, all 50 states had at least some school districts using Whole Language, and some of the most populous states, such as California, Texas, New York, and Massachusetts, mandated Whole Language in all schools. State teachers’ unions and the National Education Association all supported its adoption. But the experiment on America’s children failed miserably.
The nationwide use of Whole Language over three decades has caused incalculable damage and is the worst pedagogic injustice in U.S. history. An excellent documentary podcast, <a href="https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/">Sold a Story</a>, details the rise and fall of Whole Language and the people who profited from it, including <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/10/reading-phonics-literacy-calkins-curriculum-public-school.html">Lucy Calkins</a>, who finally admitted in 2022 that she was wrong all along. (Oops! Sorry about the functional illiteracy, kids.)
Now, I would think an 800-pound gorilla like the Whole Language fiasco might at least be mentioned once in an 8,600-word article about America’s reading problem. I was wrong.
The massive lament by Rose Horowitch declares <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/08/reading-crisis-postliterate-age/687618/">The End of Reading is Here</a> in The Atlantic’s August edition, and she fears for the Republic if people don’t read more. Daily Wire columnist Jonathan Minnema says she is wrong in a much shorter article: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-age-of-reading-isnt-over?row=0&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;rowType=Web+Search">The Age of Reading Isn’t Over.</a>
I agree with Minnema that reading will be just fine because Whole Language has now been banned in 42 states. What bothers me most about Horowitch’s article is her utter lack of curiosity as to the root cause of declining literacy. She certainly cites some depressing figures:
<blockquote>
&#8230; it’s true that Americans’ basic reading skills are declining. Fourth- and eighth-grade reading scores have slid for the past decade&#8230; In 2024, in a national test, <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/reading/achieve.aspx%232009_grade12">just 35 percent of high-school seniors</a> were “proficient” at skills such as analyzing complex fictional themes and evaluating the effectiveness of an author’s argument&#8230; Adult-literacy scores have also dropped: Nearly 30 percent of American adults <a href="https://ies.ed.gov/learn/press-release/u-s-adults-score-par-international-average-literacy-skills-below-international-average-numeracy-and">cannot paraphrase or make inferences from a multipage text</a>. In 2017, that number was less than 20 percent.
</blockquote>
Scary stuff. Horowitch’s own magazine published a story on Whole Language and Lucy Calkins in <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/12/lucy-calkins-child-literacy-teaching-methodology/680394/">2024</a>, yet she doesn’t mention it. Daily distractions from video slop and social media, though bad, do not somehow prevent students from acquiring reading skills in any functional classroom. The popularity of such junk is not the cause, but rather the result of the Whole Language era. Kids who dislike reading and see it as an uninteresting chore will entertain themselves somehow.
People are indeed spending less money on books. According to data from the <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MRTSSM451211USN%23">Federal Reserve Bank</a>, annual retail book sales peaked at $1.4 billion in 2007 and fell sharply thereafter to $650 million in 2025. Just after the 2007 sales peak, new technologies entered the world: the iPhone (2007), the iPad (2010), E-readers (2007), and Netflix streaming (2007).
But something else happened in 2008: thousands of kids crippled by Whole Language began to graduate from high school. As if on cue, average critical reading SAT scores also began to decline in 2008 as more students began taking the test. Young adults who hate reading probably won’t buy books, ever again.
Ms. Horowitch’s essay is ultimately cowardly and predictably elitist. Rather than seeking a more likely systemic or bureaucratic cause for the disaster she sees, she instead fixes blame on parents:
<blockquote>
Things are about to get worse, and fast. The next generation reads much less than today’s adults did when they were kids. Kindergarten teachers say that many of their students don’t know nursery rhymes or fairy tales&#8230; (In the study of 236,000 American adults, only 2 percent read to a child on a given day.)
</blockquote>
Perhaps I ask too much of Ms. Horowitch, a Yale graduate who also attended the elite Phillips Exeter Academy, a $60,000-a-year high school in New Hampshire. She was certainly not subjected to the vagaries of the Whole Language era. But a journalist with 8,600 words at her disposal has a duty to investigate the likely causes and origins of any danger to the Republic.
***
Harry Angell is a petroleum geologist and a visiting fellow at the California Policy Center. He is also the author of The Anastomosing Dendrite, a Substack newsletter.

Two girls (4-5) (8-9) sitting at table, reading book, (B&W), close-up

Smartphones Didn’t Kill Reading; The Schools Did

DW Opinion

Literacy

Lucy Calkins

Reading

Whole Language

A federal appeals court <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/07/stop-woke-act-appeal-florida-desantis?">struck down</a> a key part of Florida’s law restricting race and gender discussions in public colleges and universities on Tuesday. 
The same people celebrating the ruling are also decrying a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/26/us/texas-schools-bible-curriculum-vote">recent decision</a> by the Texas State Board of Education that allowed biblical passages to appear on a secondary school reading list. The former is academic freedom, and the latter a violation of it. Naturally. 
It’s easy to reconcile these positions by arguing that one is a religious matter and the other is secular. Clearly, it&#8217;s wrong to push one&#8217;s religion in the classroom. Therefore, we can rely on “separation of church and state” to privilege the speech of Florida college professors over that of Texas secondary teachers. 
But for this distinction to matter, we require a clear definition of religion. What constitutes a religious belief as opposed to a philosophical opinion? Certainly not the mention of God — the Buddhist religion is staunchly atheist, yet it is held to the same standards as Christianity or Judaism in academia.
Religions have a number of key components. They tend to include, in one form or another, unquestionable dogmas, heresies, priesthoods, and rituals. 
Let’s consider the famous “is-ought” problem posed by philosopher David Hume. It is impossible to prove that one “ought” to do something using only descriptive statements. 
For example, just because you can prove that stealing from someone will upset him, or damage the legitimacy of anti-theft laws, or cause him to seek vengeance on you does not itself prove an imperative that you shouldn’t steal. Only if you consider his feelings, the legitimacy of the law, or your own safety to be intrinsically valuable does the imperative become binding. And while these considerations may come naturally, they are not the product of unassailable deductive reasoning.
In other words, when put to the incessant questioning of a two-year-old, “but why?” the answer must eventually become “because somebody said so” or “that’s just the way it is.” At least one moral postulate is necessary for the system to function. 
Religion provides a workable axiology. It’s the oldest form of intellectual value theory known to man. 
Everyone worships something; some of us just know it. 
Consider veganism, for example. Committed vegans accept the intrinsic value of all animal life as a moral postulate. They consider eating meat or animal products to be sinful behavior that violates their moral code. Someone else eating meat doesn’t affect vegans in the slightest, yet they consider it an insult to a higher moral truth that they have postulated. 
Imagine a Christian professor objecting in the classroom to the morality of same-sex marriage. He would be violating the separation of church and state. Yet when a professor asserts that veganism is morally superior to meat-eating, this is protected by academic freedom. 
Even the most clinical theoreticians who reject progressive dogmas (which few actually do) often find themselves speaking with reverence of The Science (capital S, of course) and what it tells us. Far be it for us to rise above our stations and question the anointed Experts and their wisdom. 
The problem is not the presence of value judgments in education. Had human education failed to privilege any one way of thinking over any other throughout history, we’d have never left the caves. 
What’s more, absolute neutrality toward social issues is not only a fiction, but it’s an undesirable one. I, for one, would not favor living in a society where children were taught that a set of values that leads them to Hitler is on equal footing with those that lead them to Martin Luther King Jr.
The extent to which religious practices should be allowed into the public sphere is a matter of debate. The trouble comes when educators try to play by a different set of rules by classifying their religious practices as different from religious practices they don’t like. 
While the Florida ruling allows educators to espouse their faith toward race and gender dogmas, the Texas ruling requires that the Bible be taught strictly from a neutral, historical perspective. The double standard here should be painfully obvious. 
The secular religion phenomenon has some clear benefits attached to it as well. It is most often through their religion that people find communities and become motivated to do good for the world. Atheists who wouldn’t be caught dead in a church might still be motivated to form groups and serve their communities by other commitments that fill the void of traditional faith (such as environmentalists cleaning up parks).
After all, the is-ought problem demonstrates why no amount of clinical analysis can tell us what is ultimately worth loving, protecting, or forbidding. If one must reject the Abrahamic faiths, better that he find another outlet through which to do good than abandon good altogether. 
The problem comes when “doing good” crosses the line from picking up trash in your neighborhood into blocking the roads because you didn’t get your way in the presidential election. Secular religions are seldom guided by ancient wisdom; they’re frequently guided by edgy teenagers on social media and ivory tower intellectuals who are safely insulated from the real world. For that reason, they often end up directing people’s religious zeal toward ends that are counterproductive. 
Secular religions, even when they are predicated on principles that nobody disputes, are still systems of faith. Whenever we give educators the power to impart their faith onto their students, we run the risk of indoctrination that the founders feared.
Taking God out of the equation does not erase this concern. If anything, it amplifies it.
***
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

Beautiful White Baptist Church in Crawfordville, George built in 1889

What’s Really Replacing Religion In America’s Schools?

This piece is part of MI x DW, a collaboration that brings Daily Wire readers exclusive commentary and research from the Manhattan Institute’s world-class team of scholars.
***
As the United States marks its 250th birthday and Americans reflect on the nation&#8217;s Founding, we should also ask whether we&#8217;ve prepared the next generation to understand it.
The truth is, we haven&#8217;t.
On the <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ushistory/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)</a>, U.S. history is the worst-performing subject tested. Just 13% of 8th graders were proficient, and four in 10 couldn&#8217;t reach even a basic level in 2022. Scores have been declining since 2014. On the <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/civics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Civics NAEP assessment</a>, about one in five students was proficient, and nearly a third scored below even a basic level.
The country has already written down what a citizen should know — it just doesn&#8217;t require citizens to know it.
Immigrants who want to become Americans must pass a <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/learn-about-citizenship/the-naturalization-interview-and-test" target="_blank" rel="noopener">naturalization test</a> that requires them to name a branch of government, explain what the Constitution does, and say why the colonists broke from Britain.
Yet survey native born Americans with the same questions, and most fail. <a href="https://cands.org/research-national-survey-finds-just-1-in-3-americans-would-pass-citizenship-test/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A 2018 study found</a> that only 36% of American adults could pass a basic citizenship test — compared with a <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship-resource-center/naturalization-related-data-and-statistics/naturalization-test-performance" target="_blank" rel="noopener">95% pass rate</a> among immigrants actually required to take it.
We hold the people joining this country to a standard we don&#8217;t hold the people born into it. Much of that gap starts in the classroom, where history and civics have gradually been pushed to the margins.
<a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-bill/1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Under No Child Left Behind,</a> schools were held accountable for reading and math. Students were tested in those subjects, and schools had to answer for those results. That worked, and it coincided with the largest gains across the nation.
But history and civics were largely left out of that framework. Schools were not held accountable for them, and over time, they received less attention. Today, the average elementary classroom spends <a href="https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/social-studies-and-science-get-short-shrift-in-elementary-schools-why-that-matters/2024/02" target="_blank" rel="noopener">roughly 16 minutes</a> a day on social studies — a fraction of the time devoted to reading and math.
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<a href="https://www.heritage.org/education/report/restoring-civics-education-all-50-states" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In a federal survey</a>, only 49% of 8th graders reported taking a class focused primarily on civics or government, and 8% had taken no such course at all.
After No Child Left Behind, the country moved to<a href="https://www.thecorestandards.org/about-the-standards/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Common Core</a> State Standards, which never set a single standard for what history students should learn. The Common Core governed reading and math, and its approach to reading taught students to stay inside &#8220;<a href="https://achievethecore.org/content/upload/3._Publishers_Criteria_for_Literacy_for_Grades_3-12.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the four corners of the text,</a>&#8221; answering only what the page itself revealed.
History is different. Students cannot fully understand the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution without understanding the grievances against King George III, the debates over independence, and the political philosophy that shaped the American Founding. Common Core may have addressed how students should read those documents, but it never addressed what they should know before they did so.
The result is a generation that may recognize the Founding documents without understanding why they were revolutionary. They may know the Constitution exists without understanding federalism or the separation of powers it created. They may hear arguments about socialism and capitalism without ever having studied the history from which those arguments come.
What a student actually learns increasingly depends on the state, and often the district, where he happens to go to school.
A <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/young-americans-socialism-too-much-thats-problem-libertarians-must-fix" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2025 survey</a> found that 62% of Americans under 30 now hold a favorable view of socialism, and a third say the same of communism. These opinions were formed, for most of them, without ever having studied what this truly means in practice. A student who never studied the Soviet famines or the Cold War doesn&#8217;t know what it looks like when a government controls what people can grow, buy, or sell.
And these gaps certainly don&#8217;t remain in the classroom. They shape how young Americans understand the political, economic, and civic debates they inherit.
America 250 should be a national recommitment to teaching the story of the United States with defined content and accountability. Every graduate should leave school understanding the nation&#8217;s Founding, the Constitution, the structure of American government, and the events that have shaped the country since.
The real gift of America&#8217;s 250th would be a generation of graduates who finally understand the country they&#8217;re being asked to celebrate. Committing to truly teach it is the least this birthday should ask of us.
***
Jennifer Weber is a fellow for K-12 Education Policy at the Manhattan Institute.

Blackboard in Old-Fashioned School House

Let’s Mark America 250 With A Civic Education Revival

America 250

American History

MI x DW

Qatar’s massive footprint in American education is facing renewed scrutiny as watchdogs warn that the Gulf state has poured billions into U.S. universities while disclosure laws remain weak, incomplete, and unevenly enforced.
The question is no longer simply whether schools are reporting foreign gifts. Critics say the more serious issue is what the money is buying: branch campuses, endowed chairs, research centers, faculty pipelines, academic programming, and influence over how future American leaders are taught to think about Israel, terrorism, political Islam, and U.S. foreign policy.
A <a href="https://www.jpost.com/american-politics/article-900026">Jerusalem Post piece</a> by Dr. Charles Asher Small, founding director of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, argued that Congress already has the evidence but has failed to act. He pointed to the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1048/all-info">DETERRENT Act</a>, which has passed the House twice with bipartisan support but stalled in the Senate.
The bill would lower the foreign gift reporting threshold from $250,000 to $50,000, require disclosure of gifts to individual faculty and staff, create a public database, and impose financial penalties for non-compliance.
Small compared the problem to China’s Confucius Institutes, citing a 2019 Senate investigation that found nearly 70% of U.S. schools receiving more than $250,000 from Chinese government-linked Confucius Institutes failed to properly report the money. He said ISGAP’s “Follow the Money” findings revealed billions in Middle Eastern funding, primarily from Qatar, to U.S. universities that had not been reported as required. A later Department of Education review identified more than $6.5 billion in previously unreported foreign funding at a small number of institutions.
The scale of Qatar’s influence reaches far beyond campuses. A June Foundation for Defense of Democracies report estimated that Qatar has directed at least $400 billion into the United States since 2000, or roughly $1.2 million per Qatari citizen. The report called that figure a conservative estimate and said Qatari government or White House estimates could exceed $1.2 trillion.
FDD said Qatar, a country of about 330,000 citizens, has surpassed China as the largest foreign funder of American higher education by approximately $2 billion. The report cited the Department of Education’s foreign funding dashboard showing Qatar has pumped $8.8 billion into U.S. higher education since 2001.
That money is drawing attention because Qatar is not just another foreign investor. FDD described Doha as a patron of Hamas, the Taliban, and the Muslim Brotherhood, and said the country’s state-owned Al Jazeera Media Network amplifies Islamist propaganda. A June report from JINSA’s Gemunder Center for Defense and Strategy similarly noted that Hamas’s political bureau has operated from Doha under Qatari state protection since 2012.
Those concerns have become harder to dismiss since the anti-Israel protest wave that followed Hamas’s October 7 attack. Universities were criticized for failing to shut down radical encampments, enforce campus rules, or protect Jewish students as anti-Israel activism turned into campus occupations.
A January Middle East Forum report focused on Georgetown University, which established its Qatar campus in 2005 through a partnership with the Qatar Foundation and has extended the arrangement through 2035. According to the report, Georgetown received more than <a href="https://www.meforum.org/mef-reports/qatars-multidimensional-takeover-of-georgetown-university">$971 million</a> from Qatar over 20 years through 76 contracts.
The report said the funding supported not only Georgetown’s Doha campus, but also faculty, scholarships, research initiatives, and endowed chairs on the Washington, D.C., campus, including Qatari-funded chairs in Muslim Societies, the History of Islam, and Indian Politics.
JINSA’s June 2026 <a href="https://jinsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Qatar-Higher-Influence.pdf">report</a> reviewed nearly 900 pages of documents released by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, including framework agreements, governance charters, intellectual property provisions, confidentiality agreements, and a direct contract between Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Georgetown’s Bridge Initiative.
According to JINSA, Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs signed a June 13, 2024, contract with Georgetown providing a <a href="https://jinsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Qatar-Higher-Influence.pdf">$630,000 grant</a>, split into three annual installments of $210,000, to support Bridge Initiative research related to Islamophobia. The report said the agreement required conferences on the “Globalization of Islamophobia” and called for consultation with a parallel Qatar-supported initiative on sessions, themes, and speakers.
JINSA also raised concerns about Northwestern University in Qatar’s relationship with Al Jazeera. According to the report, a 2013 memorandum covered research cooperation, journalism programs, scholarships, training opportunities, employment pathways for Northwestern Qatar graduates into Al Jazeera, and training by Northwestern faculty for Al Jazeera leadership.
The money appears to have flowed into the same academic space where the post-October 7 crisis later erupted, including Middle East studies, Islamophobia research, Israel and Palestine programming, anti-colonial scholarship, and foreign policy training. These fields shape how students understand terrorism, Israel, America’s role in the world, and the language used to describe political violence.
<a href="https://isgap.org/follow-the-money/">ISGAP has also said</a> Students for Justice in Palestine and National Students for Justice in Palestine helped lead the post-October 7 explosion of campus antisemitism. The group said its prior research found <a href="https://isgap.org/follow-the-money/">SJP had a direct connection to the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood</a> and links to organizations that support or previously supported violence and terror.
Other watchdogs have raised similar concerns about the protest network. <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/students-justice-palestine-sjp">The ADL says </a>National SJP and local SJP chapters justified or glorified the Hamas-led October 7 attack and later became central organizers of the 2024 campus encampments. <a href="https://www.axios.com/local/tampa-bay/2023/10/25/desantis-shuts-down-usf-uf-pro-palestinian-groups">Axios reported</a> that Florida officials moved to deactivate university SJP chapters after citing a National SJP toolkit that framed Hamas’s attack as part of “the resistance” and told Palestinian students in exile they were “PART of this movement.”
A Jerusalem Post analysis reported that U.S. student protests against Israel were “orchestrated by Qatar-funded groups” and described the demonstrations as organized and generously funded. ISGAP has separately argued that foreign money from Qatar has had a direct effect on increasing antisemitic and anti-democratic activity at American universities.

Protest Against Anti Semitism and NSJP Conference At UCLA

Qatar’s Billions Raise New Questions About Foreign Influence On Campus

Israel

Qatar

The percentage of students claiming to have disabilities — and thus qualifying for accommodations such as extra time for assignments and tests — is higher than the percentage of male students at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.
As reported by The New York Post, more than one-third of students enrolled in the law school — 37% — are also in UC Berkeley&#8217;s <a href="https://dsp.berkeley.edu/about/annual-report-and-data?">Disabled Students Program</a>. By comparison, male students make up approximately 30-33% of enrollees. The most common disabilities listed were emotional and psychological — primarily attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and anxiety, but occasionally depression as well. According to data from the Disabled Students Program office, 98% of the disabilities claimed by law students fell into those categories.
The change is staggering: in 2021, just 3% of UC Berkeley law school graduates were part of the Disabled Students Program. Among undergraduates, the number was slightly higher at 10%.
The dramatic swing has some critics wondering whether some of the claims are less about real disabilities and more about the fact that enrollment in the program allows students to have 150% or even 200% of the time allotted to students outside the program for the grueling legal exams they must pass in order to graduate.
Campus exam proctoring services have reported a dramatic increase in requests for accommodations that reflects the jump as well, more than tripling from under 4,000 in the 2021-2022 academic year to over 14,000 in 2024-2025.
Andrew Testerman, a graduate who dug into the program&#8217;s use and laid out his findings in a <a href="https://jamesgmartin.center/2026/06/the-law-school-accommodations-racket/">report</a> for the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, commented, &#8220;We are asked to believe that students at elite law schools are significantly more likely to be disabled than our nation’s senior citizens.&#8221;
But the statistical anomalies did not stop there.
&#8220;At U.C. Berkeley, proportionally more women than men seek accommodations for ADHD — even though in the population at large, men are several times more likely to have this disorder,&#8221; Testerman wrote. &#8220;Thus, either many students are falsely claiming to be disabled, or the number of disabled students is truly staggering — to the point where disability status would in fact be the norm, and the exception would swallow the rule.&#8221;
Testerman also proposed a solution to the problem, arguing that President Donald Trump&#8217;s administration could easily take action: &#8220;President Trump could go a long way toward solving this problem. A single executive order, together with revised administrative guidance and a notice of proposed rulemaking, could change the incentive structure.&#8221;

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder treatment

Students Claiming To Be Disabled Enroll At Prestigious Law School At Higher Rate Than Men

Students Claiming To Be Disabled Outnumber Men At Prestigious Law School

California

Disability

Law schools

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