RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/fix-free-speech-or-no-higher-ed-act-reauthorization/

Today, the National Association of Scholars released a statement signed by over 100 prominent educators and public figures concerned with higher education. That statement calls on Congress to include protections for campus free speech in the next reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. Only by doing so, says the statement, can Congress “cease subsidizing unlawful behavior by public colleges and universities.” In other words, Congress needs to stop funneling money to colleges and universities that promulgate unconstitutional speech codes and so-called free-speech zones.

The Higher Education Act (HEA) of 1965 must periodically be reauthorized and updated by Congress. This is important because Title IV of the Act sets the ground-rules by which institutions become eligible for federal student loans and grants. You can’t get a Pell Grant or a federal student loan unless you attend a Title IV eligible school. Today, many or most Title IV eligible schools fail to protect, and even flagrantly violate, the free-speech rights of their students. HEA must not be reauthorized without fixing this. Public universities that stifle free speech should lose their eligibility for federal financial assistance, while private colleges must at minimum make their free-speech policies clear and open (with the implication that they will thereby become contractually obligated to stick by them).

The NAS statement calling on Congress to include free-speech protections in its coming reauthorization of the Higher Education Act has been signed by prominent educators and writers such as Emory’s Mark Bauerlein, the University of Chicago’s Rachel Fulton Brown, George Mason’s F. H. Buckley, Chapman Law School’s John Eastman, Claremont McKenna’s Charles Kesler, UT Austin’s Robert Koons, the University of Oklahoma’s Wilfred McClay, Hillsdale’s Paul Rahe, and Ohio University’s Richard Vedder. Figures such as president of the Leadership Institute Morton Blackwell, president of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute Charlie Copeland, president of the Independent Women’s Voice Heather Higgens, and president of the Independent Women’s Forum Carrie Lukas have signed as well. Think-tankers with education expertise such as the Hudson Institute’s John Fonte and the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Tom Lindsay have also signed on. (I was a signatory as well. And note that organizational affiliations are included for identification purposes only.)

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/georgetown-students-vote-to-pay-reparation-to-descendants-of-schools-slaves/

Georgetown University student government passed a referendum Thursday night that, if approved by the administration, would create a reparations fund to compensate the descendants of slaves who were sold to keep the university open.

A campus group called the GU272 Advocacy Team (in a nod to the 272 slaves the school sold in 1838 to pay off its outstanding debts) created the referendum, which calls for the implementation of a $27.70 per-semester fee to create a reconciliation fund that would be overseen by a board comprised of students and slave descendants.

The group estimates the fund would raise more than $400,000 annually to “be allocated for charitable purposes directly benefiting the descendants of the GU272 and other persons once enslaved by the Maryland Jesuits,” according to the bill, which was obtained by CNN.

“The vestiges of slavery are still so evident, and so many of the African Americans whose ancestors were enslaved are still so disenfranchised,” GU272 member Eliza Dunni Phillips told CNN. “It’s not enough to say sorry. Georgetown has to put their money where their mouth is and invest into the descendant community.”