Category Archives: US universities

Florida liberal arts college reinstates ‘wokeness’ course amid furore

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Course set to be taught by controversial British ‘anti-woke’ media commentator Andrew Doyle

New College of Florida reinstated a course on “wokeness” taught by controversial British media personality and culture warrior Andrew Doyle to its catalog, after appearing to remove it from an earlier version, amid an ongoing furore over the university’s transformation into a more conservative institution.

The course was also restored to an internal enrollment system but without Doyle’s name attached, according to students with access to the system. The moves followed criticism of the course online and local media reports on Tuesday night.

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Columbia pays $395,000 to student suspended over protest ‘fart spray’

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Israeli student filed lawsuit after suspension for spraying pro-Palestinian protesters with foul-smelling substance

Columbia University has reached a $395,000 settlement with a student who was suspended in January after spraying student protesters with a foul-smelling substance at one of several campus demonstrations in support of Palestine.

The Israeli student who received the payout had been suspended until May.

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Florida university to host extremist after DeSantis-led lurch to right

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Next month, New College of Florida will welcome activist and writer Steve Sailer, a ‘proponent of scientific racism’

New College of Florida (NCF) will host the extremist writer Steve Sailer, who has been described as a “white supremacist” and a “proponent of scientific racism”, at a college-branded public event next month.

New College has made headlines since January 2023, when the rightwing governor, Ron DeSantis, vowed to transform it from a university known for liberal values into a conservative institution, and installed a new board of trustees including the rightwing culture warrior Christopher Rufo. That board in turn appointed DeSantis’s “close ally” Richard Corcoran as the new college president, in which role he makes a $699,000 salary.

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Elite colleges see Black enrollment drop after affirmative action strike-down

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Amherst College and Tufts University report lower number of Black students this year as white enrollment increases

Enrollment for Black students fell at two elite US colleges in the first class since the supreme court’s decision last year to strike down affirmative action in college admissions and upend the nation’s academic landscape.

Amherst College and Tufts University, both in Massachusetts, reported a drop in the share of Black first-year students, an early sign that the high court’s ruling could negatively affect racial diversity in the US’s more selective colleges and universities, according to the New York Times.

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‘A police state’: US universities impose rules to avoid repeat of Gaza protests

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Students, faculty and advocates warn of chilling effect on free speech as schools across US introduce restrictions

Universities across the US are planning tougher rules to restrict protests when students return from summer vacation, an effort to avoid the chaos of last semester when demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza led to police crackdowns on campuses nationwide.

Columbia University students, who were at the vanguard of the movement, may encounter the most changes. The university president, Minouche Shafik, resigned this week in the wake of criticism for her handling of the protests, but not before overseeing the installation of fencing around the lawns of the school’s quad – the heart of campus life and the site of large protest encampments.

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UCLA can’t allow protesters to block Jewish students from campus, judge rules

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Ruling marks first time a US judge has gone against a university over demonstrations against Israel-Hamas war

The University of California, Los Angeles, cannot allow pro-Palestinian protesters to block Jewish students from accessing classes and other parts of campus, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.

The preliminary injunction marks the first time a US judge has ruled against a university over the demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war on college campuses earlier this year.

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Columbia removes three deans over text messages with alleged ‘antisemitic tropes’

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University president says private text exchange during school event was ‘unacceptable and deeply upsetting’

Three Columbia University deans have been indefinitely removed from their positions after sending text messages that the university president said included antisemitic tropes.

In a message sent on Monday, the Columbia president, Minouche Shafik, said that text messages “revealed behavior and sentiments that were not only unprofessional, but also, disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes”, the Columbia Spectator reported.

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University of Miami president tapped for chancellor role at UCLA

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Dr Julio Frenk to succeed Gene Block amid scrutiny of university’s handling of pro-Palestinian protests

The president of the University of Miami was chosen Wednesday to become the next chancellor of the University of California, Los Angeles, where the retiring incumbent has faced widespread scrutiny over his handling of pro-Palestinian campus protests.

Dr Julio Frenk, a Mexico City-born global public health researcher, was selected by regents of the University of California system at a meeting on the UCLA campus, where there was a swarm of security officers.

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University of California workers ordered to end strike over Palestine protest response

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Thousands of academic workers returned to the job after weeks-long strike and vowed more actions to come

Thousands of University of California academic workers who went on strike across six campuses protesting administrators’ response to pro-Palestinian protests returned to the job on Monday under court order, but their union vowed more protests to come.

An Orange county superior court judge late on Friday granted a temporary restraining order sought by the university, which asserted that the walkout stemmed from non-labor issues and that it violated the no-strike clause in the union’s contract.

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UC Berkeley gets go-ahead to build housing at People’s Park after years-long battle

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California supreme court greenlights project that protesters say will add noise pollution to already dense historic park

A California supreme court ruling will allow student housing at University of California, Berkeley, to be built at the historic People’s Park.

The court on Thursday ruled that a new law enacted in 2023 invalidates the claims by two local organizations that sued the school, saying students living in downtown Berkeley would add noise pollution to an already dense area. The project set off years of protests over the park – a landmark that is a touchstone of counterculture.

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Police arrest student protesters who occupied Stanford president’s office

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Police arrest 13 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who staged occupation of office while roughly 50 others linked arms outside

Police at Stanford University arrested a group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had barricaded themselves inside the campus president’s office on Wednesday morning to demand that the school divest from Israel.

A group of about a dozen students staged an occupation of the office of Richard Saller, Stanford’s president, while roughly 50 others linked arms outside, the Stanford Daily reported. The group entered the building around 6am on Wednesday, the final day of classes for the spring quarter, and said they intended to stay until the university met its demands.

The Associated Press contributed

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Students walk out of University of Chicago graduation over Israel policies

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Pro-Palestinian students staged the walkout as school withheld degrees of four seniors pending disciplinary review over protests

Dozens of students protesting Israel’s ongoing military strikes in Gaza walked out of the University of Chicago’s commencement on Saturday as the school withheld the diplomas of four seniors over their involvement with a pro-Palestinian encampment.

The disruption to the rainy two-hour outdoor ceremony was brief, with shouts, boos and calls to “stop genocide”. A crowd of students walked out in between speeches and a demonstration followed the official ceremony. Some chanted as they held Palestinian flags while others donned traditional keffiyehs, black-and-white checkered scarves that represent Palestinian solidarity, over their robes.

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House Republicans assail university head for negotiated end to Gaza protest

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Northwestern president becomes lightning rod in Republican-led committee hearing also featuring chiefs of Rutgers and UCLA

Members of a Republican-led congressional committee confronted another set of university heads on Thursday over their approach to pro-Palestinian protests in the latest hearings on Capitol Hill on a reported increase of campus antisemitism.

Republicans on the House of Representatives’ education and workforce committee repeatedly clashed fiercely with Michael Schill, president of Northwestern University in Illinois, over his decision to negotiate an end to a tented protest community rather than call in police, as has happened on other campuses.

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Police arrest six student protesters at University of Pennsylvania

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Pro-Palestinian students were attempting to take over a university hall to protest school’s refusal to negotiate in ‘good faith’

More than a dozen pro-Palestinian activists, including six students at the University of Pennsylvania, were arrested after attempting to occupy a hall on the university campus late Friday.

The protesters were arrested around 9pm after trying to take over Fisher-Bennett Hall but had been met with a response from university and Philadelphia police, according to reports. The Daily Pennsylvanian reported that protesters caused the evacuation of an alumni event at the Penn Museum.

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University president in California on leave after agreeing to campus protesters’ demands

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Mike Lee told students that Sonoma State would become first US university to refuse to work with Israeli academic institutions

A public university in California has placed its president on leave for “insubordination” after he agreed to student demands for an academic boycott of Israel.

Mike Lee was suspended from Sonoma State University following an announcement on Tuesday that the liberal arts college north of San Francisco had agreed with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) to become the first US university to refuse to work with Israeli academic institutions.

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Sporadic pro-Palestinian protests staged during college commencements

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Small demonstrations held on Saturday, including at Virginia Commonwealth University and University of Wisconsin-Madison

Small pro-Palestinian protests popped up sporadically on Saturday as colleges and universities from North Carolina to California held commencement ceremonies, including dozens of graduating students at Virginia Commonwealth University who walked out on an address by Republican governor Glenn Youngkin.

While some of the estimated 100 students and family members who left during Youngkin’s speech showed support for Palestinians, others held signs signaling opposition to his policies on education, according to WRIC-TV.

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Jill Biden tells Arizona graduates ‘let the world feel your thunder’

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First lady shares with Mesa Community College how her high school guidance counselor told her she wasn’t college material

Jill Biden on Saturday told Arizona community college graduates to tune out the people who like to tell them what they can’t do.

The first lady shared with graduates of Mesa Community College how her high school guidance counselor told her she wasn’t college material and shouldn’t waste her time going. She didn’t listen and got her college degree.

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More than 800 faculty and staff at UCLA call for chancellor’s resignation

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Move comes after counter-protesters’ attack on pro-Palestinian student demonstrators and violent police raid on encampment

More than 800 faculty and staff at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have called for the chancellor’s resignation following attacks by counter-protesters on pro-Palestinian student demonstrators and a violent police raid of the Gaza solidarity encampment on campus last week.

More than a hundred professors and other teaching staff gathered on Thursday to deliver a letter in support of their students engaged in pro-Palestinian activism, demanding Gene Block immediately step down as chancellor and an academic senate vote of no confidence in him. The letter also called for authorities to drop all charges against students, staff and faculty who were involved in the encampment.

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Dozens reportedly arrested as police clear George Washington University encampment

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The school’s student paper reported arrests as hundreds of Washington DC police dismantled the impromptu tent village

Hundreds of Washington DC police, some deploying pepper spray, cleared a pro-Palestinian encampment at George Washington University early on Wednesday, in the latest clash between law enforcement and protesting students to sweep the US.

The GW Hatchet student paper reported that at least a dozen people had been arrested as the impromptu tent village was dismantled in University Yard. The Metropolitan police department said the arrests had been made for “assault of a police officer” and “unlawful entry”.

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UCLA creates campus safety role amid condemnation of response to mob attack

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University and police denounced as masked group marched on campus and attacked pro-Palestinian demonstrators last week

The University of California, Los Angeles, said that it would create a new office dedicated to campus safety following mounting criticism of authorities’ slow response to a brutal attack on pro-Palestinian protesters by a mob of “instigators”.

The school’s chancellor, Gene Block, said on Sunday that urgent changes were needed to “better protect our community moving forward” and announced that a new office of campus safety would oversee the university police department and the UCLA office of emergency management, “effective immediately”.

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