Hamas is running Columbia University. 
That appears to be the way things are at America&#8217;s top universities, where students who openly back terrorist groups are now violating place and manner restrictions. They&#8217;re violating their student codes. They&#8217;re sitting out in the middle of the campus, obstructing other people from getting to class, shouting genocidal slogans at them. 
At Columbia, because the administration is filled with cowards, they are doing nothing about it.
It is important to break down the free speech concerns that people justifiably have about what is happening on these college campuses. To understand the concerns, first you have to understand that there are various factors that go into the actual legal obligations that various universities have with regard to their students. 
On the one hand, there’s the First Amendment, which applies differently at private universities and public universities. The First Amendment suggests you cannot have viewpoint discrimination on college campuses, but that only applies in full at public universities. For example, if I wanted to speak at UC Berkeley and the student group properly invited me, cleared it through all the procedures, and fulfilled the time, place, and manner restrictions, then I would have a legal right to speak at UC Berkeley.
The same does not hold true when I go to speak at a private university such as DePaul University. That actually happened when I showed up at DePaul University, which is a private Jesuit university. When I showed up there, they didn&#8217;t want me there. They threatened to arrest me if I set foot on the campus. 
And they had the legal right to do that. Not only that, they also got the Cook County Sheriff out there to arrest me if I set foot on the campus. Was that morally correct? Of course not; it was absurd. It was a restriction on the principles of free speech.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1953-hamas-university-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h4>
But was it a legal violation of my rights? No. 
That is why I could not sue them; they are a private university. Public universities and private universities have different legal obligations with regard to viewpoint discrimination on campuses.
You can see why. Let&#8217;s say that you have a Christian university. They have no obligation to bring in a professor or speaker who is wildly pro-abortion or plans to teach Judaism or Islam. It&#8217;s a Christian university.
To take another example, a private Jewish university in New York has no obligation to have professors who are teaching radical Islam.
But in public universities, there’s the question of time, place, and manner restrictions, which, legally speaking, suggest you can have neutral laws that basically say you&#8217;re allowed to protest only during certain particular hours.
By the way, this doesn&#8217;t just apply to universities. This applies in cities. This is why it’s illegal for protesters to walk onto a highway and block it. You must have a permit in order to protest at certain times in certain places.
There are certain places in the United States where you have very broad leeway for speech. If you walk into a public park and start shouting about politics, there’s a good shot you’re protected. But even in public parks, if you&#8217;re going to have a mass rally, there are time, place, and manner restrictions. You don&#8217;t want that happening at 2:00 in the morning with a loudspeaker.
Another concern with regard to college campuses is Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
I have long argued that the Civil Rights Act, while obviously excellent in its intent, goes too far in many areas of American law, from applying to private accommodations to its restrictions on speech at universities.
It&#8217;s an anti-discrimination law. It was designed to allow black people to live fulsome lives in the United States, a well-intended law. If I&#8217;d been around in 1964, I likely would have voted for the Civil Rights Act, despite all of my mitigating problems with the actual legal language of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But it does go too far in a lot of areas when it comes to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which guarantees that college students have a right to a place that is free of a harassing environment on the basis of sex, race, and ethnicity.
This creates some kind of fraught situations with regard to free speech because there could be a situation in which a university tried to claim that particular types of speech could violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. That is one of the things that all of these universities are now being slammed for because they have created massive speech codes that are theoretically designed to quash violations of the Civil Rights Act on campus. Many of them go too far, which FIRE, the free speech group, has pointed out. Many of these speech codes are not actually designed to avoid violations of the Civil Rights Act.
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But it is the case that if you have a bunch of pro-terrorist students on campus harassing Jews as they get to class by spitting on them, who shout about the extermination of Jews between the river and the sea, who are suggesting that they want to “globalize the intifada,” a violent, incendiary attempt to kill Jews in Israel and elsewhere, that kind of speech would violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
You can make the case that some of the speech is borderline in how it interplays between the Civil Rights Act and free speech, and I&#8217;d be sympathetic to that case. But on a legal level, the reality is that these universities cannot receive federal funding if they are acting in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
The Biden administration has made this clear. They put out <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-202311-discrimination-harassment-shared-ancestry.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a letter</a> in November 2023 which addressed this specifically, calling it a “Dear Colleague” letter and reminding “schools that receive federal financial assistance of their legal obligation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its implementing regulations (Title VI) to provide all students with a school environment free from discrimination based on race, color, or national origin, including shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics.”
Columbia University, now the epicenter of the anti-Semitic pro-Hamas movement, has a student code of conduct; they’re a private university.
In the Columbia University Student Code of Conduct, the Statement of <a href="https://compliance.columbia.edu/content/statement-ethical-conduct-and-administrative-code-conduct" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ethical Conduct</a> reads:
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Be honest, ethical and truthful.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Obey the law.</li>
</ol>
These demonstrators are violating the law. They are trespassing. They&#8217;re in violation of the law.
Columbia University’s Standards of Discipline &amp; Policy <a href="https://cssi.columbia.edu/content/learn-about-policies" target="_blank" rel="noopener">state:</a>
<blockquote>As members of the Columbia University community, all students are expected to uphold the highest standards of respect, integrity, and civility. These core values are key components of the Columbia University experience and reflect the community’s expectations of its students. Students are expected to conduct themselves in an honest, civil, and respectful manner in all aspects of their lives.</blockquote>
I didn&#8217;t realize spitting on Jews, threatening Israel with extermination, and acting at the behest of terror groups and terror supporters was acting within that purview.
A private university like Columbia University has no obligation whatsoever to tolerate pro-Hamas students chanting anti-Semitic slogans on their campus. They likely have a Title VI Civil Rights Act obligation not to allow that to happen on their campus because it creates harassing, discriminatory incitement.
If there were a group of white supremacists at Columbia University in the middle of campus chanting, “Blacks should not replace us,” that would not last one hot second before the police were called in.
Columbia, however, has been bending over backwards because they don&#8217;t want to tick off their faculty and students. The ideological capture of these universities happened decades ago during the late 1960s with student protest movements that decided to take over campuses and threaten actual deans; then, the deans did nothing because their liberal mindset back in the 1960s was that they had to respect what the students were saying, even if those students were violating the law. 
For two full generations, college administrations have been completely captured by the radicals. All those student radicals ended up as the administrators at these universities, and then they hired like-minded professors. That’s why professors are joining in all of this mayhem.
People keep asking, why are these universities doing this? Why are they allowing this?
The universities are allowing this because they are completely staffed by people who agree with the demonstrators.

Pro-Palestinian Protests Continue At Columbia University In New York City

Hamas University

Ben Shapiro

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Israel

Ivy League

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Readers Pass

Over the past several days, we have witnessed Columbia University, one of the oldest institutions of higher education in America, transform into a hellscape of virulent anti-Semitism masked under the thinly veiled guise of anti-Israel protests. 
The quad where I so fondly remember spending my days as an undergraduate is now home to a university-sanctioned encampment of hate, sequestering Columbia’s Jewish community into their dorm rooms — and even leaving campus entirely — in fear of their physical safety. New York Mayor Eric Adams’ <a href="https://twitter.com/NYCMayor/status/1782169502118969434">offers</a> to activate the NYPD to dispel the pro-Palestinian mob have fallen on deaf ears with university administrators, including President Minouche Shafik. Unfortunately, this unfolding chaos is just a new chapter of anti-Semitism that has long been embedded in the culture at Columbia and other elite universities nationwide.
As an American Jew, I was proud to serve as president of Columbia’s largest pro-Israel group, then known as LionPAC, during my junior year in 2010-2011. My tenure involved routinely responding to a variety of protests against the Jewish state. Mock “apartheid walls” and cardboard cutouts of Israeli tanks were erected on Low Steps. Holocaust deniers, hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine, spoke freely under the infinite confines of “academic freedom”. And students simply trying to walk to class were subjected to “die ins” on College Walk, where anti-Israel activists donning fake IDF uniforms and machine guns would pretend to slaughter Palestinians, who would lay lifeless on the ground for minutes on end. These charades were no surprise at a university that hosted one of the world’s most prolific Holocaust deniers, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and tenured Professor Joseph Massad, who <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/just-another-battle-or-palestinian-war-liberation/38661">called</a> Hamas’ October 7th slaughter of innocent Israeli Jews a “stunning” and “astonishing” display of “Palestinian resistance”.
In other words, today’s protests are a natural manifestation of Columbia’s seemingly limitless tolerance for anti-Semitism. There is ample room for reasonable debate about the war between Hamas and Israel and the Israeli government’s policies vis-à-vis Palestinians. That is not the goal of these demonstrations. Jewish students are being verbally assaulted with calls to “go back to Europe,” and rather than clearing the encampment, Columbia has instead cancelled in person classes to the detriment of all students.
In my experience, Columbia’s pro-Israel faculty have always eschewed public activism out of fear of professional exile or termination. Columbia Business School assistant professor Shai Davidai, who has been heroically outspoken about the horrific conditions on campus and the administration’s abject failure to protect students, on Monday was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pro-israel-professor-denied-entry-at-columbia-university" target="_blank" rel="noopener">denied entry</a> to campus. Meanwhile, anti-Israel professors are allowed to freely celebrate terrorism and promulgate genocide with little to no repercussions.
At best, Columbia’s feckless administration is demonstrating a shocking inability to distinguish between free speech and hate speech. At worst, they are complicit in an egregious, coordinated effort to harass and bully Jewish students to flee campus altogether — a tactic employed from time immemorial against the Jewish people.
President Shafik’s young tenure at the helm of Columbia will be defined by what she does next. She can either continue to protect those espousing unfettered anti-Semitism, imperiling the safety of its students and their ability to attend classes. Or she can use this moment to send a message that those who call for genocide against the Jewish people will not enjoy safe harbor at Columbia.
This week, Jews around the globe will come together to celebrate Passover by retelling the story of the ancient Israelites’ enslavement and exile in Egypt. Now is the moment to prove that the suffering of our ancestors was not endured in vain. The Jewish people must remain steadfast and resolute against those who seek our destruction.
I commend the bravery of Professor Davidai and those Jewish students on campus who refuse to be intimidated by these hateful masses. The answer is not to retreat, but no student should ever be forced to choose between their physical safety and attending classes. President Shafik must allow the NYPD to disperse these mobs, arrest those who refuse to leave, and restore order to an institution that once stood as a hallmark of America’s promise.
 * * *
Michael Shapiro, Columbia University Class of 2012, is a former communications advisor and speechwriter for House Speaker Paul D. Ryan.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

I Used To Run Columbia’s Pro-Israel Group. This Anti-Semitism Is Nothing New.

Anti-Semitism

Gaza

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In a sudden reversal, Harvard College will reinstate its standardized testing requirement, meaning students will once again have to take the SAT or ACT to be accepted.
The surprise decision <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/4/11/harvard-sat-act-admissions-requirement/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">comes</a> after Harvard previously said it would remain test-optional through the class of 2030. The Ivy League school first introduced the test-optional policy during the pandemic.
The new policy means any undergraduate applicants who were not planning on taking a test may have to work quickly to get their tests scheduled before the application deadlines later this year.
“Standardized tests are a means for all students, regardless of their background and life experience, to provide information that is predictive of success in college and beyond,” Harvard&#8217;s Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Hopi Hoekstra said in a <a href="https://www.fas.harvard.edu/2024/04/11/return-to-required-testing/">statement</a>.
“More information, especially such strongly predictive information, is valuable for identifying talent from across the socioeconomic range,” Hoekstra said. “With this change, we hope to strengthen our ability to identify these promising students.”
The decision also comes after several other Ivy League universities, Yale, Dartmouth, and Brown brought back their testing requirement as well. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology also <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2022/stuart-schmill-sat-act-requirement-0328" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reinstated</a> its standardized test requirement back in 2022.
At least two Ivy Leagues, however, have <a href="https://admissions.cornell.edu/policies/standardized-testing-policy#:~:text=Cornell%20University%20Extends%20Test%2DOptional,SAT%20or%20ACT%20exam%20scores." target="_blank" rel="noopener">extended</a> their test-optional policy — Cornell and Columbia, which said its new policy is <a href="https://www.highereddive.com/news/columbia-university-becomes-first-ivy-league-institution-to-go-permanently/643947/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">permanent</a>.
Despite optional testing, the majority of Harvard undergrads have submitted standardized test scores anyway, the school said.
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In announcing the new testing policy, Harvard referenced a Harvard-affiliated study that found SAT scores are a stronger predictor of college success than a high school student&#8217;s grade point average.
After COVID restrictions were lifted, Ivy League schools were criticized for extending the suspension of their test requirement. At the same time, others praised the move saying it could help more minorities get accepted to prestigious schools.
The argument that standardized testing hurts minority students has become more popular in recent years.
In 2020, the entire 10-school University of California system <a href="https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/press-room/university-california-board-regents-unanimously-approved-changes-standardized-testing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">voted</a> to permanently get rid of standardized tests. The move came after a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/10/us/sat-act-uc-lawsuit.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lawsuit</a> from students claiming the tests are racist and biased against disabled students. New York University, George Washington University, and University of Chicago have also joined the ranks of those that <a href="https://www.uopeople.edu/blog/colleges-that-dont-require-sat-or-act/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">allow</a> students to skip the tests.
However, others argue the tests actually help minority students.
Harvard economist David Deming, one of the economists behind the Harvard study, <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/4/11/harvard-sat-act-admissions-requirement/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> the tests are the “fairest admissions policy for disadvantaged applicants.”
“Not everyone can hire an expensive college coach to help them craft a personal essay. But everyone has the chance to ace the SAT or the ACT,” Deming said.

pencil and eraser on test answer sheet, with question booklet

Harvard Reverses Course, Will Require Standardized Testing Again

American Universities

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The following is a transcript of a recent interview between Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley and Dr. Carol Swain on a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/morning-wire/anti-semitism-plagiarism-harvard-s-dual-crisis-saturday-extra" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Saturday Extra edition of Morning Wire</a>. Dr. Swain addresses the dual scandals facing Harvard and other Ivy League schools — a double standard for anti-Semitism and academic plagiarism.
JOHN: Joining us to discuss the Harvard presidential scandal is Dr. Carol Swain, Senior Fellow for the Institute for Faith and Culture. Dr. Swain, you were a tenured professor in the Ivy League – at Princeton – and you’ve been very outspoken on this situation, as your own work appears to have been plagiarized. First, what do you make of the Harvard board unanimously deciding to support Claudine Gay after her congressional testimony and now allegations of plagiarism?
CAROL: I see it as a low point for American higher education that Harvard University would try to redefine plagiarism so that it can retain its first ever black president – who was clearly promoted based on diversity, equity, and inclusion standards. And I would argue that her record, even if she had not plagiarized her articles, would not normally have supported tenure in the Ivy League. And I say this as someone who was tenured early at Princeton, and the standard in the Ivy League used to be that you had to have a major path-breaking publication. And the book that she lifted a couple of passages from, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Black-Faces-Interests-Representation-Americans/dp/0761834079/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_w=OFkGr&amp;content-id=amzn1.sym.cf86ec3a-68a6-43e9-8115-04171136930a&amp;pf_rd_p=cf86ec3a-68a6-43e9-8115-04171136930a&amp;pf_rd_r=139-7687216-7118362&amp;pd_rd_wg=86Wyn&amp;pd_rd_r=a7c579f0-c9a7-481d-bffc-501d443632ea&amp;ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Black Faces, Black Interests: The Representation of African Americans in Congress</a>,” was a book that won three national prizes, including the highest prize a political scientist can win. It was cited by many law court decisions, and the U. S. Supreme Court, and it was considered the seminal work in the area of minority representation and representation in Congress. And so that&#8217;s the book that she really lifted passages that were not that significant, but her entire research agenda was on minority representation on Congress. And even though she has one cite of me in her bibliography, normally, when you draw on the research of a leading scholar in a particular area, you have to engage that work. You have to let people know why you&#8217;re asking the questions that you are. She didn&#8217;t do that. She did not engage my work either to refute it, to affirm it, or to acknowledge it. And I would argue that that harmed me in my career – even though I wasn&#8217;t aware this was taking place – because in academia, your statute depends on how many times you are cited. If someone is in the area where you are the path breaker, and they are not engaging with your ideas, then it has long-term consequences. And so her work, in my opinion, is derivative of mine. I believe she got away with it because I was falling out of favor in academia, because I was becoming increasingly conservative.
JOHN: Now you are one of several professors whose work was improperly used in Gay’s writings, allegedly. University of Pittsburgh’s George Reid Andrews has acknowledged that Gay “did borrow a few of my phrases” – as did University of Chicago economist Jens Ludwig. Both said they didn’t think it really rose to the level of plagiarism, but Anne Williamson, of Miami University, Ohio, said “It does look like plagiarism to me,” and said she was actually “shocked” by the passages Gay lifted from her work. Have you reviewed these passages under question?
CAROL: I&#8217;ve looked at the sections from my own work and the articles that have pulled out passages in other people&#8217;s work side by side, and I would argue that it is plagiarism, and that a journalist would lose their job over it. And it&#8217;s particularly troubling because it wasn&#8217;t just her dissertation – it also included the published works that she presented for tenure. And I would encourage people to look at that senior thesis she wrote at Stanford. It won a prize — her dissertation won a prize. Was the senior thesis plagiarized? That&#8217;s where they need to look next.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/morning-wire/anti-semitism-plagiarism-harvard-s-dual-crisis-saturday-extra" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LISTEN: Morning Wire Saturday Extra — &#8220;Anti-Semitism &amp; Plagiarism: Harvard’s Dual Crisis&#8221;</a></h3>
JOHN: The New York Post is now reporting that Harvard actually threatened them legally when a reporter reached out about these allegations back in October – which is surprising. Harvard has issued a statement addressing, briefly, the plagiarism charges. They said they did their own review and did find some instances that were problematic, and are now requesting four corrections in two articles. Is that an adequate response?
CAROL: It&#8217;s horrible. What they should do is, if they want to keep her on their faculty, certainly she should make those corrections, but normally you don&#8217;t get a do over in life. Most people are held accountable. We all make mistakes. She made a mistake, and I believe that if they want to keep her on the faculty of Harvard, okay, just give her mercy, allow her to make the corrections, but she should not be the president of Harvard University with that record of plagiarism — and the equity that we associate with Neo-Marxism and DEI is like affirmative action on steroids, and that is what has advanced her, and I believe what is keeping her in her position is that Harvard doesn&#8217;t want to embarrass itself by firing its first ever black president. So they would rather hurt their brand than to get rid of a woman that should be fired – and she should have been fired already.
JOHN: Some people say refusing to remove Gay was Harvard&#8217;s way of thumbing their nose at the Supreme Court&#8217;s recent affirmative action decision against Harvard. What do you think about that?
CAROL: Absolutely, and I was born in 1954, the year of the Brown vs. Board school desegregation case, where the Supreme Court ordered integration of public education in all deliberate speed. And the response, in many places, was massive resistance. And they resisted up until the late 1960s in Bedford County, Virginia, where I went to school. And so I see the same thing happening, is that just like the elites resisted the Brown vs. Board of Education desegregation case, the elites at these institutions have decided that they&#8217;re going to resist the Supreme Court&#8217;s decision to end race-based discrimination. And so I believe that we need to hold them accountable – that white people, Asian people, Christians, any group that&#8217;s being disfavored in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause, they need to document what is taking place, they need to file lawsuits, and we need to shut it down. It shouldn&#8217;t take 10 years or 20 years of them continuing to discriminate against people or finding proxies to continue doing what they&#8217;re doing.
JOHN: Now, one question about the other issue at hand here. the double standard for anti-Semitism on campus. Is there a double standard? If the protests and chants against Jews and Israel were taking place against blacks or even LGBT people, would Harvard and some of these other Ivy League schools have pointed to “context” as necessary to determine whether or not that was problematic?
CAROL: If the Jewish students were black, it wouldn&#8217;t just be Harvard and the Ivy league, but all of America, every institution – the Biden administration, every government would have shut it down immediately. The police would have shut it down if it had been black students being harassed and being threatened by white students. And that is the double standard. I, myself, I&#8217;m just shocked at how Jewish Americans are being treated in America today and the hatred towards Israel. And to me, if there&#8217;s a silver lining, it is that the Jewish people on the college campuses, some of them are awakening to the fact that the progressives are not their friends.
JOHN: You&#8217;ve been an advocate for viewpoint diversity in higher education – in fact you just published a book that addresses this issue directly – “The Adversity of Diversity: How the Supreme Court&#8217;s Decision to Remove Race from College Admissions Criteria Will Doom Diversity Programs.” What are your thoughts on how having more representation across the political spectrum could have helped Harvard avoid this controversy?
CAROL: I can tell you that I&#8217;m an advocate of education. I spent 28 years in academia. I took early retirement from Vanderbilt in 2017, pretty much in the heat of a controversy because of an opinion piece that I published criticizing Islam created a firestorm, and I left academia. But I saw the changes taking place, and it started right after President Obama was elected. I saw the Critical Race Theory that had been mostly confined to certain departments of the university that it started rapidly infecting every department. And I saw changes that made academia very uncomfortable for people like me. And I saw the decline of education to the point that they did not even give lip service to universities being marketplaces of ideas where you would have divergent voices allowed to speak. All of that started to die at American colleges and universities, and as a consequence, these institutions have allowed themselves to become indoctrination centers. And if we want to educate young people, if we want strong leaders, if we want people that are qualified to take positions of responsibility in society, we have to expose them to divergent ideas, or you can not develop critical thinking skills unless you are sort of made uncomfortable, unless you hear new ideas. That&#8217;s not taking place in the indoctrination centers we have today. And I also know that if you are conservative on a university campus, if you are deeply orthodox – whether it&#8217;s Christian, Jewish – it&#8217;s set up in such a way that if you don&#8217;t fit in, the universities are very uncomfortable places. And so there are students who live in fear. There&#8217;s no way you&#8217;re going to get a quality education if you&#8217;re so afraid you&#8217;re going to offend someone and you can&#8217;t ask questions. That&#8217;s not what higher education should be about. And so I believe that we have to make changes. And I also believe that changes are already happening. I&#8217;ve spoken this year at several universities, and I believe that universities are realizing that the value of the product that they&#8217;re producing has declined to the point that many young people are deciding that they don&#8217;t necessarily need or want a college education. And I have met parents who are very wealthy and grandparents who are telling me that the money they saved up for their offspring&#8217;s education, that they&#8217;re giving them an option: they can take the money and start a business, or they can go to college. And so, universities, higher education, these institutions are suffering because, right now, they&#8217;re not offering a quality product.
JOHN: There’s’ no doubt that the perception of universities has been shifting dramatically in recent years. Dr. Swain, thank you for coming on.
CAROL: Thank you.

USA, Massachusetts, Cambridge, Harvard University and Charles River

Dr. Carol Swain On Plagiarism And Anti-Semitism At Harvard

Books

interview

Morning Wire

Plagiarism

Ivy League doctors say that obesity constitutes a new normal for Americans, classifying it as a chronic disease that requires perpetual drug intervention.
In a <a href="https://www.medscape.com/mtv/obesity-s01/e03">six-part series</a> on Medscape, “Treating Obesity: Confronting a New Normal,” doctors from the Harvard, Yale, and Rutger medical schools made the case that obesity doesn’t stem from behavioral issues. One of the doctors, Yale School of Medicine professor Ania Jastreboff, said that the traditional understanding of eating less and exercising more had no effect on reversing or preventing obesity. 
“Obesity is not a personal choice,” said Jastreboff. “For years, the advice was that our patients needed to ‘eat less and move more.’ That does not work.”
Harvard Medical School professor David Ludwig dismissed the “Western” viewpoint of obesity as a consequence of weak character. 
“Western culture has considered obesity a character problem. Obesity is simply a matter of eating less and moving more, and if you can’t do it, it’s a lack of character or discipline. When in reality, obesity is more about biology than behavior,” said Ludwig. “We need to think about nutrition as we think about drugs.”
In the latest episode, the doctors touted drugs as the cure to obesity. They discussed the injectable appetite suppressant semaglutide, the weight loss drug <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/doctors-sound-alarm-over-latest-ozempic-risk">popularized</a> by celebrities under the brands Ozempic and Wegovy, as well as a similar drug, tirzepatide (Mounjaro).
“I think we’re in an incredibly exciting time,” said Jastreboff. “We had tools previously to treat patients with obesity. But now we have new, highly effective and safe medications that target disease pathophysiology.”
In order to keep the weight off once lost, however, the doctors said that individuals have to take the drugs in perpetuity.
“One of the most common questions that I get, whether it’s from my colleagues or my patients, is ‘Well, I took this medication, I have lost the weight, can I stop taking the medicine? Am I all done?’” said Jastreboff. “And the answer is no, you have to keep taking the medicine.”
Chika Anekwe, an obesity medicine doctor with the Massachusetts General Hospital Weight Center, concurred.
“Once you started a medication, we expect that you would stay on it long-term in order to both lose and maintain that weight loss over time,” said Anekwe. 
Although the doctors dismissed personal choice as a factor for obesity, the doctors blamed obesity on poor food choices. 
The doctors classified America as an obesogenic environment: a prevalence of highly-processed and palatable foods, sedentary and high stress lifestyles, and poor sleep. The doctors indicated that the transition to remote work and education during the COVID-19 pandemic worsened the obesogenic environment. 
They linked modern obesity rates to the Nixon administration’s overhaul of agriculture under then-Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz, who led the mass industrialization of two key ingredients in highly processed foods: soy and corn. The doctors said Butz’s leadership resulted in the massive proliferation of junk foods: processed foods that are easily digestible and consisting of simple sugars.
Rutgers professor Ronald Weiss noted that processed foods hijack “true hunger drives” developed through evolutionary processes: the more junk foods are consumed, the greater an individual&#8217;s desire for them. 
“I think the most dangerous drug on earth is food. Addictive foods are so pervasive — they’re everywhere,” said Weiss.
The doctors blamed highly-processed foods for creating negative peptide hormonal feedback loops, as well as disrupting the flow of insulin and glucagon. Ludwig said that these foods cause fat cells to hold onto too many calories while starving the brain and other parts of the body, resulting in an individual eating more to feel full; Ludwig said that fasting would be futile in these cases.
The American Medical Association (AMA) <a href="https://policysearch.ama-assn.org/policyfinder/detail/obesity?uri=/AMADoc/HOD.xml-0-3858.xml">recognized</a> obesity as a chronic health condition in 2013. Over 40 percent of American adults and 20 percent of children <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm">qualify</a> as obese.

Fast Food Restaurants Remain Firm Favourites With UK Consumers

Ivy League Doctors: Obesity Is the ‘New Normal’

Doctors

Obesity

The New York Post said Tuesday that a lawyer for Harvard University &#8220;threatened&#8221; them for looking into plagiarism allegations against the school&#8217;s president.
The Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/12/12/news/harvard-secret-plagiarism-probe-into-president-claudine-gay/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> it contacted the university on October 24 asking for comment on 27 alleged instances in which Harvard President Claudine Gay&#8217;s work appears very similar to other academics&#8217; words and phrasing.
Harvard&#8217;s senior executive director of media relations and communications, Jonathan Swain, who is also a <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanlswain/details/experience/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">former</a> Hillary Clinton aide and served as a <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/11/18/harvard-swain-tomasini-biden/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">member</a> of the Biden administration&#8217;s transition team, responded by asking for more time to review Gay&#8217;s work, the Post said.
The next day, Swain said he would “get back in touch over the next couple of days” but then did not respond after that.
Then on October 27, a major Virginia attorney, Thomas Clare of the law firm Clare-Locke, contacted the Post saying he was Harvard&#8217;s and Gay&#8217;s defamation counsel.
Harvard finally publicly admitted on Tuesday that the school had investigated Gay&#8217;s academic work for plagiarism, a day after the Manhattan Institute&#8217;s Christopher Rufo <a href="https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1733977126020481266" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a> questions about Gay&#8217;s PhD dissertation on social media.
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In a letter to &#8220;members of the Harvard community,&#8221; the college said the probe began in late October after the school &#8220;became aware&#8221; of allegations about Gay&#8217;s work.
The investigation found &#8220;a few instances of inadequate citation&#8221; but concluded she had not violated Harvard&#8217;s “standards for research misconduct.” Harvard said Gay would request four corrections in two of her published works to insert citations and quotation marks that had been “omitted.”
&#8220;In this tumultuous and difficult time, we unanimously stand in support of President Gay,&#8221; Harvard&#8217;s letter added.
The controversy around Gay&#8217;s academic writings comes on the heels of her highly criticized congressional testimony on Harvard&#8217;s response to anti-Semitism on campus.
Gay along with the presidents of MIT and the University of Pennsylvania avoided answering whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated the universities’ codes of conduct.
“It can be, depending on the context,” Gay told the lawmakers. She said such hate speech is “at odds with the values of Harvard” and that when that kind of “speech crosses into conduct, that violates our policies.”
Some of the academics whose work appeared very similar to Gay&#8217;s said they did not feel she had plagiarized them.
However, Anne Williamson, a professor of political science at the University of Miami in Ohio, was less happy, even &#8220;angry,&#8221; she told the Post.
Gay&#8217;s 2017 paper “A Room for One’s Own? The Partisan Allocation of Affordable Housing” has phrases that are very similar to a 2011 paper by Williamson.
“It does look like plagiarism to me,” Williamson told the Post. “If they are going to do what they did, then I should be cited as a reference. My first reaction is shock. The second reaction is puzzlement. There was a way to draw from my paper. All she had to do is give me a credit.”
Gay, 53, became Harvard&#8217;s first black president earlier this year.

Alan Brown reads the New York Post newspaper while riding th

NY Post Says Harvard ‘Threatened’ Them For Looking Into Plagiarism Claims

NY Post Says Harvard 'Threatened' Them For Looking Into Plagiarism Claims

Media

New York Post

Universities

The University of Pennsylvania has lost a donation of $100 million over the Ivy League&#8217;s handling of anti-Semitism on campus.
Ross Stevens, founder and CEO of Stone Ridge Asset Management, is withdrawing a gift of limited partnership units with his company, the current value of which is estimated to be about $100 million.
The tipping point for Stevens, a Penn undergraduate alumnus, came on Tuesday, when Penn&#8217;s president testified to Congress the rise of anti-Semitic hate speech at their schools.
Penn President Elizabeth Magill avoided answering questions from lawmakers on whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated the university&#8217;s codes of conduct.
Magill said that, “if the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment,” adding that it is a “context-dependent decision.”
The presidents of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) also testified. Both avoided answering the code of conduct question as well.
All three presidents have since backtracked after their congressional testimony prompted backlash, but it has not stopped the criticism.
Magill addressed the criticism in a video released Wednesday evening.
“In that moment, I was focused on our university’s longstanding policies aligned with the U.S. Constitution, which say that speech alone is not punishable,” Magill said in her video. “I was not focused on, but I should have been, the irrefutable fact that a call for genocide of Jewish people is a call for some of the most terrible violence human beings can perpetrate. It’s evil — plain and simple.”
The Penn donor, Stevens, sent a letter to the school through his lawyers on Thursday rescinding his large gift.
In his letter, Stevens accused the school of violating the terms of their partnership agreement, including the anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies.
&#8220;Its permissive approach to hate speech caling for violence against Jews and laissez faire attitude toward harassment and discrimination against Jewish students would violate any policies of rules that prohibit harassment and discrimination based on religion, including those of Stone Ridge,&#8221; Stevens wrote.
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Previously, Stevens also <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/26/us/university-of-pennsylvania-donors-israel-hamas.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">withdrew</a> another $100 million gift to Penn&#8217;s business school, the Wharton School, reportedly because he believed the school was prioritizing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) over academic excellence.
Steven redirected that previous gift to the University of Chicago.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have recently disrupted Penn&#8217;s campus.
Demonstrators have held huge protests and scrawled graffiti with slogans like &#8220;Free Palestine,&#8221; <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/12/06/news/upenn-students-create-dossier-of-antisemitic-events-on-campus/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">causing</a> other students to plead with the administration to step in and prevent threats of violence.

University Presidents Testify In House Hearing On Campus Antisemitism

Penn Loses $100 Million Donation Over Anti-Semitism Congressional Testimony

University of Pennsylvania

An Ivy League professor has taken a sudden leave of absence from his position after cheerleading the brutal assault on Israel by Hamas terrorists on October 7, referring to the terror group&#8217;s actions as &#8220;exhilarating.&#8221;
&#8220;Professor Russell Rickford has requested and received approval to take a leave of absence from the university,&#8221; a <a href="https://www.thecornellreview.org/rickford-called-hamas-attacks-exhilarating-takes-leave/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> from Cornell University&#8217;s media relations department read.
An email sent by another professor to students enrolled in his class read, &#8220;Professor Rickford will be taking a leave of absence and I will assume teaching responsibilities for this course for the remainder of the semester.&#8221;
One week after the terror attacks — during which over 1,300 Israeli men, women, and children were murdered, many of them civilians — Rickford, an associate history professor at the prestigious upstate New York institution, appeared at a pro-Palestinian protest and spoke about his reaction.
&#8220;It was exhilarating. It was exhilarating, it was energizing,&#8221; Rickford said of the attacks, telling onlookers that &#8220;you would not be human&#8221; if you did not share that sentiment. &#8220;I was exhilarated!&#8221;
Rickford <a href="https://cornellsun.com/2023/10/18/rickford-a-statement-regarding-my-actions-from-oct-15/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">later apologized</a> for the &#8220;horrible choice of words&#8221;: &#8220;I recognize that some of the language I used was reprehensible and did not reflect my values. As I said in the speech, I abhor violence and the violent targeting of civilians. I am sorry for the pain that my reckless remarks have caused my family, my students, my colleagues and many others in this time of suffering.&#8221;
Following his remarks at the rally, however, a <a href="https://www.change.org/p/demand-cornell-university-to-terminate-associate-professor-russell-for-hate-speech" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Change.org petition</a> calling for Rickford&#8217;s resignation gathered more than 11,000 signatures. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) also called for the embattled professor to resign or be fired.
&#8220;As a person of authority at an educational institution, to celebrate murder, rape and abducting children and slaughtering children, I think he should be fired,&#8221; <a href="https://cnycentral.com/news/local/new-york-senator-calls-for-firing-of-cornell-university-professor" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gillibrand said.</a> &#8220;There’s certainly no space for pro-Hamas protestors. That is someone who is supporting death, destruction, rape, murder, and slaughtering of innocent children, and families and seniors and holding hostages, so that cannot be supported.&#8221;
&#8220;By perpetuating these abhorrent views, Professor Rickford has not only violated his ethical responsibility as an educator but has also jeopardized the safety of the Jewish community and tarnished Cornell University&#8217;s reputation,&#8221; Tenney said in a letter to Cornell University&#8217;s president.

Cornell University As Ivy League Prices Push $90,000 A Year

Ivy League Prof Takes Abrupt Sabbatical After Cheerleading ‘Exhilarating’ Hamas Attacks

Ivy League Prof Takes Abrupt Sabbatical After Cheerleading 'Exhilarating' Hamas Attacks

Cornell University

Terrorists

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/yale" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Yale University</a> students were welcomed to campus with crime &#8220;survival guide&#8221; flyers featuring the Grim Reaper that were handed out by the Ivy League school&#8217;s police union.
The &#8220;Survival Guide for First-Year Students of Yale University&#8221; warns students about “shockingly high” crime in New Haven, Connecticut, where Yale is located, wishing them “good luck” alongside a picture of a skull in a Grim Reaper hood.
“The incidence of crime and violence in New Haven is shockingly high, and it is getting worse,” reads the flyer from the Yale Police Benevolent Association.
The flyers closely resemble the infamous “Welcome to Fear City” flyers handed out by the NYPD to tourists in the crime-ridden New York City of the 1970s.
Murders have doubled, burglaries are up 33%, and car thefts are up 56% in the seven months ending July 23, the police union warned.
City spokesman Len Speiller <a href="https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/yale-new-haven-police-crime-flyers-fact-check-18325538.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">confirmed</a> to the New Haven Register that &#8220;those specific data points are all accurate.&#8221;
“Nevertheless, some Yalies do manage to survive New Haven and even retain their person property,” the flyer said.
The police union warned students to stay off the streets after 8 p.m., to avoid walking alone, to avoid public transportation, and to stay on campus, among other safety advice.
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City and Yale officials both blasted the police union for handing out the ominous flyers to incoming students.
Yale University officials called the flyers &#8220;misinformation,&#8221; as well as &#8220;disturbing and inflammatory.&#8221;
&#8220;This weekend, the Yale Police Union, which is currently in contract negotiations with the university, handed out misleading pamphlets to Yale students as they moved into their residential colleges,&#8221; Yale <a href="https://news.yale.edu/2023/08/21/yale-university-response-misinformation-police-union-pamphlet" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> Monday in a statement.
Yale officials said they &#8220;unequivocally condemn the irresponsible and reckless actions of those who chose to spread this inaccurate information.&#8221;
The school claimed that robberies and burglaries are down both on campus and in New Haven. Yale said the most reported crime on campus is the theft of laptops, cell phones, and motorized scooters that have been left unattended and unsecured.
&#8220;The university supports the right of union members to rally peacefully, but today’s leafleting both ran counter to the spirit of the day and detracted from the exemplary work performed by Yale Police officers, Public Safety team members, and their partners at the New Haven Police Department,&#8221; Yale said.
New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker slammed the flyer as &#8220;totally offensive&#8221; and &#8220;false and scary,&#8221; saying crime is down in New Haven since 2020, when many cities across the country saw a spike in violent crime.
&#8220;As the Mayor stated at the press conference, when you look most of the trends over time, crime is down,&#8221; <a href="https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/yale-new-haven-police-crime-flyers-fact-check-18325538.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> Speiller, the city spokesman, adding that you can &#8220;cherry pick certain data points to construct a false narrative.&#8221;
The 1970s New York City pamphlets <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/08/25/yale-students-get-ominous-grim-reaper-crime-survival-flyers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">warned</a> tourists, “The best advice we can give you is this: Until things change, stay away from New York City if you possibly can.”
The New York pamphlets were widely condemned at the time despite the high levels of crime in the city.

In this photo illustration, Yale University logo seen

Yale Students Given ‘Grim Reaper’ Crime Survival Guides By Police Union

Yale Students Given 'Grim Reaper' Crime Survival Guides By Police Union

Connecticut

Crime

New York

U.S.

Yale

Yale University

America’s most elite universities have factored race into admissions for years now. Cornell University, for example, lists diversity and inclusion as one of its <a href="https://president.cornell.edu/initiatives/university-core-values/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">core values</a>. In fact, the concept of admitting students from different backgrounds is rooted in Cornell’s motto. As Cornell&#8217;s founder Ezra Cornell said, “I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.” From the beginning, Cornell has been open to students of all races. In recent decades, Cornell and the other Ivy Leagues and elite universities have used affirmative action policies to boost their numbers of black and Hispanic students. Racial diversity is not just a concept they give nominal respect to; it is a core facet of these institutions’ identities.
Now that the Supreme Court has <a href="http://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-affirmative-action-college-race-f83d6318017ec9b9029b12ee2256e744" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ruled against</a> affirmative action in higher education, deeming race-based admissions policies unconstitutional, Cornell and the other elite universities across the nation will have to abandon their current race-based admissions policies. But it’s unlikely that any of them will abandon their goal of pursuing woke diversity. So how do they move forward?
The end of affirmative action in admissions is a good thing for our country. It puts an end to discrimination against Asian students and the practice of lowering certain standards based on the race of the applicant, a practice which is not only discriminatory, but also sets up black and Hispanic students to fail if they come from an education background that did not prepare them for the rigor of elite colleges. But it is true that Americans of every race should have equal opportunities to succeed and excel in life. It is also true that cultivating a highly talented student body of people from diverse backgrounds, beliefs, and experience is a worthy goal for universities. The way to get there is to support school choice.
In a recent opinion piece for The New York Times, Harvard professor Roland Fryer <a href="http://nytimes.com/interactive/2023/07/05/opinion/affirmative-action-college-admissions.html#affirmative-action-high-schools">pointed out</a> that, outside of summer enrichment programs, elite universities don’t intervene for minority students in their critical K-12 years. “They don’t teach the higher order skills that students need to get into college,” he wrote. “They don’t cultivate the grit and resilience kids need to navigate a challenging curriculum after they are admitted. They rely on existing schools to do that.” Fryer argues that staying out of K-12 education is a mistake for these colleges. If elite universities truly value diversity, he argues, they should fund middle and high schools that qualify and prepare disadvantaged students to attend these colleges.
Fryer makes a salient point. Elite universities could change the futures of thousands of minority kids by pouring into K-12 education. But they do not necessarily even need to set up their own schools. They would simply need to support the growing number of unique schools already in existence by funding low income students and their families and encouraging state and local governments to expand school choice.
32 states and Washington, D.C. have<a href="http://usnews.com/education/k12/articles/what-school-choice-is-and-how-it-works#:~:text=Currently%2032%20states%20plus%20Washington,that%20advocates%20for%20school%20choice." target="_blank" rel="noopener"> some type of school choice program</a>, which empowers families to pay for education options they otherwise could not afford using public funds. The availability and robustness of school choice programs varies widely from state to state, however, meaning that low income students still face many barriers to good education depending on where they live. The growing number of states with school choice programs has the power to transform the lives of minority students. 
And many unique schools already exist that could prepare disadvantaged students for elite colleges and would benefit greatly from expanded school choice. In New York City, for example, there are already over 200 low-cost private schools set up with the explicit purpose of providing low income students with a great education. Author Kerry McDonald <a href="http://forbes.com/sites/kerrymcdonald/2023/03/02/the-not-so-secret-world-of-low-cost-new-york-city-private-schools/?sh=2b4959323d2c" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reports</a> that these schools charge an average yearly tuition of only $6,065. The nonprofit Children’s Scholarship Fund provides scholarships to low income families so their students can attend these schools. The three NYC schools that McDonald focuses on in her article are all founded by people of color and serve low income minority students. And schools built to support low income and minority students are popping up across the country, not just in New York City. 
Black Minds Matter, an organization that advocates for better education options for black K-12 students, has a <a href="https://www.blackmindsmatter.net/black-owned-schools-directory/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">directory</a> of schools founded by African Americans on its website. Earlier this year, Black Minds Matter and Step Up for Students conducted a <a href="http://reimaginedonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Black-Founders-Survey-Report.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">survey</a> of black school founders. The survey results demonstrate that school choice empowers education entrepreneurs to create a wide variety of schools that cater to individual families’ needs. 64% of founders surveyed are former public school teachers. 53% identified as Democrat, indicating that school choice is not merely a conservative talking point. The majority of schools surveyed serve predominantly black and low income students, and most of their students were formerly enrolled in public school, where they often performed below grade level.
 This dispels the myth that private schools, charter schools, and other schooling options outside of public school will leave disadvantaged students behind and only cater to high achieving, well-resourced students if empowered by school choice. On the contrary, school choice empowers low income parents by giving them the funds they need to provide their children with high quality education, and it empowers the hundreds of schools that want to help disadvantaged students achieve excellence and keep their doors open. The three founders in Kerry McDonald’s article, as well as 54% of founders in the Black Minds Matter survey, said that support from school choice organizations would greatly help them in their mission to provide high quality education to the students whom public schools have failed for decades.
If Cornell and other elite universities really want to admit more black and Hispanic students, they should support school choice. They don’t even necessarily need to create their own new schools, as Fryer suggested. They could partner with the hundreds of unique schools around the country that are already helping minority students succeed. They could use parts of their endowment to provide scholarships so that more students can attend these schools. Cornell University could be on the front lines of nationwide change.
Emmie Lo is a Latin teacher and staff writer for <a href="http://colorusunited.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://colorusunited.org&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1689870524844000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1swFnvQLYWXgsaX1kKg1Tc">Color Us United</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

After Affirmative Action, School Choice Could Be A Positive Way Forward

Affirmative Action

Schools

I recently graduated from Dartmouth College where I was honored as a valedictorian. During the graduation ceremony, the college’s president, Phil Hanlon, gave a <a href="https://youtu.be/fQhGI1ZvUzE?t=203" target="_blank" rel="noopener">speech</a> in which he lauded Dartmouth for being a place where people approach questions “with a truly open mind” and “respectfully debate [their] conclusions with others, especially seeking out those who hold different points of view.” As an openly conservative student, I can say that none of this was true.
This is probably not surprising, given the fact that college campuses are overwhelmingly Left-leaning, but when I was accepted at Dartmouth, although I didn’t expect the vast majority of my classmates to agree with my political views, I hoped that there would at least be a willingness to engage with conservative ideas. Not only was that not the case, but it quickly became apparent that the student body viewed conservatives as both unintelligent and morally reprehensible. I feel that this gave them license to attack conservatives with a maliciousness that’s hard to believe.
As the President of the Dartmouth Republicans, I was a lightning rod for a lot of this hatred. I was the subject of numerous misleading articles and opinion pieces, sometimes written by protestors, in Dartmouth’s campus publications which are confusingly called The Dartmouth and The Dartmouth Review. The purpose of these articles was to harm my reputation and leave a permanent internet history that would dissuade future employers from hiring me.
Moreover, I was a pariah on campus. My events were <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UpAG8Z5JAw" target="_blank" rel="noopener">heavily protested</a>, and I was frequently flipped off, shouted down, and sworn at. I was called a racist to my face simply for being pro-life. The Dartmouth Review even <a href="https://www.flipsnack.com/CCB9CF99E8C/dartmouth-review-cease-and-desist.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">threatened to sue me</a> over receiving an event flier. Despite being a valedictorian, I was called “anti-intellectual” more times than I can count. These are just a few examples, but there are many more.
I’ve spent a long time wondering what permitted this extreme hostility at Dartmouth, and I realized that it was due in large part to a combination of the Dartmouth administration who enabled it and the campus publications that set the narrative, which perpetuates a culture of intolerance towards conservatives. The purpose of these articles is to shame students for expressing right-wing views and encourage them to self-censor.
Case in point, we tried to host world renowned journalist Andy Ngo to give a lecture on Antifa’s violent history in America. Students on campus responded by <a href="https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/dartmouth-college-republicans-official-statement-andy-ngo-event" target="_blank" rel="noopener">making violent online threats</a> against the event. Unfortunately, the Dartmouth administration <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/01/24/antifa-win-again-as-dartmouth-cancels-my-event-on-far-left-violence/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">capitulated</a>, and despite the 100 police officers in and around the building, they canceled our event at the last minute, forcing us to host it on Zoom. Instead of condemning the violent threats or punishing the students who made them, the administration blamed the Dartmouth Republicans for their decision to cancel.
Reinforcing this false narrative, The Dartmouth <a href="https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2022/01/virtual-anti-antifa-event-hosted-by-college-republicans-moved-online-due-to-safety-logistical-issues" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> that the event was canceled due to incompetence and disorganization from the club. Despite the presence of <a href="https://www.thefire.org/cases/dartmouth-college-administrators-force-andy-ngo-event-online-citing-safety-concerns/documents" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FIRE’s investigation</a> into the administration’s claims, there were never any corrections to this article. Kyle Mullins, the editor-in-chief of the paper, brushed aside my concerns.
A few months later, The Dartmouth allowed a student named Gregory Mesa, whom I had never met, to write an <a href="https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2022/05/mesa-college-republicans-disunited">op-ed</a> calling me out by name and blasting me for views on immigration that I don’t even have. Mesa concluded by challenging me to debate him, knowing it was the last week of class and that he was about to graduate.
Needless to say, this wouldn’t have been allowed if it was about any other student. In light of Mesa’s article, I decided to join The Dartmouth as an opinion writer to correct the narrative. Beyond that, I was hoping that the other writers would finally see me as a person and not the alt-right caricature they imagined.
I reached out to Mullins to clear the air, since he had personally <a href="https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2022/04/mullins-the-embodiment-of-fake-news" target="_blank" rel="noopener">denounced</a> our club, and many of the biased and misleading articles had been written during his tenure. I emphasized that people of diverse beliefs all share a common thread of humanity. He had previously given me his phone number, but when I reached out, he refused to meet, and then he shopped around a complaint to various disciplinary bodies on campus in order to try to get me punished.
I later found out that I had been barred from the paper due to vague and <a href="https://justthenews.com/accountability/cancel-culture/campus-newspapers-reject-conservative-writers-protect-personal-safety" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unsubstantiated allegations</a> that I somehow caused the paper’s staffers “safety concerns,” but I was never given any further explanation. I wasn’t even able to respond to any of the articles that had been written about me because invariably, the student editors would find various excuses not to allow me to publish anything that resembled my initial draft. With no faculty oversight or clear guidelines, they would ask me to remove key points of my argument or literally spend weeks “fact-checking” the same facts multiple times. I was never able to tell my side of the story.
Despite all of this, I have no regrets about standing up for my beliefs. If anything, this experience taught me the importance of having the courage of one’s convictions. However, I feel the need to issue a warning. Extreme leftist intolerance on college campuses has become the norm. The prevailing attitude is that these students will grow out of it as they experience the real world, which will force them to conform to reality, but in fact, it’s just the opposite.
These students, especially those at prestigious colleges like Dartmouth, will go on to shape every facet of society to align with their worldview, and unless serious action is taken, the leftist insanity in this country is about to get much worse before it gets better.
Chloe Ezzo is a graduate of Dartmouth College where she studied French and Russian and served as the President of the Dartmouth Republicans.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Wire.

Baker-Berry Library, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire

Smeared, Scorned, And Shouted Down: My Experience As An Openly Conservative Valedictorian At Dartmouth

Conservatives

Dartmouth College

Leftists

Woke Culture

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/ivy-league" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Brown</a> University President Christina Paxson likened the passage of bills meant to limit diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, also known as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/diversity-equity-and-inclusion-dei" target="_blank" rel="noopener">DEI</a>, to the suppression of Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, despite the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/racial-discrimination" target="_blank" rel="noopener">discrimination</a> which such programs routinely induce.
Paxson wrote in a recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/21/opinion/free-speech-campus-states-not-students.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">opinion piece</a> for The New York Times that the nation is facing a “fundamental threat” as state lawmakers move to limit public funding for DEI initiatives. The administrator noted that Galilei was forced to renounce his “false opinion” that the Earth circles the sun in 1633 due to “the prevailing beliefs” of the Roman Catholic Church; she also cited the prohibition of Charles Darwin’s work from Trinity College Cambridge in 1859 and the “loyalty hearings” in the 1950s under former Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
“‌The mistakes of the past are being repeated in this country, right now,” Paxson wrote. “The State Senate in Texas last week advanced one of three bills aimed at public colleges that would ban diversity, equity and inclusion activities, end tenure, and fire professors accused of indoctrinating their students. Several states, including Georgia, Idaho and most notably Florida, have passed varying laws making it easier to ban books and limit what American educators can teach.”
The statutes referenced by the administrator indeed <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/florida-college-bureaucrats-significantly-misreported-diversity-initiatives-when-pressed-by-desantis-his-office-says" target="_blank" rel="noopener">restricted</a> funds for DEI initiatives, which have often been accused of fomenting division and limiting viewpoint diversity while entrenching a Left-of-center orthodoxy on college campuses. The condemnation of efforts to “ban books” appears to reference recent <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/library-group-frames-removal-of-graphic-sexual-content-from-school-libraries-as-record-number-of-book-bans" target="_blank" rel="noopener">orders</a> to remove sexually explicit and pornographic materials, some of which include graphic depictions of how children can masturbate and cartoons of children engaged in homosexual activity, in elementary school libraries.
“Like their forebears, the proponents of these laws are on the wrong side of history. They are acting out of political expediency, ‌exploiting convenient political wedge issues,” Paxson added. “They are mounting a direct and dangerous attack on America’s longstanding commitment to free expression, democracy and education. Legislating toward a future where the state decrees what ideas may be taught and debated upends a bedrock principle of this country.”
DEI initiatives at Brown, a private institution based in Providence, Rhode Island, which maintains a reputation as the most Left-leaning of the eight Ivy League schools, have discriminated against students according to their race. Beyond a recent <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/brown-university-infused-diversity-and-inclusion-into-hundreds-of-courses" target="_blank" rel="noopener">commitment</a> to “increase the representation” of black students, Brown administrators <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/brown-university-barred-white-asian-students-from-new-class" target="_blank" rel="noopener">restricted</a> a class on mindfulness-based stress reduction to students who identify as black, indigenous, or Latino.
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Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist who sparked the nationwide efforts to limit DEI initiatives, <a href="https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1650767880223354880?s=51" target="_blank" rel="noopener">contended</a> that Paxson’s views are easily falsified. “DEI does not cultivate genius; it stamps out genius,” he wrote on social media. “Galileo himself would be punished as a straight, white male.”
Despite the claims from Paxson about the “state-sponsored censorship” academics face in some parts of the country, administrators who subscribe to the DEI movement have frequently sought to sanction or dismiss professors for their views. Charles Negy, an associate psychology professor at the University of Central Florida, was fired and later <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ucf-professor-fired-after-tweets-questioning-black-lives-matter-narrative-must-be-reinstated-receive-back-pay-arbitrator-finds" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reinstated</a> after he disagreed with the assumptions of the Black Lives Matter movement, while Coastal Carolina University theater professor Steven Earnest faced <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/theater-professor-reinstated-after-school-suspended-him-for-criticizing-students-who-cried-racism-after-seeing-names-on-a-white-board" target="_blank" rel="noopener">termination</a> after he criticized students who mistakenly accused him of racism after seeing the names of minority students written on his whiteboard.

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