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      Republican accuses Harvard of 'caving to the woke left' after school cuts ties

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      A Republican member of Congress claimed on Tuesday to have undergone a “rite of passage and badge of honor” and accused Harvard University of “caving to the woke left”, after she lost an advisory role for perpetuating Donald Trump’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud.Representative Elise Stefanik of New York was removed from a senior advisory committee at Harvard’s school of government after she declined to resign voluntarily, according to Douglas Elmendorf, dean of the Harvard Kennedy School.Hundreds of students and alumni called on Harvard to cut ties with Stefanik, a 2006 Harvard graduate, after last week’s violent insurrection at the US Capitol, which Trump incited.Stefanik was among 147 Republicans who went ahead with objections to certifying Joe Biden’s election, even after the attack left five people dead.She condemned the rioters but repeated false claims about “unprecedented voting irregularities” in the presidential election.Until Harvard took action, Stefanik was one of roughly a dozen current and former public servants on a senior advisory committee for the Institute of Politics, a program intended to get undergraduates interested in public service careers.In a statement, Stefanik said: “The decision by Harvard’s administration to cower and cave to the woke left will continue to erode diversity of thought, public discourse and ultimately the student experience.”Elmendorf said the decision was not based on political ideology.“Rather, in my assessment, Elise has made public assertions about voter fraud in November’s presidential election that have no basis in evidence, and she has made public statements about court actions related to the election that are incorrect.”Stefanik, who represents an upstate New York district, was re-elected to a fourth term in November. More

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      Columbia students threaten to withhold tuition fees amid Covid protest

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      Almost 1,800 students at Columbia University in New York are threatening to withhold tuition fees next year, in the latest signal to US academia of widespread preparedness to act on demands to reduce costs and address social justice issues relating to labor, investments and surrounding communities.In a letter to trustees and administrators of Columbia, Barnard College and Teachers College, the students said: “The university is acutely failing its students and the local community.”They accused the university of “inaction” since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in March, when students began demonstrating against what they say are exorbitant tuition rates “which constitute a significant source of financial hardship during this economic depression”.The letter referred to national protests over structural racism, accusing the university of failing to act on demands to address “its own role in upholding racist policing practices, damaging local communities and inadequately supporting Black students”.Emmaline Bennett, chair of the Columbia-Barnard Young Democratic Socialists of America and a master’s student at Teachers College, told the Guardian the university and other colleges had made no effort to reduce tuition fees as they moved to remote learning models necessitated by pandemic conditions.“We think it says a lot about the profit motive of higher education, even as the economy is in crisis and millions of people are facing unemployment,” Bennett said. “This is especially true of Columbia, which is one of the most expensive universities in the US.”Demands outlined in the letter include reducing the cost of attendance by at least 10%, increasing financial aid by the same percentage and replacing fees with grants.Such reforms, the letter said, should not come at the expense of instructor or worker pay, but rather at the expense of bloated administrative salaries, expansion projects and other expenses that do not directly benefit students and workers.The university, the letter said, must invest in community safety solutions that prioritise the safety of Black students, and “commit to complete transparency about the University’s investments and respect the democratic votes of the student body regarding investment and divestment decisions – including divestment from companies involved in human rights violations and divesting fully from fossil fuels.“These issues are united by a shared root cause: a flagrant disregard for initiatives democratically supported within the community. Your administration’s unilateral decision-making process has perpetuated the existence of these injustices in our community despite possessing ample resources to confront them with structural solutions.“Should the university continue to remain silent in the face of the pressing demands detailed below, we and a thousand of fellow students are prepared to withhold tuition payments for the Spring semester and not to donate to the university at any point in the future.”A Columbia spokesperson said: “Throughout this difficult year, Columbia has remained focused on preserving the health and safety of our community, fulfilling our commitment to anti-racism, providing the education sought by our students and continuing the scientific and other research needed to overcome society’s serious challenges.”The university has frozen undergraduate tuition fees and allowed greater flexibility in coursework over three terms. It has also, it said, adopted Covid-related provisions including an off-campus living allowance of $4,000 per semester, to help with living and technology expenses related to remote learning.Columbia is not alone in facing elevated student demands. In late August, for example, students at the University of Chicago staged a week-long picket of the provost’s house as part of a campaign to disband the university police department, Chicago’s largest private force.The issue of student debt remains challenging. In a nod to progressives, President-elect Joe Biden last month affirmed his support for a US House measure which would erase up to $10,000 in private, non-federal loan debt for distressed individuals.Biden highlighted “people … having to make choices between paying their student loan and paying the rent” and said such debt relief “should be done immediately”.Some Democrats say relief should go further. In September, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren co-authored a resolution which called for the next president to cancel up to $50,000 of outstanding federal loans per borrower.At Columbia, students say their demands for Covid-related fee reductions are only a starting point.“In the long-term, we need to reform the educational system entirely,” said Bennett. “We need to make all universities and colleges free, and to cancel all student debt to prevent enduring educational and economic inequalities.” More

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      Jerry Falwell Jr confirms he has resigned from Liberty University

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      The evangelical leader and key Trump ally Jerry Falwell Jr confirmed on Tuesday he has resigned as president of Liberty University, following a sex scandal.The confirmation came after conflicting reports of Falwell’s status on Monday night, in the wake of a Reuters report on a sexual relationship between him, his wife and a former business associate.The board of the Lynchburg, Virginia, evangelical institution was meeting earlier on Tuesday regarding Falwell, who was its president for more than a decade.Liberty University said in a statement on Tuesday afternoon that the school’s trustees “acted today to accept the resignation of Jerry Falwell, Jr. as its President and Chancellor and also accepted his resignation from its Board of Directors. All were effective immediately”.After Falwell agreed on Monday to “immediately resign then reversing course”, the university said, he sent his resignation letter through an attorney later that night.The university’s executive committee convened on Tuesday morning and voted to accept Falwell’s resignation, recommending that the board of trustees accept it. The full board of trustees met via videoconference on Tuesday morning and “unanimously voted” to affirm the committee’s recommendation.“The university’s heartfelt prayers are with him and his family as he steps away from his life’s work,” the statement said.A reporter for the News & Advance, a Lynchburg paper, quoted Falwell as saying: “It’s a relief. The quote that keeps going through my mind this morning is Martin Luther King Jr: ‘Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty I’m free at last.”Falwell agreed to resign on Monday but then withdrew his resignation, the school said late that night, capping a day of back-and-forth reports.A little over two weeks ago, Falwell took a leave of absence from one of the largest religious colleges in the US, after he posted an Instagram photo of himself standing with his trousers unzipped and an arm around a young woman.The university said on Monday night that since then, “additional matters came to light that made it clear that it would not be in the best interest of the university for [Falwell] to return from leave and serve as president.”“Falwell responded by agreeing to resign immediately,” the university said, adding that he then “instructed his attorneys to not tender the letter for immediate resignation … following media reports” about his departure.Reuters reported earlier on Monday that a young business partner said he had been in a years-long sexual relationship involving Falwell’s wife and the evangelical leader.According to Giancarlo Granda, starting in 2012 and continuing into 2018 the relationship involved Granda having sex with Becki Falwell while Jerry watched. Granda shared texts and other material he said supported his account.As Reuters was preparing to publish, Falwell issued a statement in which he said Becki Falwell had an affair with Granda. Becki Falwell did not respond to questions. Falwell’s statement did not mention Granda’s allegation and he did not address questions about the matter.Falwell said: “Becki had an inappropriate personal relationship with this person, something in which I was not involved.”If Falwell were to depart from Liberty, it would represent a remarkable fall for a potent force in conservative politics. His surprise 2016 endorsement of Trump helped the New York real estate magnate win the Republican nomination for president.Becki Falwell, 53, is a political figure in her own right, serving on the advisory board of Women for Trump. She also spoke with her husband and Donald Trump Jr at last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference. Jerry Falwell and others refer to her as “the first lady of Liberty University”.Falwell’s decision in January 2016 to endorse Trump was one of the most dramatic surprises of that race. It immediately raised support among evangelicals, a major constituency for the Republican party.Granda told Reuters the endorsement did not surprise him, as Falwell was considering backing Trump even before Trump announced his candidacy in June 2015. During a May 2015 conversation at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel, Granda said, Falwell told him Trump and Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, were pushing for the endorsement.The Falwells had enlisted Cohen to help keep personal photographs from becoming public, Reuters reported last year. Granda said Becki Falwell told him about Cohen’s involvement in that matter.Cohen’s role became public after comedian Tom Arnold surreptitiously taped a conversation. Cohen told Arnold the Falwells wanted to keep “a bunch of photographs, personal photographs” from becoming public.“I actually have one of the photos,” Cohen told Arnold. “It’s terrible.”Cohen did not identify who was in the photos. To Granda’s knowledge, none of the photographs were of him.Liberty University was founded in 1971 by Falwell’s televangelist father, the Rev Jerry Falwell. Currently, the university has an online and on-campus enrollment that exceeds 100,000 students and holds those who attend to an exacting honor code.“Sexual relations outside of a biblically ordained marriage between a natural-born man and a natural-born woman are not permissible at Liberty University,” the code reads. More

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      Clemson to strip name of John C Calhoun from honors college

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      College will also drop tribute to ‘Pitchfork’ Ben Tillman South Carolina trustees cite protests over killing of George Floyd John C Calhoun by Mathew Brady, 1849. Some scholars think the senator and vice-president was Melville’s model for Captain Ahab. Photograph: Sotheby’s Clemson University trustees voted on Friday to rename its honors college, stripping the name […] More

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      Ivanka Trump complains of 'cancel culture' after university cancels her speech

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      WSU Tech stops first daughter’s commencement speech amid criticism of Donald Trump’s response to George Floyd protests Ivanka Trump at a cabinet meeting in mid-May. After the cancellation, she tweeted: ‘Cancel culture and viewpoint discrimination are antithetical to academia.’ Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images Ivanka Trump has hit out at “cancel culture and viewpoint discrimination” after […] More

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      Coronavirus: Trump hurls insults as 21 cases confirmed on cruise ship

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      President attacks CNN and Democrats at CDC event Universities cancel classes in Washington state Donald Trump used a freewheeling press conference on Friday, intended to provide updates on the coronavirus, as an opportunity to attack Democrats, praise his own intelligence, lash out at CNN and spread false and misleading information about the status of the […] More