Campus Reform reporter Ophelie Jacobson spoke with Representative Andy Biggs (AZ-5) about some of the most pressing issues higher education is facing in this country today. 

WATCH: Rep Biggs warns against 'ideological indoctrination' on campuses 


Campus Reform Campus Profiles evaluate individual American college campuses based on liberal bias, speech codes, and other relevant policies and factors.Michigan State University is a public land-grant university. Around 39,000 undergraduate students are enrolled at the university.&nbsp;Official Political Student Organizations: <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/campus.reform//17874u4xfv4.png" class="fr-fic fr-dii"> Conservative Organizations:&nbsp;College Republicans at Michigan StateJames Madison College ConservativesSpartans for IsraelSpartyPACStudents for Trump at Michigan State UniversityTurning Point USA at Michigan State UniversityYoung Americans for Freedom at Michigan State UniversityProtect Life at MSU&nbsp; Liberal Organizations:&nbsp;American Civil Liberties Union Students ChapterAmnesty International MSUArcCollege Democrats at Michigan State UniversitydreaMSUJMC Kennedy DemocratsPlanned Parenthood Generation ActionPRIDE People of Color Coalition (Formerly LGBTQ People of Color)Roosevelt Institute @ Michigan State UniversitySpartan PrideSpartans for SandersSpartans with Warren for PresidentStudents Against Gun Violence @ MSUStudents for Pete ButtigiegStudents for SlotkinStudents United for Palestinian Rights (Formerly Students for Justice in Palestine)TransActionWomxn of Color: James Madison College&nbsp;OpenSecrets Data on Michigan State University Employee Political Donations:In the 2020 election cycle, 94.96% of Michigan State University employee donations went to Democratic candidates in federal elections, while 5.04% of donations went to Republican candidates in federal elections, according to data from<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/michigan-state-university/recipients?id=D000035857">&nbsp;OpenSecrets.&nbsp;</a><img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/campus.reform//17874xf6wpj.png" class="fr-fic fr-dii"> Foundation for Individual Rights in Education Rating:Michigan State University has been given a<a href="https://www.thefire.org/michigan-state-university/">&nbsp;red light</a> speech code. According to FIRE, this is due to &ldquo;at least one university policy clearly and substantially restricting freedom of speech.&rdquo; FIRE also notes that a red light policy at a public institution is unconstitutional.&nbsp;<img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/campus.reform//17874xcqag.png" class="fr-fic fr-dii"> COVID-19:Michigan State University is <a href="https://msu.edu/together-we-will/faqs/#:~:text=Is%20MSU%20mandating%20faculty%2C%20staff,of%20some%20very%20limited%20settings.">NOT</a> requiring a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for students.&nbsp;Stories by Campus Reform about Michigan State University: <a href="https://campusreform.org/article?id=16026">MSU &#39;eliminates&#39; the terms &#39;foreign&#39; and &#39;alien&#39;</a>Instead, it will replace the terms with &quot;non-domestic&quot; and &quot;international.&quot; The Michigan State University Provost said the school would no longer use the terms &quot;foreign&quot; or &quot;alien.&quot; <a href="https://campusreform.org/article?id=16703">MSU had nearly 1,200 racial incident reports in 5 years. Here&#39;s how many were valid.</a>Michigan State University students and faculty reported nearly 1,200 racial incidents over a period of five years. Less than one percent of those reported incidents, however, were determined to be racial bias. <a href="https://campusreform.org/article?id=15008">MSU student gov helps promote LOOTING as &#39;righteous&#39; act</a>The Michigan State University student government shared a website promoting the practice of looting. The shared resource also claimed that Capitalism, not looting, is the &quot;real capitalism.&quot;

Michigan State University is a public university within the Michigan State University System. Around 39,000 undergraduate students are enrolled at the university. 

CAMPUS PROFILE: Michigan State University

The CDC recently <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07/27/cdc-masks-guidance-indoors/">announced</a> new recommendations for mask-wearing for individuals who are vaccinated.&nbsp;CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told reporters Tuesday that &ldquo;in areas with substantial and high transmission, CDC recommends fully vaccinated people wear masks in public, indoor settings to help prevent the spread of the delta variant, and protect others.&rdquo; Walensky added that &ldquo;this includes schools, including teachers, staff, students and visitors, regardless of vaccination status,&quot; according to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/27/cdc-to-reverse-indoor-mask-policy-to-recommend-them-for-fully-vaccinated-people-in-covid-hot-spots.html">CNBC</a>.This update comes just two months after the CDC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/13/cdc-says-fully-vaccinated-people-dont-need-to-wear-face-masks-indoors-or-outdoors-in-most-settings.html">announced</a> that individuals who are vaccinated don&rsquo;t have to wear a mask.&nbsp;Universities are now putting those updated recommendations into practice.&nbsp;Campus Reform has researched some of the most notable mask policies implemented by U.S. colleges and universities for the upcoming school year.&nbsp;On July 19, 2021, Georgetown University sent out a message to the community with its &ldquo;Fall 2021 Public Health Guidelines for Students, Faculty and Staff.&rdquo; The <a href="https://www.georgetown.edu/news/fall-2021-public-health-guidelines-for-students-faculty-and-staff/">guidelines&nbsp;</a>state that &ldquo;individuals, regardless of vaccination status, will wear a mask indoors in University-owned or operated buildings, except when eating or drinking, when alone in a private office or when in your personal residence.&rdquo;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17682">[RELATED: Monmouth University requires vaccinated students to wear masks for fall semester]</a>The university goes on to state that they &ldquo;will continue to monitor public health conditions in our community&rdquo; and that they &ldquo;expect to ease the indoor mask requirement if they remain favorable.&rdquo;Georgetown University has also <a href="https://www.georgetown.edu/coronavirus/covid-19-vaccines/#covid-19-vaccination-requirement">required&nbsp;</a>that all students, faculty and staff show proof of a COVID vaccination to be on campus or &ldquo;in a University-owned or operated building in Washington, DC.&rdquo;The<a href="https://georgetown.app.box.com/s/ohbuft9qrjo6etuqtesx1nzuf1ynjgjd">&nbsp;mask guidelines</a> also made it clear what type of mask the school recommends, stating that individuals should &ldquo;wear a surgical-style mask, or other medical-style mask&rdquo; or even &ldquo;consider double-masking (cloth mask on top of a surgical-style mask).&rdquo; The school said it recommends &ldquo;against wearing a cloth mask alone.&rdquo;For those who don&rsquo;t comply with the mask guidelines, they can be &ldquo;asked or directed to leave the campus space.&rdquo; Additionally, &ldquo;employees and students who are directed to leave a campus space for failure to comply with these Guidelines may be taken off duty and/or subject to disciplinary action in accordance with University policies and the Georgetown University Community Compact.&rdquo;Similarly, Central Connecticut State University has <a href="https://www.ccsu.edu/blueprint/">required&nbsp;</a>that all students, faculty and staff wear masks in all campus buildings, even though the entire community population will be vaccinated, according to the school&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.ccsu.edu/blueprint/vaccinations.html">requirements</a>.&nbsp;The university has allowed for a few exceptions to the mask mandate, giving students the permission to remove their masks:<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;">Students are not required to wear face masks when in their residence hall room.</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;">Faculty teaching behind plexiglass at a teacher&rsquo;s station may intermittently remove their mask.</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;">Individuals eating in university designated dining areas may remove their mask.</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;">Faculty and staff who work in a private office or a cubicle with 60-inch-high walls or plexiglass can remove their mask.</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;">During a presentation, individuals who are at a podium at least 12 feet from the audience can remove their mask when speaking.</li></ul>The school will also require &ldquo;individuals to maintain 3 feet of distance indoors and outdoors.&rdquo;If a student doesn&rsquo;t abide by the mask policies, a member of faculty or staff can direct the &ldquo;student to leave classroom/office/area.&rdquo; They also have the option to &ldquo;call Student Affairs Office (860) 832-1601 for immediate assistance (and a member of the Student Response Team will be dispatched to the site. The responder will determine if and when CCSU Police assistance is required.&rdquo;Montclair State University is requiring all students and employees to wear masks on campus in the fall. This comes even though the school is <a href="https://www.montclair.edu/redhawk-restart/fall-vaccine-faqs/">requiring</a> all of its students to get vaccinated before returning to campus; however, the school &ldquo;does not require continuing employees to be vaccinated.&rdquo;The mask mandate even applies to bathrooms.&nbsp;According to the school&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.montclair.edu/redhawk-restart/red-hawk-restart-faqs/facecovering-faqs/">website</a>, masks must be worn at all times in classrooms, health care facilities, all university buses, elevators and even restrooms.Montclair State University states that &ldquo;whether you are vaccinated or not, students and employees must wear face coverings indoors whenever it is not possible to keep 6 feet of distance from other people. Masks may be removed when you&rsquo;re alone in a private room or when you are seated at your workstation with at least 6 feet of distance from others.&rdquo;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17476" target="_blank">[RELATED: REPORT: Three UMass students suspended after taking photo outdoors without masks]</a>Duke University is also following this same <a href="https://today.duke.edu/2021/07/duke-require-masks-indoors-again-because-delta-surge">trend</a> of requiring all students, faculty and staff to wear masks on campus regardless of vaccination status. The school will also be requiring its community members to <a href="https://covidvaccine.duke.edu/#:~:text=All%20Duke%20University%20students%2C%20faculty,surveillance%20testing%20until%20further%20notice.">submit&nbsp;</a>proof of vaccination status before returning to campus in the fall.&nbsp;In a letter sent to all university faculty, staff and students on June 28, the school stated that &ldquo;given the rapid increase in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths in North Carolina related to a combination of the Delta variant and the number of people who remain unvaccinated, all individuals will be required to wear face masks in all Duke-owned and leased buildings effective Friday, July 30, until further notice.&rdquo;&ldquo;This requirement applies to all students, faculty, staff and visitors regardless of vaccination status. Masks will not be required in on-campus residence halls where there is a significantly lower risk of exposure for high-risk individuals,&rdquo; the statement said.&nbsp;University administrations aren&rsquo;t the only ones cracking down on vaccination status and mask policies. One professor from Rutgers University took to Twitter to express his opinion on unvaccinated students.Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology Richard H. Ebright <a href="https://twitter.com/R_H_Ebright/status/1418671179527774208">tweeted</a>, &ldquo;the unvaccinated need to be excluded from public spaces, businesses, and schools.&rdquo;<blockquote>The unvaccinated need to be excluded from public spaces, businesses, and schools.&mdash; Richard H. Ebright (@R_H_Ebright) <a href="https://twitter.com/R_H_Ebright/status/1418671179527774208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 23, 2021</a></blockquote>This tweet was in response to a CBS video that was <a href="https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1418648074013007876?s=20">tweeted&nbsp;</a>about the NFL saying that&nbsp;&ldquo;any team that causes a game to be canceled due to COVID outbreaks among unvaccinated players will be responsible for financial losses, could lead to forfeited games &mdash; and neither team&#39;s players will be paid.&rdquo;Campus Reform reached out to Ebright as well as Georgetown University, Central Connecticut State University, Montclair State University, and Duke University about their policies but did not receive a response in time for publication. Campus Reform will continue to monitor university policies and guidelines for masks and vaccines as the school year continues.&nbsp;Follow the author of this article on Twitter:&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/opheliejacobson">@opheliejacobson</a>

The updated mask requirements align with the CDC’s recent announcement recommending vaccinated people still wear masks in certain settings.  


Universities mandate masks for vaccinated students, employees


Campus Reform Campus Profiles evaluate individual American college campuses based on liberal bias, speech codes, and other relevant policies and factors.University of South Carolina is a public university within the University of South Carolina System. Around 28,000 undergraduate students are enrolled at the university.Official Political Student Organizations: <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/campus.reform//1787081vvm.png" class="fr-fic fr-dii"> Conservative Organizations:&nbsp;Advocates for LifeCollege LibertariansCollege RepublicansGamecocks for IsraelGamecocks for BabiesJohn Quincy Adams SocietyNetwork of Enlightened WomenTurning Point USAYoung Americans for FreedomYoung Americans for Liberty Liberal Organizations:&nbsp; American Civil Liberties Union (Columbia College Chapter)Carolina Equity AllianceCarolina SocialistsCollege DemocratsDiversity SpeaksIndividuals Respecting Identities and SexualitiesPlanned Parenthood Generation ActionPride in ProfessionalismRoosevelt InstituteStudents for Justice in PalestineThe Feminist CollectiveTrans Student AllianceWomen LEAD OpenSecrets Data on University of South Carolina Employee Political Donations:In the 2020 election cycle, 96.48% of University of South Carolina employee donations went to Democratic candidates in federal elections, while 3.52% of donations went to Republican candidates in federal elections, according to data from<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/university-of-south-carolina/recipients?id=D000030691">&nbsp;OpenSecrets.&nbsp;</a><img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/campus.reform//178705suqx.png" class="fr-fic fr-dii">Foundation for Individual Rights in Education Rating:University of South Carolina has been given a<a href="https://www.thefire.org/schools/university-of-south-carolina-columbia/">&nbsp;yellow light</a> speech code. According to FIRE, this is due to &ldquo;at least one university ambiguous policy that too easily encourages administrative abuse and arbitrary application.&rdquo; FIRE also notes that a yellow light policy at a public institution is unconstitutional.&nbsp;<img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/campus.reform//17870k121b.png" class="fr-fic fr-dii"> COVID-19:The University of South Carolina is <a href="https://sc.edu/safety/coronavirus/index.php">NOT</a> requiring a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for students.&nbsp;Stories by Campus Reform about University of South Carolina: <a href="https://campusreform.org/article?id=6993">U. of South Carolina students to stage walkout Monday morning</a>Google Doc screenshots leaked on Twitter reveal that protests regarding slavery and transgender rights among other topics will begin at University of South Carolina on Monday.&nbsp; <a href="https://campusreform.org/article?id=6781">Univ. of South Carolina Student Senate mandates Safe Zone Ally Training</a>University of South Carolina&rsquo;s Student Senate passed a bill requiring all Student Government members to participate in Safe Zone Ally Training to support the LGBTQ+ community. <a href="https://campusreform.org/article?id=6783">South Carolina student group stymied by free speech zones</a>Students affiliated with Young Americans for Liberty were barred from meeting on University of South Carolina&rsquo;s campus.

University of South Carolina is a public university within the South Carolina State University System. Around 28,000 undergraduate students are enrolled at the university.

CAMPUS PROFILE: University of South Carolina

Some public university presidents have earned salaries equivalent to hundreds of students&#39; annual tuition rates as the cost of college increased significantly since the Great Recession.&nbsp;In March, the <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/executive-compensation-at-public-and-private-colleges/#id=table_private_2018">Chronicle of Higher Education</a> released data on nearly 300 university presidents&rsquo; compensation packages between 2010 and 2019. A Campus Reform analysis of the data reveals that it takes hundreds of students&rsquo; tuition bills to pay the administrators.According to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/13/cost-of-college-increased-by-more-than-25percent-in-the-last-10-years.html">CNBC</a>, the cost to attend public universities increased by 29.8% from 2008-2018.For instance, Georgia State University President Mark Becker earns $2,806,517 per year in base salary and other bonuses. Since each in-state student pays $11,076 in tuition per year, Becker is compensated with 253 students&rsquo; tuition bills.<a href="https://campusreform.org/article?id=17595">[RELATED: Oregon Dept of Education raided student absentee program funding to pay Nikole Hannah-Jones $50,000]</a>The trend continues for University of Florida President Kent Fuchs ($1,147,064), Auburn University President Steven Leath ($1,836,226), University of Nebraska-Omaha Provost Jeffrey Gold ($1,174,521), and former University of South Florida President Judy Genshaft ($876,446). The four administrators make the equivalent of 180, 156, 147, and 137 students&rsquo; annual tuition payments.The other 15 of the top 20 highest-paid presidents are as follows, alphabetically by institution:&nbsp;1. Arizona State University President Michael M. Crow ($1,150,361) &mdash; 101 tuition payments2. Augusta University President Brooks Keel ($906,732) &mdash; 103 tuition payments3. Florida State University President John Thrasher ($767,014) &mdash; 118 tuition payments4. Former East Carolina University Chancellor Cecil Staton ($884,277) &mdash; 122 tuition payments5. Former Ohio State University President Michael Drake ($1,422,154) &mdash; 123 tuition payments6. Former Portland State University President Rahmat Shoureshi ($1,095,393) &mdash; 108 tuition payments7. Former Texas A&amp;M University President Michael Young ($1,610,977) &mdash; 129 tuition payments8. Mississippi State University President Mark Keenum ($822,523) &mdash; 91 tuition payments9. North Carolina State University Chancellor Randolph Woodson ($874,712) &mdash; 96 tuition payments10. Purdue University President Mitchell Daniels ($962,412) &mdash; 96 tuition payments11. University at Buffalo President Satish Tripathi ($900,192) &mdash; 84 tuition payments12. University of Alabama-Birmingham President Raymond Watts ($949,840) &mdash; 89 tuition payments13. University of Houston Chancellor Renu Khator ($1,164,064) &mdash; 101 tuition payments14. University of Texas-Austin President Gregory Fenves ($1,090,223) &mdash; 98 tuition payments15. West Virginia University President Gordon Lee ($903,257) &mdash; 101 tuition paymentsCampus Reform&nbsp;has frequently reported on public colleges&rsquo; tendency to offer high pay rates for administrators.&nbsp;In 2017, Campus Reform revealed that American universities <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9428">paid</a> diversity czars an average salary of $175,000.&nbsp;<a href="https://campusreform.org/article?id=16473">[RELATED: Rutgers pays new &#39;Equity&#39; VP $300,000, despite projected $200 million COVID losses]</a>The administrator who runs Rutgers University&rsquo;s &ldquo;Division of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement&rdquo; earns $300,000 per year &mdash; despite the school&rsquo;s COVID-incuded budget shortfalls.Follow the author of this article on Twitter:&nbsp;<a href="http://twitter.com/BenZeisloft">@BenZeisloft</a>

The highest-compensated presidents have salaries that equal hundreds of students' annual tuition dollars. 

REPORT: Public university presidents' salaries, tuition hikes since Great Recession

&quot;Gender and the Body: Representation and Pornography,&quot; a fall 2021 class at Rutgers University, will teach students to analyze pornography using film and gender studies methods.&nbsp;Per the course <a href="https://womens-studies.rutgers.edu/component/tags/tag/fall-2021">description</a>, &quot;students will learn how viewing art, film, and pornography through the lens of gender and embodiment enriches your understanding of art in general.&quot;Art historian <a href="https://www.centerforthehumanities.org/programming/participants/tara-burk">Tara Burk</a> will instruct the class.&nbsp;By the end of the semester, students &quot;will be able to....view programming on television or the Internet with the ability to do critical analysis.&quot; Students will also &quot;know how to discuss [their] observations and communicate them to others.&quot;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=11574">[RELATED: UW admins under fire for porn star appearance, misuse of funds]</a>A course description <a href="https://womens-studies.rutgers.edu/academics/undergraduate/undergraduate-courses/current-course-descriptions">explains</a> that &quot;many artists have considered and engaged pornography...and used pornography as a liberating force.&quot; It goes on to state that the class will &quot;consider the range of ways the nude body and pornography exist in contemporary art.&quot; The class will &quot;focus primarily on contemporary feminist art and pornography (since 1970).&quot;New Jersey&#39;s flagship public college is not the first to share porn-related content with its students. In 2013, Washington University St. Louis <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=4619">hosted</a> an event about pursuing careers in pornography. Two years later, a class on Internet Resistance at Carnegie Mellon&#39;s School of Art <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=6238">assigned</a> students to invent a new genre of porn.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=14505" target="_blank">[RELATED: Brown prof promotes &#39;feminist porn&#39; to students]</a>The Rutgers course will be delivered entirely online. Based on the university&#39;s current schedule of fees, the 3-credit course in the Women&#39;s and Gender Studies Department will <a href="https://studentabc.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/2021-2022%20NB%20Undergraduate%20Schools.pdf">cost</a>&nbsp;$1.212 for in-state students and $2,898 for out-of-state students.Rutgers University has been contacted for comment; this piece will be updated with any response.Follow the author of this article on Twitter:&nbsp;<a href="http://twitter.com/AngelaLMorabito" style=" text-align: start;">@AngelaLMorabito</a>

Students will learn how some artists consider pornography to be a 'liberating force.' 

Art historian teaches 'Representation and Pornography' at Rutgers

The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) will spend $2.5 million of COVID-19 relief money on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.&nbsp;In late June, Gov. Tom Wolf (D-PA) announced <a href="https://www.media.pa.gov/pages/education-details.aspx?newsid=1146">support</a> for a budget that included $50 million in American Rescue Plan money for PASSHE &ldquo;to support the redesign and growth of the system to make a college education more affordable and accessible for students.&rdquo;&nbsp;&ldquo;This budget makes a historic investment in education so our students get the knowledge and skills they deserve,&rdquo; remarked Wolf in a June 25 announcement.The allocation &mdash; which will extend for the following three years and give PASSHE a total of $200 million &mdash; <a href="https://www.berksmontnews.com/news/pa--owned-universities-will-invest-2-5-million-on-diversity-equity-inclusion-initiatives/article_af5dad23-51f5-5aef-ab3f-2dbefe64f2fd.html">contains</a> the $2.5 million for DEI in the current school year. A <a href="https://pasenate.com/senator-haywood-and-passhe-announce-dei-funding/">press release</a> from the Pennsylvania Senate Democrats attributes the allocation to the efforts of State Senator Judy Schwank.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17379">[RELATED: Pennsylvania higher ed governing body makes massive &lsquo;diversity, equity, and inclusion&rsquo; move]</a>The release notes that East Stroudsburg University students Brandon Teel and Zuri Redmond are currently organizing &ldquo;the racist campus environment at their institution.&rdquo; They created the &ldquo;Coalition to End Campus Racism&rdquo; in order to demand that PASSHE leverage its diversity funds to &ldquo;end racial harassment and speech,&rdquo; &ldquo;unveil mandatory diversity training,&rdquo; and &ldquo;hire more faculty and staff of color,&rdquo; among other goals.As Campus Reform previously reported, the American Rescue Plan &mdash; President Biden&rsquo;s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill &mdash; included $35 billion for the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, which ensures that colleges &ldquo;have critical resources to implement public health protocols, execute distance learning plans, and provide emergency grants to students in need.&rdquo;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=16662">[RELATED: Biden&#39;s stimulus plan makes billions already thrown at colleges look like chump change]</a>Campus Reform reported in April that Congress allocated $14.2 billion to universities through the CARES Act &mdash; meaning that the American Rescue Plan offered colleges nearly three times the amount of emergency funding as the earlier package.Campus Reform reached out to PASSHE for comment; this article will be updated accordingly.Follow the author of this article on Twitter:&nbsp;<a href="http://twitter.com/BenZeisloft">@BenZeisloft</a>

The money comes from America Rescue Plan funds earmarked for the state's university system this coming academic year. 

PA allocates $2.5 million of COVID relief money on diversity, equity programs

Rep. Rosendale is leading a group of GOP lawmakers in asking the U.S. Olympic Committee to preserve decorum among Team USA athletes.

5 Big Questions: Rep. Matt Rosendale

As nationwide calls to defund the police increase, crime in the city of Chicago continues to rise. Students going to school in the city told Campus Reform that the crime is noticeable.According to <a href="https://home.chicagopolice.org/wp-content/uploads/1_PDFsam_Daily_Public_CompStat_Report-3.pdf">statistics&nbsp;</a>published by the Chicago Police Department, murders are up 49% since 2019 and criminal sexual assault is up 23% since 2020. According to the <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/data/ct-shooting-victims-map-charts-htmlstory.html">Chicago Tribune</a> crime team, there have been over 2,020 victims of gun violence so far this year, an increase of more than 160 from last year.According to the <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2021/6/22/22544894/chicago-shootings-monday-june-21-crime-homicide-gun-violence">Chicago Sun Times</a>, 2020 ended with 775 murders, an increase of more than 50% from the 506 homicides in the prior year.Over the July 4th weekend, Chicago <a href="https://apnews.com/article/il-state-wire-chicago-shootings-homicide-ad5625aa7f0b93073a9b80142e5712fe">saw&nbsp;</a>one of its most violent weekends as over 100 people were shot. At least a dozen children were caught in the crosshairs of the gun violence.Campus Reform&nbsp;spoke to students who attend college in Chicago to get their firsthand experience with living in the city.When asked if he has noticed an increase in crime in the city since he started at University of Illinois Chicago, sophomore Ethan Melman told Campus Reform that he has noticed a rise in criminal activity.&ldquo;I work for my school&#39;s Student Patrol and since we are issued police radios we hear about all the reports that come through for the UIC police and those reports have only gone up. Car jacking, fondling of women in streets, and robbery are staples of the area of Chicago,&rdquo; Melman said.&nbsp;He added that there has been a noticeable increase in the number of 911 calls in the past week.Despite the data, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot <a href="https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/chicago-mayor-lorilightfoot-crime/2021/06/27/id/1026604/">claimed&nbsp;</a>that &ldquo;crime is on the decline&rdquo; in a June press conference.&ldquo;All of our major indices show a decline in our crime, and our homicides and our shootings year over year are down,&rdquo; Lightfoot said.&ldquo;We got a call for the police about a guy who brought a gun out to a bar literally a three minute walk from one of the campus&rsquo;s biggest dorms, the JST,&rdquo; Melman admitted.Lightfoot believes that the issue is the prevalence of illegal firearms in the city, and she is committed to &ldquo;fight and make sure this plague of gun violence is one that we win once and for all.&rdquo;&nbsp;&ldquo;It&rsquo;s wrong that the politicians of Chicago are flat out lying to the people of the city by claiming crime is going down when it very much is on the rise and nothing is being done to stop it,&rdquo; University of Illinois Chicago sophomore Ethan Melman told Campus Reform.&nbsp;&ldquo;The city is not getting any better and the crimes are not stopping. Something must be done because I [don&rsquo;t] think it&#39;s normal that people have to walk around with knives and pepper spray everywhere to keep some semblance of safety while the mayor keeps talking about guns on the street and how they must be stopped,&rdquo; Melman continued.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17572">[RELATED: At request of Black student orgs, UMD admin launch plan to defund police, crack down on &lsquo;hate speech&rsquo;]</a>Lightfoot&rsquo;s goal will be difficult as gang members in Chicago outnumber the city&rsquo;s police officers 10:1, according to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/chicago-gangsters-outnumber-cops-10-to-1-as-spike-in-crime-reaches-fever-pitch">Fox News&rsquo;</a> Geraldo Rivera.Citing Superintendent David Brown and Mayor Lori Lightfoot&rsquo;, Rivera <a href="https://twitter.com/GeraldoRivera/status/1414653004469391360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1414653004469391360%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxnews.com%2Fus%2Fchicago-gangsters-outnumber-cops-10-to-1-as-spike-in-crime-reaches-fever-pitch">tweeted&nbsp;</a>that Chicago&rsquo;s roughly <a href="https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/chicagos-top-cop-breaks-down-number-of-gangs-in-city-how-theyre-structured/2309434/">117,000 gang members</a> outnumber the city&rsquo;s <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2021/6/18/22538601/chicago-police-department-retirements-soar-ray-lopez-john-catanzara">13,000 police officers</a> by roughly 10 to 1.&nbsp;<blockquote>11 more murdered in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Chicago?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Chicago</a>. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MayorLoriLightfoot?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MayorLoriLightfoot</a> says there are 117,000 gang members vs 12-13,000 cops, Gangsters outnumber cops 10 to 1. A joint federal, state and local effort urgently needed. Constitutional implementation of stop &amp; frisk, massive use of Rico. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GhettoCivilWar?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#GhettoCivilWar</a>&mdash; Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) <a href="https://twitter.com/GeraldoRivera/status/1414653004469391360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 12, 2021</a></blockquote>This disproportion is worsening as the Chicago Police Department has seen a record number of retirements this year.According to the <a href="https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2021/6/18/22538601/chicago-police-department-retirements-soar-ray-lopez-john-catanzara">Chicago Sun-Times</a>, more police officers have retired so far this year than in all of 2018. From January through June, 363 officers left the Chicago Police Department, and an additional 56 are expected to retire in July.Out of the approximately 13,000 Chicago police officers, 2020 saw 560 retirements, 475 in 2019 and 339 in 2018.President of the Chicago police union John Catanzara said that even young cops are moving to other police departments because they are &ldquo;absolutely miserable&rdquo; due to 12-hour shifts, canceled days off and perpetual pressure of punishment, according to the Sun-Times.&ldquo;You are literally treated like a rented mule and ridden until you can&rsquo;t go any more,&rdquo; Catanzara said. &ldquo;Today&rsquo;s hero, tomorrow&rsquo;s zero.&rdquo;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=16562">[RELATED: 5 times campus leftists gunned for the Second Amendment in 2020]</a>A Concordia University Chicago sophomore who wished to remain anonymous told Campus Reform that she notices the &ldquo;danger&rdquo; of Chicago when she uses &ldquo;public transportation.&rdquo;&ldquo;In my time using public transportation I have been cussed out, cat called, and had someone next to me smoking marijuana. All within the first five minutes,&rdquo; she said.Comparing Chicago to her hometown, the Concordia student said that she has noticed a &ldquo;drastic increase&rdquo; in crime from living in inner-city Dallas to Chicago.&rdquo;Jake Taeleaar, a sophomore at the University of Illinois Chicago, told Campus Reform, &quot;One of the things you have to get used to when living in Chicago is the constant noise of police sirens, and other emergency vehicle sirens.&quot;&nbsp;Tazelaar also noted that despite Chicago&rsquo;s &ldquo;strict gun laws,&rdquo; the city&rsquo;s &ldquo;crime rates are worse than many open carry states.&rdquo;&ldquo;It&rsquo;s very tragic,&rdquo; he continued.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17100">[RELATED: Northwestern Univ public safety report suggests &#39;defund the police&#39; measures as crime in nearby Chicago soars]</a>Tazelaar told Campus Reform that he locks his car doors when he drives on &ldquo;side streets&rdquo; because &ldquo;you never know if someone is going to come up and carjack you. It happens more than you&rsquo;d think, and the numbers are increasing.&rdquo;Likewise, Melman concluded that, &ldquo;Guns don&#39;t need to be stopped, people must be stopped from killing other people. London banned all guns. People still get robbed and die at the blades of knives. It&#39;s no different here.&quot;&nbsp;CUC and UIC did not respond to Campus Reform&rsquo;s&nbsp;request for comment in time for publication.

The Chicago Police Department reports that crime is on the rise in the city, though the mayor maintains the narrative that it is declining. 

Chicago students explain why increased crime, Lightfoot policies put them at risk 

<a href="https://ufrfprofessors.research.ufl.edu/reid-mark-a/">Mark Reid</a>, an English professor at the University of Florida, will ask students this fall to analyze James Baldwin&#39;s work through the lens of Critical Race Theory, as well as the writer&#39;s influence on Black Lives Matter.&nbsp;The course title is &quot;James Baldwin &amp; Critical Race Theory.&quot;&nbsp;&quot;Students will critically study how James Baldwin fared as an American writer and social critic. and how critical race theory might reveal or deny the persistence of anti-black violence in words and deeds,&quot; &nbsp;the <a href="https://english.ufl.edu/programs/courses/undergraduate-courses/#AML4311b">course description</a> states.&quot;Class discussion will consider how Baldwin imaginatively exposed and fervently articulated the coming consciousness that generates &#39;Black Lives Matter&#39; awareness and endgame.&quot;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17772">[RELATED: UT Austin prof says Critical Race Theory is &lsquo;much needed&rsquo; in schools]</a>Additionally, students will read supplemental texts from scholars including <a href="https://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=5296">Frank B. Wilderson III</a> and <a href="https://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=5113">Jared Sexton</a>. Wilderson III, a professor at the University of California, Davis has been <a href="https://black-ink.info/2018/02/10/were-trying-to-destroy-the-world/">quoted</a> saying, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not against police brutality, I&rsquo;m against the police.&rdquo;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17889">[RELATED: ASU welcomes new prof who focuses on applying &#39;critical race theory&#39; to music]</a>In his book titled &quot;The Man They Wanted Me to Be: Toxic Masculinity and a Crisis of Our Own Making,&quot; Sexton <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/5367871.Jared_Yates_Sexton">writes</a> &ldquo;to be a white man in America is to expect everything to already be on your terms.&rdquo;&nbsp;Additionally, in his book titled &quot;The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore: A Story of American Rage,&quot; Sexton <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/54915727-the-people-are-going-to-rise-like-the-waters-upon-your-shore-a-story-of">labeled</a> supporters of President Trump &ldquo;ignorant, livid people.&rdquo;Campus Reform&nbsp;has reached out to Reid, Wilderson, and Sexton, but did not receive a response in time for publication.&nbsp;

The course is listed within the Department of English's offerings for fall 2021.

UF class explores the Black Lives Matter 'endgame'

California may be the first state to to require public schools provide free menstrual products to men.&nbsp;&ldquo;California recognizes that access to menstrual products is a basic human right and is vital for ensuring the health, dignity, and full participation of all Californians in public life,&rdquo; the text of <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB367&showamends=false">AB-367</a> states.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17751">[RELATED: MSU student gov demands free menstrual products in ALL campus bathrooms]</a>The bill continues, &ldquo;California has an interest in promoting gender equity, not only for women and girls, but also for transgender men, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people who may also menstruate and experience inequities resulting from lack of access to menstrual products.&rdquo;&nbsp;Introduced by Assemblymember <a href="https://a58.asmdc.org/">Cristina Garcia</a>, who represents California&#39;s 58th district, AB-367 would <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billAnalysisClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB367">cost</a> the California State University System between $750,000 to $800,000.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=16889">[RELATED: Facing massive budget cuts, Michigan launches $30 million &#39;free&#39; college program]</a>This is not Garcia&rsquo;s first attempt at requiring California colleges to provide free menstrual products. In 2017 she introduced another <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180AB10">bill</a> requiring colleges to provide free menstrual products, but that was cut due to budget concerns.In addition to public universities, the bill would also apply to secondary schools. It is <a href="https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2021/07/13/latest-menstrual-equity-bill-would-require-californias-public-colleges-to-provide-period-products/">backed</a> by Free The Period organization and the Cal State Student Association.Campus Reform&nbsp;reached out to Garcia for comment; this article will be updated accordingly.

Projections put the implementation cost at at least $750,000.

CA may spend nearly $1 million on men's menstrual products  

Today marks the final day that Critical Race Theory is the &quot;subject of the month&quot; for Wayne State University&#39;s library.The library <a href="http://Richard Delgado and Jean Stefanic’s book">web page</a> features a quote from <a href="https://www.law.ua.edu/directory/People/view/Richard_Delgado">Richard Delgado</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.law.ua.edu/directory/People/view/Jean_Stefancic">Jean Stefanic</a>&rsquo;s book, &quot;Critical Race Theory: An Introduction,&quot; which describes the framework as &ldquo;a collection of activists and scholars engaged in studying and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power.&rdquo;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17828">[RELATED: CRT bans remind UF prof of Nazi &#39;thought control&#39; tactics]</a>The implications of framework have been criticized by many <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17726" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">conservatives</a>, as well as scrutinized by Campus Reform&#39;s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/profile?pid=6097026">Angela Morabito</a>.&ldquo;This controversial doctrine, created on college campuses by academics who bill themselves as anti-racist, has come under fire for its insistence that America is institutionally racist and that people are inherently oppressive or oppressed based on skin color,&quot; Morabito <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17653">wrote</a> in June.&nbsp;The page also includes various books that focus on Critical Race Theory and a list of &ldquo;Key figures in the history and development of CRT,&quot; with further resources such suggested readings and links.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17853">[RELATED:&nbsp;U Nebraska athletes petition against regent&#39;s CRT ban resolution]</a>Examples include a TED Talk by <a href="https://law.ucla.edu/faculty/faculty-profiles/kimberle-w-crenshaw">Kimberl&eacute; Crenshaw</a> and resources that help introduce students to fields of study, which include &quot;Critical White Studies&quot; and &quot;QueerCrit.&quot;Campus Reform contacted Wayne State University for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.&nbsp;Follow the author of this article on Twitter:&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/ajmunguia23">@ajmunguia23</a>

Students are provided multimedia resources on Critical Race Theory as a theoretical framework. 

University spends month celebrating Critical Race Theory

A professor from Louisiana Tech University tweeted that every public figure should be accosted for what he views as fascism.&nbsp;<a href="https://andrewcmckevitt.com/">Drew McKevitt</a>, an associate professor of History at LA Tech, <a href="https://twitter.com/drewmckevitt/status/1419480804028203009?s=21">replied</a> to a tweet about a person confronting Fox News host Tucker Carlson at a store, signaling that he deserved to be accosted.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17862">[RELATED: &#39;The time has come for &#39;gaytheism&#39;:&#39; library promotes radical, anti-Christian books]</a>&ldquo;For the record *every* public figure should be accosted when their &#39;political persuasion&#39; is fascism,&quot; McKevitt said.<blockquote>For the record *every* public figure should be accosted when their &quot;political persuasion&quot; is fascism <a href="https://t.co/yR58lZ8OJa">https://t.co/yR58lZ8OJa</a>&mdash; Drew McKevitt (@drewmckevitt) <a href="https://twitter.com/drewmckevitt/status/1419480804028203009?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 26, 2021</a></blockquote>McKevitt declined to tell Campus Reform whom else he considers a fascist.On July 20, McKevitt, in a since-deleted tweet said&nbsp;&quot;Where do I donate to Rand Paul&#39;s neighbor&#39;s senate campaign,&quot; according to <a href="https://townhall.com/tipsheet/rebeccadowns/2021/07/21/la-tech-professor-tweets-support-for-rand-pauls-neighbor-n2592919">Townhall</a>.Rand Paul&#39;s neighbor, Rene Boucher, was found guilty of assaulting Sen. Paul in 2017, who suffered broken ribs from the incident. The senator also said that he had pneumonia several times after the incident, and had to have a hernia surgery, according to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/rand-paul-attacker-sentenced-additional-prison-time-over-yard-assault-n1235013">NBC News</a>.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17832">[RELATED: &#39;You may have oppressed somebody:&#39; Prof to White student who said he left his house that day]</a>After deleting the tweet, McKevitt&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/drewmckevitt/status/1418192929261297673">said</a>&nbsp;that the tweet was a &quot;Joke.&quot;<blockquote>Oh there it is! A whole article from one Rand Paul joke? I&#39;ve outdone myself for sure! <a href="https://t.co/Utxf3ILgcf">https://t.co/Utxf3ILgcf</a>&mdash; Drew McKevitt (@drewmckevitt) <a href="https://twitter.com/drewmckevitt/status/1418192929261297673?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 22, 2021</a></blockquote>Campus Reform reached out to LA Tech for comment and the article will be updated accordingly.&nbsp;Follow the author of this article on Twitter:&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/ajmunguia23">@ajmunguia23</a>

Earlier this month, the same professor tweeted in support of Rand Paul's attacker before deleting the post and claiming the message was a joke. 

Prof supports accosting public figures

Emails obtained by Campus Reform show a University of North Carolina dean telling an ABC News reporter to &quot;protect&quot; Nikole Hannah-Jones during her ongoing battle for tenure.&nbsp;In late May, ABC Deputy Political Director <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/averi-harper-named-deputy-political-director-at-abc-news/ar-BB1efpMi">Averi Harper</a> emailed UNC Journalism and Media Dean <a href="http://hussman.unc.edu/directory/faculty/susan-king">Susan King</a> to ask why Hannah-Jones had not been granted tenure. King told her that the Board of Trustees had declined to consider Hannah-Jones&#39; application package, adding:&quot;Protect Nikole. She deserves it and I&#39;m doing all I can to make this right. We really want her here.&quot;<a href="https://campusreform.org/article?id=17529">[RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Nikole Hannah-Jones UNC offer letter lists $180,000 yearly salary]</a>Hannah-Jones, author of the &quot;1619 Project&quot; and sought-after college guest speaker, was being considered for a tenured position despite having never taught a college course.&nbsp;<img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/campus.reform//17917sja8tsScreenshot.png" class="fr-fic fr-dii">King told Harper, &quot;She deserves tenure. Her package is perhaps the best I&#39;ve ever seen.&quot;&nbsp;<a href="https://campusreform.org/article?id=17748">[RELATED: UNC Board of Trustees grants tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones]</a>Though UNC&#39;s Board of Trustees voted on June 30 to grant tenure, Hannah-Jones <a href="https://campusreform.org/article?id=17768">turned them down</a> and instead accepted a professorship at Howard University, her alma mater.&nbsp;Averi Harper is an alumna of the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media.Campus Reform reached out to both Averi Harper and Dean Susan King for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.&nbsp;Follow the author of this article on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/AngelaLMorabito">@AngelaLMorabito</a>

In an email obtained by 'Campus Reform,' the dean of the journalism school at the University of North Carolina asked a reporter at ABC News to 'protect' Nikole Hannah-Jones amid the tenure controversy this spring. 

'Protect Nikole': Emails reveal UNC dean asked ABC News for favorable Nikole Hannah-Jones coverage. 

Approximately 80% of Americans oppose late-term abortion, according to a recent University of Chicago survey.&nbsp;In June, researchers at the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs, which is affiliated with the university,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnorc.org/projects/public-holds-nuanced-views-about-access-to-legal-abortion/">found</a>&nbsp;that 65% oppose abortions in the second trimester and 38% believe abortions should be illegal in the first trimester.&nbsp;Most respondents that support abortion in the second and third trimester identified as Democrat or independent. Additionally, many should be legal in extraneous cases, such as a danger to the mother&rsquo;s health (87%), rape (84%), or serious illness of the fetus (74%).In June, researchers surveyed 1,125 adults from the NORC probability-based panel, which the researchers designed to reflect the diversity of the American population.About half of participants said that it should not be possible to get an abortion in cases where a woman simply does not want to be pregnant.<a href="https://campusreform.org/article?id=17875">[RELATED: Smith College professor wants public universities to provide on-campus abortion pills]</a>Abortion is a hot topic in higher education right now, as professors and universities continuously get more interested in abortion rights on campus.At Smith College, for example, one professor claims that the University&rsquo;s health center should provide abortion pills to students, claiming &ldquo;forcing&rdquo; the students to leave campus for these services is unfair.Last year, several hundred professors and doctors requested that the FDA allow abortion pills to be sent through the mail.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17847">[RELATED: Archbishop opposes Biden visit to Catholic university]</a>Last week, Archbishop Dennis M. Schnurr, who presides over the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, opposed President Biden&#39;s visit to Mount St. Joseph University, a Catholic institution.&nbsp;Local pro-life activists and Catholics joined Archbishop Schnurr in denouncing Biden&#39;s trip due to the president&#39;s pro-choice policies.&nbsp;Campus Reform has reached out to the University of Chicago but did not receive a response in time for publication.

About 50% of respondents said they do not support abortion being used as a form of birth control. 

Nearly all Americans oppose late-term abortion, UC survey finds 

California&rsquo;s 2021-2022 <a href="http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/2021-22/pdf/Enacted/BudgetSummary/HigherEducation.pdf">budget</a> includes &ldquo;increase of $5.6 million&quot; for &quot;systemwide anti-racism initiatives,&quot; which will fund last year&#39;s ethnic studies mandate.&nbsp;Democratic Governor Gavin Newson signed the bill on July 16. Its multi-million-dollar appropriation for &quot;anti-racist&quot; activities adds provides the resources necessary to enforce the requirement that undergraduate students take an ethnic studies course.&nbsp;In August 2020, Newsom signed <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB1460">Assembly Bill 1460</a>, which makes one course in ethnic studies a graduation requirement for all baccalaureate candidates at a California state-funded colleges.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17818">[RELATED: No diploma for CA students not versed in &#39;ethnic studies&#39;]</a>&quot;Commencing with students graduating in the 2024&ndash;25 academic year, the California State University shall require, as an undergraduate graduation requirement, the completion of, at minimum, one three-unit course in ethnic studies,&quot; the 2020 bill states.California state universities are working with the California State University Council on Ethnic Studies and Academic Senate of the California State University to <a href="https://www2.calstate.edu/impact-of-the-csu/diversity/advancement-of-ethnic-studies">develop</a> the &ldquo;core competencies&rdquo; that will be met by students taking ethnic studies courses.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17788">[RELATED: Updated CSU course requirement replaces focus on &#39;global awareness&#39; with &#39;equity and inclusion&#39;]</a>The California State University Council on Ethnic Studies is a <a href="https://ethnicstudies.sfsu.edu/council">self-described&nbsp;</a>council focused on being a &ldquo;Collaborative forum for addressing the varied needs on each campus &ndash; both those with fully established departments as well as those in the process of developing new ethnic studies programs and curricula.&rdquo;The California State University Council on Ethnic Studies or the Academic Senate of the California State University did not respond to requests for comment from Campus Reform.

The money will fund the implementation of a 2020 law  requiring all undergraduate students at public four-year institutions to take an ethnic studies course. 

Ethnic studies, 'anti-racist initiatives' cost CA taxpayers over $5 million

Indiana University recently committed student fee money to the creation of a massive mural on the school&#39;s main campus.&nbsp;The mural, unveiled July 8, was painted on one of the most trafficked streets on IU&rsquo;s campus, Jordan Avenue, and simply reads &ldquo;Black Lives Matter,&rdquo; as <a href="https://crimsonpostiu.com/student-fees-used-pay-massive-blm-mural/">reported</a> by The Crimson Post.The project was conceived by Joa&rsquo;Quinn Griffin when he was a member of the IU Student Government Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee during the previous IUSG presidential administration. Initially, Griffin, who now leads the DEI committee under the new administration, wanted to pursue the project in partnership with the student government.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=16205">[RELATED: UMass-Boston hosts inaugural &lsquo;Black Lives Matter Day,&rsquo; unveils BLM mural]</a>Griffin then partnered with a group at IU referred to as <a href="https://www.blackcollegians.com/">Black Collegians</a>, which is led by IU Tiera Howleit. Together they brought a project proposal before the IU Funding Board, an organization tasked with distributing student fees to groups on campus.&nbsp;According to a student who wishes to remain anonymous, the board approved the proposal, allotting student fees to commission three professional artists to design the mural and to pay for paint and other required supplies.&nbsp;Notably, a number of other BLM displays were already present at IU, including a large flag outside the student union and multiple exhibits within the union. When asked why his project was necessary given these other showings of support for BLM on campus, Griffin told The Crimson Post that he didn&rsquo;t feel the other displays were visible or substantial enough.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=16559">[RELATED: DC faces First Amendment lawsuit after allowing BLM mural, but not students&#39; pro-life mural]</a>Although it only references Black Americans, both Griffin and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CQ_6XC9lV5I/">Black Collegians</a> branded the mural as &ldquo;<a href="https://twitter.com/BCollegians/status/1412810983467257857">all inclusive</a>.&rdquo; Additionally, despite the controversial and divisive nature of the Black Lives Matter name, as well as the recent controversies surrounding the organization, including their recent <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CRU5kYYp-UU/">statements</a> of support for the communist regime in Cuba and founder Patrisse Cullors&rsquo; <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/04/10/inside-blm-co-founder-patrisse-khan-cullors-real-estate-buying-binge/">multi-million dollar real estate dealings</a>, Griffin told The Crimson Post that he stands by his decision to use the money for the mural and hopes to work on similar projects across the country.<blockquote>For the past year, our President and Founder <a href="https://twitter.com/officialtiera?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@officialtiera</a> co-lead an initiative with <a href="https://twitter.com/joa_quinng?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@joa_quinng</a> to create an all inclusive mural at Indiana University. The mural is now complete, please stop by to check it out!! Thank you to everyone involved! ✊🏾<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/blacklivesmatter?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#blacklivesmatter</a> <a href="https://t.co/NoMDDi80xw">pic.twitter.com/NoMDDi80xw</a>&mdash; Black Collegians (@BCollegians) <a href="https://twitter.com/BCollegians/status/1412810983467257857?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 7, 2021</a></blockquote>While Indiana University <a href="https://twitter.com/IUBloomington/status/1413219770896457728">praised</a> the project, thanking &ldquo;the Black Collegians group for bringing this mural to life on our campus,&rdquo; some students weren&rsquo;t as ecstatic.<blockquote>Black Lives Matter. Thank you to the Black Collegians group for bringing this mural to life on our campus. <a href="https://t.co/jzHQnOTxJm">pic.twitter.com/jzHQnOTxJm</a>&mdash; IU Bloomington (@IUBloomington) <a href="https://twitter.com/IUBloomington/status/1413219770896457728?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 8, 2021</a></blockquote>Shelby Fugate, the events coordinator for IU&rsquo;s Turning Point USA chapter, told&nbsp;Campus Reform that she feels using student fees to fund the project was &ldquo;wrong.&rdquo;&ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s incredibly wrong that the campus is using student funds to paint political messages throughout the university. We all know BLM, the organization is a socialist group,...they state this on their website. Indiana University supporting this and using student fees as funding is a significant problem.&rdquo;Fugate continued, &ldquo;Indiana University needs to worry about the education their students are receiving and less about politics and indoctrinating students.&rdquo;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=15326">[RELATED: University earmarks $1 million for COVID-19 hardships of &lsquo;Black and Hispanic&#39; students]</a>The campus&rsquo;s Young Americans for Freedom chapter told Campus Reform that YAF &ldquo;opposes the use of student fees for the BLM mural on Jordan, particularly at a time when tuition rates are rising even during a global pandemic.&rdquo;&ldquo;Indiana University should instead focus on making the institution more accessible and keeping tuition rates low to show that they truly believe what this mural should demonstrate. Instead, it aligns them with an avowedly Marxist organization and the left-wing mob and does nothing to help people of any race on campus,&rdquo; the chapter concluded.Campus Reform reached out to Indiana University and the mural&rsquo;s creators; this article will be updated accordingly.

The university subsequently praised the street mural on its official social media. 

IU uses student fees to paint BLM mural 


Northern Illinois University reversed course on its COVID-19 vaccine mandate in June, &nbsp;after the school asserted in May that it would not impose a mandate.In February, <a href="https://www.niu.edu/clas/polisci/about/faculty-staff/streb.shtml">Matthew Streb</a>, chief of staff to Northern Illinois University President Lisa Freeman, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdTLlohx8os&t=">informed</a> students during a <a href="https://northernstar.info/83738/news/university-health-department-answer-covid-19-vaccine-questions/">panel</a> event that the school lacked legal authority to enforce a vaccine mandate as long as the shots remained under emergency use authorization. According to an archived version of the school&rsquo;s COVID-19 vaccine webpage, which was live as late as May 31, Northern Illinois University <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20210531154208/https://www.niu.edu/protecting-the-pack/health/vaccine/index.shtml">affirmed</a> that it &ldquo;cannot require&rdquo; students to get the shot.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17839">[RELATED: WATCH: Citing diversity, BYU denies vaccine exemption for student with rare syndrome]</a>On June 23, however, the university <a href="https://www.niu.edu/protecting-the-pack/communication/messaging/6-23-21-important-vaccine-requirement-information-students.html">announced</a> that it would require all students to receive vaccinations; it also opened exemptions for documented health or religious reasons. According to the school&rsquo;s current COVID-19 <a href="https://www.niu.edu/protecting-the-pack/health/vaccine-student/index.shtml">webpage</a>, exemptions will only apply &ldquo;until vaccines transition from emergency use authorization status to full approval by the Food and Drug Administration.&rdquo;Daniel Nuccio, a doctoral student at the university, spoke with&nbsp;Campus Reform over concerns that students &ldquo;will have to choose between vaccination and losing whatever time and money they have invested into their college education.&rdquo;Nuccio holds master&rsquo;s degrees in psychology and biology from Illinois State University and Northern Illinois University, respectively. He has previously completed &ldquo;neurophysiology, microbiology, and computational biology projects,&rdquo; making him &ldquo;uniquely qualified to serve as the lead graduate student on a collaboration between a microbial pathogen lab in [his] department and a behavioral neuroscience lab in the psychology department.&rdquo;Any future accomplishments, however, may be limited by Northern Illinois University&rsquo;s vaccine policy.&ldquo;For a period of time, I actually came to take some pride in being able to be involved on this kind of project,&rdquo; he told Campus Reform. &ldquo;But following NIU&rsquo;s vaccine mandate, I have come to realize that I will soon have to step back and assume a lesser role on this project or move on to an unrelated one assuming I am allowed to remain in my program at all.&rdquo;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17842">[RELATED: CSU squeezes in vaccine mandate before new state law takes effect]</a>If not allowed to continue with the doctoral program, &ldquo;it would be very unlikely that I will be able to operate my own lab at a university in the future given that having a PhD is usually one of the minimum requirements for doing so,&quot; he said.&nbsp;Other students share Nuccio&rsquo;s concerns.Nuccio &nbsp;explained, &ldquo;Their reasons range from having natural immunity after recovering from natural infection, to concerns about the long-term effects of the COVID vaccines, to concerns about having to relinquish a certain amount of bodily and medical autonomy to the university.&rdquo;&ldquo;Within my department, however, I feel there is an immense social pressure to not question or disobey public health guidelines or the science they&rsquo;re supposedly based on,&rdquo; Nuccio continued. &ldquo;Before vaccines were widely available, I heard stories of students being publicly or privately castigated by professors for acknowledging they&rsquo;d frequented bars or coffee shops. Since they&rsquo;ve become available, I&rsquo;ve heard stories of professors scolding students for being reluctant to get vaccinated. I know students personally who think it&rsquo;s unconscionable to turn down a COVID vaccine.&rdquo;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17846">[RELATED: CDC, universities are paying students to be vaccine influencers]</a>&ldquo;Overall at this point, I get the impression there just seems to be this assumption that everyone will get their jabs. That being said, I also know students in my department who largely disagree with our school&rsquo;s policies on COVID in general or the vaccine mandate specifically, but remain silent either because of social pressure or because they don&rsquo;t want to be seen being insensitive or causing trouble, especially if they&rsquo;re close to finishing their degree.&rdquo;Nuccio observed that beyond Northern Illinois University, there is &ldquo;little tolerance in our society&rdquo; over individual medical choices related to COVID-19.&ldquo;From a PR or legal standpoint, mandates also give universities some cover in the event of an outbreak,&rdquo; he described. &ldquo;Yet, at least early on, many were uncertain whether they had the legal authority to mandate COVID vaccines given their EUA status, and wanted some kind of cover for that too before moving ahead with mandates.&rdquo;&ldquo;Over the last several months, the growing number of major universities mandating COVID vaccination, along with the failure of initial legal challenges to mandates, gave the universities the cover they were looking for.&rdquo;Campus Reform reached out to Northern Illinois University for comment; this article will be updated accordingly.

The student described prevalent intolerance among faculty for those individuals not wishing to be vaccinated. 

EXCLUSIVE: Vaccine policy switch may put doctoral student's future in jeopardy

Campus Reform Campus Profiles evaluate individual American college campuses based on liberal bias, speech codes, and other relevant policies and factors.University of Nevada Reno is a public university within the Nevada System of Higher Education. Around 17,000 undergraduate students are enrolled at the university. Official Political Student Organizations: <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/campus.reform//17869jinaagNevadaReno.jpg" class="fr-fic fr-dii"> Conservative Organizations:&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Turning Point USA&nbsp; Liberal Organizations:&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Freedom Alliance of Culturally Empowered Students&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Fused&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Gender, Race, and Identity Club&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Young Democrats of University of Nevada Reno&nbsp;OpenSecrets Data on University of Nevada Reno Employee Political Donations:In the 2020 election cycle, 94.6% of University of Nevada Reno employee donations went to Democratic candidates in federal elections, while 3.1% of donations went to Republican candidates in federal elections, according to data from<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/university-of-nevada/totals?id=D000030676">&nbsp;OpenSecrets. <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/campus.reform//17869f4l75gNevadaReno.jpg" class="fr-fic fr-dii"></a>Foundation for Individual Rights in Education Rating:University of Nevada Reno has been given a<a href="https://www.thefire.org/schools/university-of-nevada-reno/">&nbsp;yellow light</a> speech code. According to FIRE, this is due to &ldquo;at least one university ambiguous policy that too easily encourages administrative abuse and arbitrary application.&rdquo; FIRE also notes that a yellow light policy at a public institution is unconstitutional.&nbsp;<img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/campus.reform//17869jo8wd7.png" class="fr-fic fr-dii"> COVID-19:The University of Nevada, Reno is <a href="https://www.unr.edu/coronavirus/vaccine">NOT</a> requiring a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for students.&nbsp;Stories by Campus Reform about University of Nevada, Reno: <a href="https://campusreform.org/article?id=17244">&lsquo;Anti-racist journey&rsquo; prompts UNR lecturer to apologize for teaching &lsquo;Jingle Bells,&rsquo; &lsquo;Baa Baa Black Sheep&rsquo;</a>After discovering the tenets of what is referred to as &quot;anti-racism,&quot; one University of Nevada-Reno professor will stop teaching songs like &ldquo;Jingle Bells&rdquo; and &ldquo;Baa Baa Black Sheep.&rdquo;&nbsp; <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17254&_gl=1*oybzw4*_ga*MjA5OTI4NTAwLjE2MjQ0Nzg0OTQ.*_ga_52173W50DL*MTYyNTMzMTk3MS4zLjEuMTYyNTMzMjMzMy42MA..">Students and alumni want statue of Colin Kaepernick on campus</a>Students and alumni want a statue of former NFL quarterback Colin Kapernick installed at the University of Nevada-Reno. <a href="https://campusreform.org/article?id=17685">Nevada university will not remove Gutzon Borglum&rsquo;s statue from its campus</a>As student activism fell flat from initial uproar in 2020, University of Nevada, Reno, decided not to remove a controversial statue connected to Mount Rushmore.

University of Nevada Reno is a public university within the Nevada System of Higher Education. Around 17,000 undergraduate students are enrolled at the university.

CAMPUS PROFILE: University of Nevada, Reno

Campus Reform Campus Profiles evaluate individual American college campuses based on liberal bias, speech codes, and other relevant policies and factors.James Madison University is a public university under the auspices of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. Around 21,000 undergraduate students are enrolled at the university. Official Political Student Organizations: <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/campus.reform//178714njtlqJMU.jpg" class="fr-fic fr-dii">Conservative Organizations:&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;College Republicans&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Young Americans for Liberty&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Turning Point USA at James Madison University Liberal Organizations:&nbsp;College DemocratsEnvironmental Club ManagementNextgen JMUPlanned Parenthood Generation Action at JMUShades of PrideYoung Democratic Socialists of America of James Madison UniversityNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People OpenSecrets Data on James Madison University Employee Political Donations:In the 2020 election cycle, 92.94% of James Madison University employee donations went to Democratic candidates in federal elections, while 7.06% of donations went to Republican candidates in federal elections, according to data from<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/james-madison-university/recipients?id=D000070210">&nbsp;OpenSecrets.&nbsp;</a><img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/campus.reform//17871apkc6.png" class="fr-fic fr-dii">Foundation for Individual Rights in Education Rating:James Madison University has been given a<a href="https://www.thefire.org/schools/james-madison-university/">&nbsp;yellow light</a> speech code. According to FIRE, this is due to &ldquo;at least one university ambiguous policy that too easily encourages administrative abuse and arbitrary application.&rdquo; FIRE also notes that a yellow light policy at a public institution is unconstitutional.&nbsp;<img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/campus.reform//178715t0fqb.png" class="fr-fic fr-dii"> COVID-19:James Madison University is <a href="https://www.jmu.edu/stop-the-spread/healthcenter/covid-vaccine-faq.shtml#fall-2021-vaccination-requirement">requiring</a> a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for students.&nbsp;Stories by Campus Reform about James Madison University: <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=7064">A cappella group banned from singing Christian song at &lsquo;unity tree&rsquo; ceremony</a>Due to secularism, a Christian acapella group was denied their request to sing a religious song at the annual unity tree lighting.&nbsp; <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=10314">University bribing faculty to take &#39;inclusivity&#39; training</a>James Madison University bribed faculty members with a $250 stipend for participation in a semester-long inclusivity and diversity training course.&nbsp; <a href="https://campusreform.org/article?id=11333">JMU scholars assemble &lsquo;feminist scholarship&rsquo; fellowship</a>James Madison University is tasking recipients of a &quot;feminist scholarship&quot; fellowship with maintaining a &quot;feminist scholarship community.&quot; The university told applicants to &quot;briefly describe what you think makes scholarship feminist and how your project(s) fits that description.&quot;

James Madison University is a public university under the auspices of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. Around 21,000 undergraduate students are enrolled at the university.

CAMPUS PROFILE: James Madison University

Amid pressure from LGBTQ activists, the U.S. Department of Justice amended a court filing stating they would &quot;vigorously&rdquo;&nbsp;defend religious school&#39;s exemption from laws which allow religious schools that are, in part, funded by the government to discriminate against LGBTQ individuals.The new filing, as the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2021/06/09/biden-justice-lgbtq-lesbian-gay-christian-college-university-bostock-equality-act/">Washington Post&nbsp;</a>reported on Wednesday, the DOJ removed &quot;vigorously&quot; as a term to describe their approach to defending the exemption, but kept the usage of the word &quot;adequate&quot; to describe their approach.&nbsp;&quot;The Department of Justice, which is responsible for defending federal statutes in court, will adequately defend against the legal challenges the Religious Exemption and its application,&quot; the updated <a href="https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/documents/6dabb638-b538-46ee-b90c-ccd25e325b70/note/ab56eb4e-59cc-443e-9f0f-a25d9e5427f3.#page=1">filing&nbsp;</a>states.According to The Post, the move shows that the Joe Biden administration possibly exerted their force on the Department of Justice to remove the language.<a href="https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/documents/115fbd13-ca87-4b50-94c8-820afea69daa/note/0372d954-88c4-4fb5-9567-ac0b25e0973f.#page=1">Hunter v. the U.S. Department of Education</a>, as <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17173">Campus Reform</a> reported in March, includes 40 students who are suing the U.S. Department of Education with the goal of putting an &quot;end to the U.S. Department of Education&rsquo;s complicity in the abuses and unsafe conditions thousands of LGBTQ+ students endure at hundreds of taxpayer-funded, religious colleges and universities.&rdquo;Under Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, religious education institutions are exempt from anti-discrimination laws; therefore the DOJ has to step in to defend them. However, this prevents religious institutions from entering the lawsuit themselves.&nbsp;The Council of Christian Colleges and Universities previously said in a<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/cccu-intervention-motion-filed/c8c0b51f-9f3e-4687-84a3-4d6dad0cbf7d/?itid=lk_inline_manual_20">&nbsp;May motion</a> that they could not trust the Biden administration to defend the schools&rsquo; beliefs and &ldquo;may be openly hostile to them.&rdquo;&nbsp;According to the article, Shirley Hoogstra, president of the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities, said that she was relieved at the DOJ&#39;s filing, as it signals that the government will defend religious exemptions. However, she said that Christian schools that could be impacted by the lawsuit should have their own representative present during hearings.

The DOJ now characterizes its effort to stand up for religious schools as 'adequate.'

Biden's DOJ walks back intent to 'vigorously' defend religious school exemptions in  anti-LGBTQ discrimination laws 

A Georgetown University student has started a petition campaign to rename Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., after JoJo Siwa, a social media star who rose to fame on the Lifetime show Dance Moms. &nbsp;Georgetown undergraduate Dylan Long authored the one-sentence <a href="https://www.change.org/p/metropolitan-washington-airports-authority-rename-ronald-reagan-airport-to-jojo-siwa-washington-national-airport">petition</a>, which has garnered over 71,000 signatures. &ldquo;Why on earth is there an airport named after this war criminal,&rdquo; reads the petition, which was addressed to Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority John Potter.&nbsp;Siwa, a seventeen year old, came out as a member of the LGTBQ community in January <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@itsjojosiwa/video/6920027355633224966?lang=en&is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1">via TikTok</a>. She identified herself as &quot;pansexual&quot; in a <a href="https://people.com/music/jojo-siwa-on-coming-out-lgbtq-cover-story/">People</a> exclusive last month.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17443">[RELATED: He was berated by his professor for supporting police. Now he has a message for other young conservatives.]</a>&ldquo;I really did not put too much thought into who it was, but my reasoning for picking JoJo Siwa was related to the fact that Reagan in his presidency did a lot of really terrible things with regard to the LGBTQ communities, specifically with the HIV and AIDS pandemic,&rdquo; Long explained in his interview with Georgetown student newspaper <a href="https://thehoya.com/georgetown-student-starts-petition-to-rename-national-airport-after-jojo-siwa/">The Hoya</a>. &ldquo;I decided to pick JoJo Siwa because she&rsquo;s been this recent rise as a new LGBT figure.&rdquo;&nbsp;Metropolitan Washington Airports spokeswoman Christian Saull explained to Campus Reform that &ldquo;since Reagan National Airport is owned by the federal government, any change to the name would be handled by the federal government and approved by Congress.&rdquo;&nbsp;University of Massachusetts history professor Asheesh Kapur Siddique &mdash; who <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17233">said in April</a> that &ldquo;the problem with academia today is that it has too many conservatives&rdquo; &mdash; endorsed Long&rsquo;s idea.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17233">[RELATED: Prof: &lsquo;The problem with academia today is that it has too many conservatives&rsquo;]&nbsp;</a><blockquote>This is a genuinely phenomenal idea. After all, JoJo hasn&rsquo;t funded Central American death squads or joked about AIDS. <a href="https://t.co/dmclQ4dXpJ">https://t.co/dmclQ4dXpJ</a>&mdash; Asheesh (@AsheeshKSi) <a href="https://twitter.com/AsheeshKSi/status/1389606812639539200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 4, 2021</a></blockquote>&ldquo;This is a genuinely phenomenal idea,&rdquo; <a href="https://twitter.com/AsheeshKSi/status/1389606812639539200">tweeted</a> Siddique. &ldquo;After all, JoJo hasn&rsquo;t funded Central American death squads or joked about AIDS.&rdquo;Campus Reform&nbsp;reached out to Long, Siddique, and the Metropolitan Washington Airports for comment; this article will be updated accordingly.Follow the author of this article on Twitter:&nbsp;<a href="http://twitter.com/BenZeisloft" style=" text-align: start;">@BenZeisloft</a>

A University of Massachusetts history professor — who said in April that “the problem with academia today is that it has too many conservatives” — supports the move as a “genuinely phenomenal idea.”

Georgetown student petitions to rename Reagan National Airport after LGBT 'Dance Moms' star JoJo Siwa

West Virginia students identifying as &ldquo;LGBTQ+&rdquo; created their own anti-racism training.The school&rsquo;s &ldquo;LGBTQ+ Center&rdquo; sponsored the <a href="https://eberly.wvu.edu/news-events/eberly-news/2021/04/12/eberly-college-students-lead-gender-inclusivity-anti-racism-training-at-wvu" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">training</a> to &ldquo;raise awareness of the intersections of race, color, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity.&rdquo;&ldquo;We are extremely thankful to the nearly 100 groups and classrooms who invited our LGBTQ+ ambassadors to talk about anti-racism and gender-inclusivity,&rdquo; said LGBTQ+ Center interim director Ellen Rodrigues about the news on April 14, &ldquo;we received outpouring support and messages of appreciation on how this discussion gave participants a new perspective about their majors and about life.&rdquo; &nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17333" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: Prof tells Senate Judiciary Committee that election security laws &#39;target Black voters&#39; like &#39;Jim Crow&#39;]</a>Rodrigues told Campus Reform that in addition to receiving payment for their work, each student received $1000 from a &ldquo;grant to cover expenses towards professional development.&rdquo;West Virginia University Executive Director of Communications April Stolzenbach added that the money came from the West Virginia High Education Policy Commission, which <a href="https://www.wvhepc.edu/news/higher-education-systems-award-85000-in-grants-to-strengthen-diversity-initiatives-on-college-campuses-in-west-virginia/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">announced</a> in September that it awarded $85,000 in total grants to &ldquo;strengthen diversity initiatives on college campuses in West Virginia.&rdquo;The training <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gjpsmjb3Pj-TNFNmd3B3PIVCbwqY1lCez1K--TVtJ80/edit" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">encompasses</a> several books, articles, videos, podcasts, and other resources related to anti-racism and &ldquo;gender-inclusivity.&rdquo;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17313" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: Democratic Socialists at AOC&rsquo;s alma mater are still protesting for free laundry]</a>One recommended resource is an article titled, <a href="https://nationalseedproject.org/Key-SEED-Texts/white-privilege-unpacking-the-invisible-knapsack" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">&quot;White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,&rdquo;</a> in which author Peggy McIntosh, says that she is bothered by &ldquo;men&rsquo;s unwillingness to grant that they are over-privileged, even though they may grant that women are disadvantaged&rdquo; in her women&rsquo;s studies work.&nbsp;&ldquo;They may say they will work to improve women&rsquo;s status, in the society, the university, or the curriculum,&quot; she said, &quot;but they can&rsquo;t or won&rsquo;t support the idea of lessening men&rsquo;s.&rdquo;&ldquo;I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So, I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege,&rdquo; she continued. &ldquo;I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was &lsquo;meant&rsquo; to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks.&rdquo;<a href="https://campusreform.org/article?id=17316" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: Rutgers students provided with &#39;trigger&#39; warnings in Classics and history courses]</a>The students also recommended <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/color-blindness-is-counterproductive/405037/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">&ldquo;Color-Blindness Is Counterproductive&rdquo;</a> by Harvey Wingfield of The Atlantic.&ldquo;How many times have you heard someone say that they &lsquo;don&rsquo;t see color,&rsquo; &lsquo;are colorblind,&rsquo; or &lsquo;don&rsquo;t have a racist bone in their body?&rsquo;&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Maybe you&rsquo;ve even said this yourself. After all, the dominant language around racial issues today is typically one of colorblindness, as it&rsquo;s often meant to convey distaste for racial practices and attitudes common in an earlier era.&rdquo;Wingfield says that &ldquo;many sociologists, though, are extremely critical of colorblindness as an ideology,&rdquo; since &ldquo;the mechanisms that reproduce racial inequality have become more covert and obscure than they were during the era of open, legal segregation, the language of explicit racism has given way to a discourse of colorblindness.&rdquo;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=17256" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: UVA students scrap gendered pronouns from constitution]</a>&ldquo;But they fear that the refusal to take public note of race actually allows people to ignore manifestations of persistent discrimination,&rdquo; she continues.Another <a href="https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/white-fragility-definition" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">article</a> in Medical News Today &mdash; which was &ldquo;medically reviewed&rdquo; by physician Timothy Legg &mdash; tells students &ldquo;Everything you need to know about white fragility.&rdquo;&ldquo;White fragility refers to feelings of discomfort a white person experiences when they witness discussions around racial inequality and injustice,&rdquo; wrote author Jessica Caporuscio. &ldquo;For example, people of color may find it difficult to speak to white people about white privilege and superiority. The white person may become defensive, and the person of color may feel obligated to comfort the white person because we live in a white-dominated environment.&rdquo;<a href="http://SUNY Geneseo announces new dorm 'for Students of Color'" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED:,SUNY Geneseo announces new dorm &#39;for Students of Color&#39;]</a>&ldquo;White fragility differs from both white privilege and white supremacy,&rdquo; she explained. &ldquo;White privilege refers to the fact that white people have advantages in society that others do not. White supremacy is the belief that people with white skin are superior.&rdquo;Campus Reform reached out to West Virginia University for comment; this article will be updated accordingly.Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/BenZeisloft" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: var(--red); text-decoration: none !important; user-select: auto; font-weight: 600; font-family: Lora; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" target="_blank">Ben Zeisloft</a> on Twitter

Among the dozens of recommended resources are articles explaining “White fragility” and condemning the notion of “color-blindness.”

WVU paid LGBTQ+ students to make their own intersectionality training

Two researchers at Montclair State University claim that &ldquo;LGBTQ-inclusive&rdquo; sex education should begin in elementary school.<a href="https://www.montclair.edu/profilepages/view_profile.php?username=goldfarbe" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"></a> <a href="https://www.montclair.edu/profilepages/view_profile.php?username=goldfarbe" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"></a> <a href="https://www.montclair.edu/profilepages/view_profile.php?username=goldfarbe" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Eva Goldfarb</a> and <a href="https://www.montclair.edu/profilepages/view_profile.php?username=liebermanl" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Lisa Lieberman</a> of Montclair State University examined studies on sexual education ranging from grade school to twelfth grade. They <a href="https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S1054139X20304560?token=EFFEDF8194204F8C3F570446CC91ABEDA121EE357F8C7F4FAC9FFC047BF1078BDE8485C88152E99F3A25B7CF662F108D" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">found</a> that &ldquo;substantial evidence supports sex education beginning in elementary school, that is scaffolded and of longer duration, as well as LGBTQ-inclusive education across the school curriculum and a social justice approach to healthy sexuality.&rdquo;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=16402" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"></a> <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=16402" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"></a> <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=16402" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: LGBT advocates want potential Biden admin to threaten Christian college accreditation]</a> The researchers examined several studies that involved preschool classrooms. According to the researchers, one indicates that &ldquo;young children are, in fact, quite capable of understanding and discussing issues related to gender diversity, including gender expectations, gender nonconformity, and gender-based oppression.&rdquo; <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09575146.2015.1104899" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Another</a> shows that &ldquo;4-year-olds expressed an inclusive understanding of marriage and a social justice stance on LGBTQ rights.&rdquo; After their review of 218 scholarly articles, the researchers concluded that there exists &ldquo;substantial evidence that sexuality education is most effective when begun early and before sexual activity begins.&rdquo; &ldquo;This review suggests that not only are younger children able to discuss sexuality-related issues but that the early grades may, in fact, be the best time to introduce topics related to sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, gender equality, and social justice related to the LGBTQ community before hetero- and cisnormative values and assumptions become more deeply ingrained and less mutable,&rdquo; said the study&rsquo;s conclusion.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=16773" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"></a> <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=16773" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"></a> <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=16773" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: Baylor students want Christian lecturer fired after she questioned Biden&#39;s transgender policies]</a> Likewise, the authors found evidence that beginning sexuality education early would promote &ldquo;a more accepting and welcoming environment for sexual minority youth.&rdquo; They also suggest additional research on &ldquo;expanding social justice pedagogy within the sex education curriculum beyond the topics of gender and sexual orientation.&rdquo; Campus Reform reached out to Goldfarb and Lieberman for comment; this article will be updated accordingly. Follow the author of this article on Twitter:&nbsp;<a href="http://twitter.com/BenZeisloft" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@BenZeisloft</a>

Two Montclair State University professors say that “LGBTQ-inclusive” sex education should begin in elementary school.

Profs argue that LGBTQ-inclusive sex education should begin early, before ‘cisnormative values' become 'more deeply ingrained’

Students at Christian universities identifying as homosexual and transgender are suing the Department of Education to end the religious exemption in Title IX, which would make some Christian universities ineligible to receive federal funding. Thirty-three students are listed as plaintiffs in a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/dozens-of-christian-students-sue-the-u-s-education-dept-hoping-to-pressure-equality-act-negotiations/0d8ff1eb-ee01-4d09-a6ca-30b1c617bebb/?itid=lk_inline_manual_4" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">lawsuit</a> against the United States Department of Education filed in the District of Oregon&rsquo;s Eugene Division. The suit &mdash; written by Paul Southwick of the <a href="https://www.thereap.org/about-us" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Religious Exemption Accountability Project</a> &mdash; states that it is seeking to &ldquo;put an end to the U.S. Department of Education&rsquo;s complicity in the abuses and unsafe conditions thousands of LGBTQ+ students endure at hundreds of taxpayer-funded, religious colleges and universities.&rdquo; &quot;The Plaintiffs seek safety and justice for themselves and for the countless sexual and gender minority students whose oppression, fueled by government funding, and unrestrained by government intervention, persists with injurious consequences to mind, body and soul,&rdquo; said the suit&rsquo;s introduction. &ldquo;When taxpayer-funded religious institutions require sexual and gender minority students to hide their identity out of fear, or to behave contrary to their fundamental sexual or gender identity, the unsurprising consequences are intense pain, loneliness and self-harm.&rdquo; Current and former students of Liberty University in Virginia, Baylor University in Texas, Cedarville University in Ohio, Oklahoma Baptist University, Messiah University in Pennsylvania, and other institutions recounted their experiences as LGBTQ+ students.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=16402" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"></a> <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=16402" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"></a> <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=16402" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: LGBT advocates want potential Biden admin to threaten Christian college accreditation]</a> For instance, Mackenzie McCann &mdash; a former Liberty University student who identifies as &ldquo;queer&rdquo; and &ldquo;non-binary&rdquo; &mdash; said in the lawsuit that the school has a reputation for conservative beliefs. As the suit mentions, Liberty&rsquo;s student conduct guide<a href="https://www.liberty.edu/media/1216/2019%2008%2019-20%20LUO%20Honor%20Code%20(002).pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">&nbsp;states</a> that &ldquo;sexual relations outside of a biblically-ordained marriage between a natural-born man and a natural-born woman are not permissible at Liberty University.&rdquo; &ldquo;Students at Liberty behave in homophobic and anti-queer ways because they know they can do so with relative impunity,&rdquo; said McCann. &ldquo;Liberty&rsquo;s culture enables such conduct and makes students feel like Liberty is backing them.&rdquo; McCann left the school after one semester for her &ldquo;emotional safety.&rdquo;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=16999" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"></a> <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=16999" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"></a> <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=16999" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: Top scientific journal pushes diversity litmus test for would-be authors]</a> Jake Picker &mdash; a pre-med student at Baylor University who identifies as a &ldquo;bisexual man&rdquo; &mdash; said in the lawsuit that &ldquo;Baylor has made its LGBTQ+ students feel like they are less than and undesirable.&rdquo; The suit acknowledges that Baylor students are expected to not participate in groups that &ldquo;promote understandings of human sexuality that are contrary to biblical teaching.&rdquo; Southwick told Campus Reform that &ldquo;some of the plaintiffs were not aware of the schools&#39; policies at the time they applied,&rdquo; while &ldquo;others were aware but were initially told that their attendance would not be an issue.&rdquo; Southwick insisted that his group is &ldquo;not trying to defund these universities,&rdquo; but wants them to keep existing. Bob Jones University Chief of Staff Randy Page told Campus Reform that the university &ldquo;believes all persons have inherent dignity and should thus be treated with kindness and respect.&rdquo; &quot;BJU exercises its legally guaranteed religious freedom in a manner that upholds and reflects this bedrock principle,&rdquo; said Page. &ldquo;Faith-based colleges and universities are an indispensable part of America&rsquo;s diverse higher education picture. This lawsuit is an effort to erase religious schools from the scene by denying financially disadvantaged students the ability to attend the college of their choice.&rdquo; &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a misguided attempt to discard a congressional enactment consistently respected and enforced by every presidential administration &mdash; both Democratic and Republican &mdash; for over four decades,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;BJU intends to vigorously protect its interests and encourages the Biden administration to fulfill its duty to defend a law that reflects the best traditions of American liberty.&rdquo; The lawsuit comes weeks after the House of Representatives passed the Equality Act &mdash; a piece of legislation which seeks to &ldquo;prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation&rdquo; by providing the &ldquo;full range of remedies available under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.&rdquo; <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=16922" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: US House passes &#39;Equality Act.&#39; Religious conservatives warn it&#39;s &#39;conscience-crushing.&#39;]</a> As Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Greg Baylor and other conservative legal scholars told Campus Reform in February, the law &ldquo;threatens to strip religious institutions of their religious identity by forcing them to violate their beliefs.&rdquo; Follow the author of this article on Twitter:&nbsp;<a href="http://twitter.com/BenZeisloft" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@BenZeisloft</a>

The lawsuit comes weeks after the House of Representatives passed the Equality Act — legislation which threatens to violate the consciences of religious colleges.

LGBTQ+ students sue Dept of Ed to defund their own Christian universities

The University of Miami announced it will be open a living learning community for LGBTQ and allied students. The housing community, known as the Gender and Sexuality Studies Living Learning Community (GSS LLC), was created in a partnership among the LGBTQ Student Center, the Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, and Housing and Residential Life. It will be located in <a href="https://hrl.studentaffairs.miami.edu/living-on-campus/our-residential-communities/mahoney-res-college/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Mahoney Residential College</a>, which was an all-male residence hall from 1958 until the early 1970&rsquo;s when it was then converted into a co-ed facility. According to the Miami Hurricane,&nbsp;the <a href="https://www.themiamihurricane.com/2021/03/01/an-lgbtq-living-learning-community-will-house-its-first-residents-next-fall/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">goal</a> for the center is to house 20 to 25 students in its pilot year, all of whom will be taking required courses within the gender and sexualities department. The courses will be taught in the residential college. The University of Miami LGBTQ Student Center made the announcement on Twitter on February 17. Applications for the living-learning community were due on February 25.&nbsp; <a href="https://campusreform.org/article?id=16700" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: Black Student Union demands segregated safe spaces &#39;on and off campus&#39;]</a><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Hey Canes! If you are interested in joining our pilot LLC program, please register by February 25th at <a href="https://t.co/2mdlqMR6bW" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://t.co/2mdlqMR6bW</a>! <a href="https://t.co/waIIZo6NRp" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">pic.twitter.com/waIIZo6NRp</a>&mdash; UM LGBTQ Center (@umlgbtq) <a href="https://twitter.com/umlgbtq/status/1362133332243353602?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 17, 2021</a></blockquote>According to the tweet, students who are interested in participating are required to commit to one year of living in the residential college. Students are also required to &ldquo;get involved in great community service projects&rdquo; and &ldquo;participate in amazing events and programs planned just for your community.&rdquo; The LGBTQ Student Center also points out that the LLC is &ldquo;open to all residential students.&rdquo; Randy Fitzgerald, a senior at the University of Miami and member of the LGBTQ community, told Campus Reform that this isn&rsquo;t his &ldquo;cup of tea.&rdquo; &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not an enthusiast of segregated housing &mdash; I didn&rsquo;t like the concept of segregating housing by gender (ie, &lsquo;male dorm&rsquo; or &lsquo;female floor&rsquo;) and I thought it was weird when I got to college and lived on a floor with only other guys,&rdquo; Fitzgerald said. The University of Miami already offers students the option to live in gender-inclusive housing, according to the <a href="https://hrl.studentaffairs.miami.edu/living-on-campus/faq/gender-inclusive-housing/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Housing and Residential Life portal</a>. <a href="https://campusreform.org/article?id=16787" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: University of Alabama-Birmingham invites &#39;White colleagues&#39; to discuss race &#39;amongst themselves&#39;]</a> However, Fitzgerald said he doesn&rsquo;t see the need to segregate housing based on gender, sexuality, or race. &ldquo;Obviously this is an option for students to opt-into, and I think it&rsquo;s an interesting idea to allow this option for people interested in this,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But just as I wouldn&rsquo;t have opted into a &lsquo;white&rsquo; dorm, I wouldn&rsquo;t opt into housing based on sexual identity &mdash; both are identities that I was born with, but I don&rsquo;t need to be exclusionary about them.&rdquo; Other colleges and universities have offered similar living options for their students, including <a href="https://www.kent.edu/housing/lgbtq-living-learning-community" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Kent State University</a>, the <a href="https://www.umw.edu/residencelife/on-campus/life/tlcs/lgbt-learning-community/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">University of Mary Washington</a>, and <a href="https://lgbtq.wwu.edu/gender-inclusive-housing/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Western Washington University</a>, to name a few. Last semester, the <a href="https://www.alligator.org/article/2020/10/lgbt-focused-living-learning-community-coming-to-uf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">University of Florida</a> announced its first gender-neutral housing options for the upcoming fall semester. Campus Reform reached out to the University of Miami and the University of Miami LGBTQ Student Center for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication. Follow the author of this article on Twitter:&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/opheliejacobson" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@opheliejacobson</a>

The living area will open during the 2021-2022 academic year. 

University of Miami opens new campus housing 'for LGBTQIA+ students'

The Human Rights Campaign released policy proposals that included denying accreditation to religious colleges that do not have &ldquo;nondiscrimination policies and science-based curricula.&rdquo; The Human Rights Campaign&rsquo;s 2020 Blueprint for Positive Change 2020 and the Blueprint for LGBTQ Equality Under Biden <a href="https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/human-rights-campaign-charts-bold-path-for-equality-under-biden-administration" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">recommends&nbsp;</a>federal policies that, according to the organization, are &ldquo;aimed at bettering the daily lives of LGBTQ people at home and abroad.&rdquo; &ldquo;The momentous election of pro-equality champions Joe Biden and Kamala Harris puts us on a path to move equality forward by advancing policies to improve the lives of millions of LGBTQ people,&ldquo; remarked HRC President Alphonso David. &ldquo;Over the last four years, the Trump-Pence administration has systemically attacked LGBTQ people and our nation&rsquo;s most sacred institutions &mdash; our courts, our Constitution, and our fundamental civil rights.&rdquo; &ldquo;The Biden-Harris administration has the opportunity to not only put our democracy back on track but deliver real positive change for LGBTQ people&rsquo;s daily lives,&rdquo; David added. &ldquo;The Blueprint for Positive Change 2020 charts the next administration&rsquo;s path forward to improve the lives of LGBTQ people and move the needle closer toward full equality.&rdquo; <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=16187" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: University of Arizona linguist declares &#39;words matter,&#39; then attacks &#39;white evangelicals&#39;]</a> With respect to religious institutions of higher education, the group recommends that the federal Department of Education &ldquo;ensure nondiscrimination policies and science based curricula are not undermined by religious exemptions to accreditation standards.&rdquo; The <a href="https://hrc-prod-requests.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Blueprint-2020.pdf?mtime=20201110185320&focal=none" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">blueprint&nbsp;</a>states that the Department of Education could interpret &ldquo;language regarding accreditation of religious institutions of higher education in the Higher Education Opportunity Act&rdquo; to &ldquo;require accrediting bodies to accredit religious institutions that discriminate or that do not meet science-based curricula standards.&rdquo; According to the document, the Department of Education &ldquo;should issue a regulation clarifying that this provision, which requires accreditation agencies to &lsquo;respect the stated mission&rsquo; of religious institutions, does not require the accreditation of religious institutions that do not meet neutral accreditation standards including nondiscrimination policies and scientific curriculum requirements.&rdquo; <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/article?id=15496" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: Lawmakers to University of California: Cut partnership with religious health providers]</a> Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President <a href="https://albertmohler.com/2020/11/18/a-direct-threat-to-christian-education-the-human-rights-campaign-demands-that-the-biden-administration-deny-accreditation-to-christian-colleges-and-schools" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Albert Mohler</a> called the policies &ldquo;sinister&rdquo; on his personal blog, saying they would force Christian colleges and universities to contradict their consciences of matters of sexual ethics at the threat of losing accreditation. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve not seen any document like this before&mdash;the Human Rights Campaign is effectively calling for religious colleges and schools to be coerced into the sexual revolution or stripped of accreditation,&rdquo; he remarked. &ldquo;In terms of accreditation, that is an atomic bomb.&rdquo; Dr. <a href="https://www.mbts.edu/about/faculty/owen-strachan/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Owen Strachan</a>, director of the Center of Public Theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, told Campus Reform that he agrees with Mohler&rsquo;s analysis.&nbsp; &ldquo;With respect to this policy, Christian professors and universities that stand on biblical truth seem to be walking into a buzzsaw,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We pray that this policy will not come to fruition, for it is grossly unfair and makes a hash of the American principle of freedom of conscience, a freedom grounded in religious liberty. Religious liberty is the freedom that grounds all the others. Sadly, this proposal will compromise and even attack it.&rdquo;<blockquote><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Lora; font-size: 18px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">&ldquo;Come what may, Christians must stand on the truth, teach the truth, and never apologize for the truth.&quot;</blockquote>&ldquo;Come what may, Christians must stand on the truth, teach the truth, and never apologize for the truth,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;Jesus is the way, truth, and life, and our faith does not conform to the dictates of tyrannical policies.&rdquo; <a href="https://www.thefire.org/resources/fire-staff-speakers/joe-cohn/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Joe Cohn</a>, Legislative and Policy Director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, told Campus Reform that &ldquo;if their policy is adopted, it would easily lead to setting up the government as the entity determining for all colleges what curricula count as being science-based.&rdquo;&nbsp; He explained that such a policy &ldquo;has profound implications for academic freedom and undermines academic freedom rights significantly.&rdquo; Campus Reform reached out to the Human Rights Campaign for comment and will update this article accordingly. Follow the author of this article on Twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/BenZeisloft" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@BenZeisloft</a>

Christian educators see the policies as a threat to their convictions.

LGBT advocates want potential Biden admin to threaten Christian college accreditation

There is little question that the coronavirus pandemic has caused immense stress and hardship for millions of people around the world. However, Harvard University Medical School is pushing the narrative that the &ldquo;LBGTQ+ community&rdquo; is somehow more impacted by the global crisis.&nbsp;The Harvard Health Blog <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/covid-19-and-the-lgbtq-community-rising-to-unique-challenges-2020043019721" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">published</a> an entry by professor<a href="https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/sogie/sogie-team/sabra-l-katz-wise-phd/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">&nbsp;Sabra Katz-Wise</a> outlining the &quot;new forms of stress for the LGBTQ+ community&rdquo; during this time. The entry, titled &ldquo;COVID-19 and the LGBTQ+ community: Rising to unique challenges,&rdquo; outlines the reasons that gay and transgender individuals supposedly face unique challenges.Katz-Wise works as an assistant professor in adolescent/young adult medicine at Boston Children&rsquo;s Hospital, practices pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and works in social and behavioral sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. According to Harvard Health Blog, Katz-Wise is an advocate for workplace climate, medical education, and patient care reform for LGBTQ+ individuals.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=14826" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">[RELATED: Universities developing app to &#39;monitor&#39; users&#39; COVID-19 &#39;risk&#39;]</a>According to Katz-Wise, among the new forms of added stress for LGBTQ+ individuals include &ldquo;loss of work and income,&rdquo; &ldquo;school closures,&rdquo; and &ldquo;worries about seeking care for COVID-19 symptoms.&rdquo; Katz-Wise draws the connection that these forms of added stress come as a result of &ldquo;minority stress based on anti-LGBTQ+ stigma&rdquo; that occurred even before the pandemic.&ldquo;As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, new challenges arise each day for people across the world. Some of these challenges particularly affect the LGBTQ+ community. This unique time calls for LGBTQ+-specific resources and new ways to connect and cope,&rdquo; writes Katz-Wise.&nbsp;When talking about the loss of work or income, Katz-Wise says, &nbsp;&ldquo;Compared with non-LGBTQ+ people, LGBTQ+ people are more likely to have lower income and to have jobs that do not allow for working from home, such as retail stores and the service industry. Therefore, LGBTQ+ people may be more likely to experience food or housing insecurity during this time.&rdquo;Katz-Wise, however, is not alone in her beliefs that the LGBTQ+ Community experiences magnified hardship when it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ithaca College has devoted an entire <a href="https://www.ithaca.edu/center-lgbt-education-outreach-services/resources-and-services/lgbtq-people-and-covid-19" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">webpage</a> designed to educate the community about these specific challenges the LGBT community faces during this time. The college insists that &nbsp;that LGBTQ+ people may be &ldquo;particularly vulnerable.&rdquo;&nbsp;Katz-Wise suggests that LGBT individuals are more impacted by the healthcare implications of the current situation, citing their need for fertility treatments and the unavailability of gender reassignment surgeries.&quot;Transgender and nonbinary people may have trouble accessing gender-affirming care because hormones and surgeries may be considered nonessential,&quot; writes Katz-Wise.&quot;For LGBTQ+ people who are building families, access to fertility clinics is essential. However, many clinics are now delaying fertility treatments, which also delays family building for LGBTQ+ families,&quot; she adds.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=14433" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">[RELATED: OPINION: It&#39;s time to defund LGBT activism on campus]</a>According to Ithaca College, &ldquo;LGBTQ+ people experience health disparities. Barriers to care cause us to be less likely to get medical care; and mean we&#39;re more likely to have compromised health in general. Health disparities magnify the impact COVID-19 could have on us.&rdquo;A recent Pew Research survey <a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2020/04/21/about-half-of-lower-income-americans-report-household-job-or-wage-loss-due-to-covid-19/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">reveals</a> that the COVID-19 pandemic is most-heavily affecting all Americans with low incomes, not just those who identify as LGBTQ: &ldquo;As the economic toll from the coronavirus outbreak <a href="https://apnews.com/1c0c92ce66ddba8dd88a4c66d83506be" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">continues to mount</a>, a new Pew Research Center survey finds the impact is falling more heavily on lower-income adults &ndash; a group that was feeling <a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/12/11/most-americans-say-the-current-economy-is-helping-the-rich-hurting-the-poor-and-middle-class/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">significant financial pressure</a> well before the current crisis.&quot;Follow the author of this article on Twitter:&nbsp;<a href="http://twitter.com/cam_deckr" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@Cam_Deckr</a>

A Harvard Professor says that LGBTQ+ individuals are put under greater stress because of COVID-19 due to job loss, school closures, and medical discrimination

Harvard pushes narrative LGBT community is at greater risk of 'stress' during pandemic 

St. Olaf College in Minnesota plans to host three virtual graduation ceremonies for different groups of minority students, while others must wait until next year to celebrate their completion of college.&ldquo;Self-identified domestic students of color, international students and LGBTQIA+ students&rdquo; at the Minnesota school will receive their own virtual graduation ceremonies at the conclusion of this year amid the COVID-19 pandemic, per an administrative email. Meanwhile, graduation for the rest of the class of 2020 has been &ldquo;rescheduled for a date in late May/early June of 2021,&rdquo; according to the school&#39;s&nbsp;<a href="https://wp.stolaf.edu/commencement/schedule-of-events/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">website</a>.&nbsp;The three virtual graduation ceremonies for students in minority groups were announced by and will be hosted through the Taylor Center for Equity and Inclusion. This project of the school exists to help &ldquo;students of color,&quot; &ldquo;LBGTQIA+&rdquo; and international students &ldquo;celebrate&rdquo; their &ldquo;awesomeness factor,&rdquo; per the center&rsquo;s <a href="https://wp.stolaf.edu/taylorcenter/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">website</a>.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=14573" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: Harvard 2020 class will graduate &#39;online&#39;]</a>The center announced its intent to host the online graduation ceremonies via email, Friday.&nbsp;&ldquo;This event acknowledges the value and uniqueness of students&rsquo; experience and serves to commemorate and highlight the accomplishments of individuals within their familial and cultural context,&rdquo; reads the email.The three graduations are called the multicultural, international, and lavender graduations and are intended for American students of color, international students, and &ldquo;LGBTQIA+&rdquo; students, respectively.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=14729" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: Class of 2020 to return to campus for graduation...in 2021]</a>Campus Reform spoke to multiple graduating seniors at St. Olaf, none of whom said they&rsquo;ve been informed of any online ceremony for the general student body.&nbsp;Associate Director of Communications <a href="https://wp.stolaf.edu/communications/contact-us/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Kari VanDerVeen</a> told Campus Reform that the school is &ldquo;exploring a number of ways to celebrate the Class of 2020,&rdquo; but that plans were not yet &ldquo;finalized.&rdquo; The school website also makes no mention of such an event.Follow the author of this article on Twitter:&nbsp;<a href="http://twitter.com/KyleHooten2" style="text-decoration:none;">@KyleHooten2</a>

Graduation canceled...except for 'students of color' and 'LGBTQIA+' students

The law school at Gonzaga University, a Jesuit Catholic institution, <a href="https://www.gonzaga.edu/news-events/stories/2020/2/14/gonzaga-law-school-launches-lincoln-lgbtq-rights-clinic" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">announced</a> on Valentine&#39;s Day the opening of a new LGBTQ+ Rights Clinic.Joe Lincoln, who graduated from Gonzaga in 1988 and is a current regent at the university, made a &ldquo;significant donation&rdquo; to the school that allowed for this center to be opened. Lincoln also made a donation in 2004 that helped to fund the &ldquo;Lincoln LGBT Center.&rdquo;This &nbsp;center was the first of its kind at any Jesuit university in the nation and in 2006 created the <a href="https://www.gonzaga.edu/news-events/stories/2019/7/11/the-lincoln-lgbtq-resource-center" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">Safe Space Program</a> which, &ldquo;is a program focused on creating and sustaining environments that take into consideration the emotional, physical, and spiritual needs of LGBTQ+ individuals, especially in the classroom.&rdquo;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=13456" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">RELATED: STUDY: LGBT Asian Americans seen as &#39;more American&#39; than those who are straight</a>Gonzaga said in the <a href="https://www.gonzaga.edu/news-events/stories/2020/2/14/gonzaga-law-school-launches-lincoln-lgbtq-rights-clinic" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">announcement</a> that &ldquo;the clinic aims to advance the equal rights and dignity of individuals who identify as LGBTQ+ through education, programming, advocacy, research, and legal representation.&rdquo;The decision to open the center came with <a href="https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/feb/21/spokanes-catholic-bishop-criticizes-new-lgbt-legal/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">scrutiny</a> from the leader of Spokane&rsquo;s Catholic Diocese, who said that the center was &ldquo;contrary to the Catholic faith and natural law,&quot; according to the&nbsp;Spokesman-Review.&nbsp;Jason Gillmer, professor and director of the Center for Civil and Human Rights, said in the school&rsquo;s announcement, &ldquo;The Lincoln LGBTQ+ Rights Clinic provides a special opportunity for Gonzaga law students to help protect and advance the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, both regionally and nationally.&rdquo;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=14433" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: OPINION: It&#39;s time to defund LGBT activism on campus]</a>Robert Bruskotter, a board member of the Gonzaga College Republicans, told&nbsp;Campus Reform, &ldquo;I think the outreach creates a grey area with traditional Catholic teaching and we see that with local Catholic Church leaders in Spokane raising their concerns. Ultimately Gonzaga&rsquo;s Jesuit mission involves engaging with many different types of people so it&rsquo;s not surprising and I think valid that they cite that.&quot;&quot;There&rsquo;s definitely a way to fulfill that mission and still display conservative values but I&rsquo;m not sure the law school&rsquo;s focus is in that direction.&rdquo;Campus Reform&nbsp;reached out to the Gonzaga University School of Law but they did not respond in time for publication.Follow the author of this article on Twitter:<a href="http://twitter.com/bmac0507" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">&nbsp;@Bmac0507</a>

Catholic university Gonzaga opens LGBT center for 'advocacy'

Editor&#39;s note: The views in this opinion editorial are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Campus Reform or of its parent organization, the Leadership Institute.As a graduate student at Stanford University in the 1980s, I worked as a volunteer for the Gay People&rsquo;s Union, the Gay Counseling Group, and the Gay and Lesbian Speaker&rsquo;s Bureau, so I have a great appreciation for the value that such efforts bring to the LGBTQ community.&nbsp;Transitioning to college life can often be challenging for young people and can become especially challenging when individuals are exploring their sexuality for the first time in their lives.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=14177" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: OPINION: It&#39;s time for colleges to drop &#39;people of color&#39; label]</a>At Stanford, these efforts were entirely run by unpaid student volunteers. I recently became aware of the level of support provided to what we call the Q Center at the University of Washington <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=14248" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">where I work</a>, and I was surprised to find how much the university is spending. The center is in the process of hiring a new director and the<a href="https://main.hercjobs.org/jobs/13297354/director-q-center" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">&nbsp;job description</a> makes it clear that the director manages two other full-time staff as well as eight to ten student staff members.This seems like a huge expense for the university to shoulder at a time when attitudes about the LGBTQ community are undergoing a dramatic shift. It proves the adage from Milton Friedman that &ldquo;nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.&rdquo;I have witnessed this incredible shift in attitude within my lifetime. Flashback to 1986 and you find the Supreme Court upholding a gay man&rsquo;s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowers_v._Hardwick" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">conviction</a> under a Georgia sodomy law where police arrested him literally in the privacy of his own bedroom for engaging in a consensual sex act. A <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/1651/gay-lesbian-rights.aspx" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Gallup poll</a> showed that less than a third of the country thought that gay and lesbian relationships should be legal. President Ronald Reagan had just begun discussing the AIDS epidemic as it had been devastating the gay community for the better part of a decade.Fast forward to today and you find sodomy laws declared unconstitutional and gay marriage enshrined as the law of the land. The same Gallup question now finds that 73 percent of Americans think that gay and lesbian relationships should be legal with even higher percentages among young people. And it seems that people can&rsquo;t stop talking about LGBTQ issues.&nbsp;In recognition of National Coming Out Day, CNN hosted a four and a half-hour town hall on LGBTQ issues in which the Democratic presidential hopefuls fell all over themselves to see who could pander the most to the community.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=14066" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: OPINION: &#39;Gender jackpot&#39; highlights absurdity of PC propaganda]</a>The atmosphere is particularly supportive of LGBTQ people at the University of Washington, where our president is open about being a lesbian and where we were recently <a href="https://www.bestcolleges.com/features/best-colleges-for-lgbt-students/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ranked number one</a> for best college for LGBTQ students by BestColleges.com and Campus Pride. You can barely find an American flag anywhere on campus, but the pride flag was prominently displayed in the building where I work during Gay Pride Month.What I find most objectionable, however, is not that the university provides support to the Q Center but that it provides support to queer activism. The outgoing director <a href="https://www.facebook.com/uwqcenter/posts/2779929935400119" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">posted a note</a> describing the history of the center and plans for the future.&nbsp;This note exhibits an astonishing and unapologetic political bias. For example, one of the founding principles was that the center would be grounded in &ldquo;an intersectional racial and gender justice praxis rooted in the endeavors of feminists of color.&rdquo; How is that relevant to a young person who is struggling with their sexual identity and who has little interest in politics or political ideology?The note from the outgoing director also states that we need new leadership because, &ldquo;while culturally and globally we are in the thick of distress, disease, decay, devastation, and destruction; I see, feel, and know we are simultaneously in a moment of transformation, a massive realigning of human ethics, connection, values, engagement, and collusion to heal and radically change.&rdquo;&nbsp;The official job description lists as one of the qualifications, &ldquo;knowledge and understanding of intersecting, multiple identities and interlocking systems of privilege and oppression.&rdquo; Why should managing a resource center for all LGBTQ community members require an ideological litmus test that only the most woke progressives can pass? Clearly the center has been&mdash;and plans to continue to be&mdash;under the control of progressive activists who are more interested in reshaping society than in building an environment welcoming to all members of the LGBTQ community.I have no objection to progressive activists working to achieve their goals. I happen to favor other goals, but our system is designed to allow us to fight that out in the arena of politics. I object to turning what should be a support center into a base of operations to advance a narrow set of political objectives. It is particularly galling to know that university funds are used for this purpose.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=13813" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: What academic Antifa wants (OPINION)]</a>As I have written about elsewhere, the new closet on campus is occupied by conservatives, libertarians, and deeply religious individuals. They are pressured into silence for fear of being accused of hate speech if they dare to disagree with the progressive narrative that is prevalent on campus. Students are required to take a diversity course that is expected to lead them to a contrite acknowledgment of past and present oppression of all traditionally marginalized groups, and if you don&rsquo;t want to be accused of homophobia you must pledge allegiance to gay marriage, the Equality Act, equal adoption rights for LGBTQ parents, and transgender orthodoxy (&ldquo;trans women are women&rdquo;).Those of us who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender have to accept that we aren&rsquo;t queer anymore. We&rsquo;ve become the mainstream.&nbsp;We&rsquo;re likely to need a Q Center indefinitely to support our community, but we can&rsquo;t expect to have paid staff forever. And we certainly should actively resist allowing the organization to be co-opted by radical activists for their own partisan political ends.&nbsp;They should not be paid a salary to perform a fundamentally political task.<a href="https://www.cs.washington.edu/people/faculty/reges" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Stuart Reges</a>&nbsp;is a principal lecturer of computer science at the University of Washington.&nbsp;

OPINION: It's time to defund LGBT activism on campus

The University of Alabama recently promoted a specifically targeted professional development opportunity in the name of &ldquo;diversity and inclusion.&rdquo;A Morgan Stanley Bank student professional enhancement <a href="https://www.morganstanley.com/people-opportunities/students-graduates/programs/institutional-securities/freshman-enhancement-program" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">opportunity</a>, promoted by the University of Alabama, is only available to &ldquo;Black, Hispanic, Native American, and/or LGBT+&rdquo; students.&nbsp;UA&rsquo;s Culverhouse College of Business career center distributed multiple emails to business students advertising Morgan Stanley&rsquo;s &ldquo;2020 Freshman Enhancement Program.&rdquo; The opportunity entails a one-week paid program at Morgan Stanley&rsquo;s New York City headquarters.Campus Reform obtained copies of one of the emails sent to students.&nbsp;<iframe class="scribd_iframe_embed" title="Morgan Stanley" src="https://www.scribd.com/embeds/443889442/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-lGVpfKx2ASQczuztxWLO&show_recommendations=true" data-auto-height="false" data-aspect-ratio="0.7729220222793488" scrolling="no" id="doc_28648" width="100%" height="600" frameborder="0"></iframe><a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=14126" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: CU-Boulder hosts minority-only STEM career development retreat]</a>According to Morgan Stanley&rsquo;s description, &ldquo;The week will include valuable training, as well as opportunities to network with each other and learn from Morgan Stanley professionals across our divisions.&rdquo;Among listed requirements for the program was one specifying that applicants be &ldquo;Black, Hispanic, Native American, and/or LGBT+&rdquo; freshmen undergraduate students. The program is meant to provide &ldquo;the opportunity to experience Morgan Stanley culture first-hand&rdquo; specifically to &ldquo;Black, Hispanic, Native American and LGBT+ students.&rdquo;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=13287" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">[RELATED: Christian uni pays non-whites to attend minority-only STEM workshop program]</a>The bank explains that the program is designed to &ldquo;help diverse college freshmen gain a better understanding of the various businesses and career paths Morgan Stanley provides.&rdquo;&nbsp;The promotion touted Morgan Stanley&rsquo;s &ldquo;strong commitment to a culture of inclusion,&rdquo; stating that they &ldquo;strive to attract and retain top candidates from all backgrounds through a focus on recruitment, career development and individual advancement.&rdquo;The program will take place from Monday, May 18 through Friday, May 22.&nbsp;Campus Reform reached out to the university for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.

In a recent email blast, the University of Alabama promoted a program hosted by Morgan Stanley and restricted to very specific groups of students.

EXCLUSIVE: UA promotes program ONLY for 'Black, Hispanic, Native American, and/or LGBT+' students

Research from the University of Washington found that students believe Asian Americans who identify as LGBTQ are &quot;more American&quot; than those who do not.&nbsp;The recent <a href="http://www.washington.edu/news/2019/06/27/lgbtq-asian-americans-seen-as-more-american/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">findings</a>, published June 27 in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/home/spp" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">Social Psychological and Personality Science</a>, were collected from multiple studies that involved four randomly assigned groups of participants from the school&rsquo;s student body. Each participant was asked to answer questions regarding different profiles of imaginary people.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=11219" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">[RELATED: Scholars claim Asian Americans used to perpetuate racism in STEM]</a>In the first study, students were assigned a brief description of a person named John, either labeled as an &ldquo;Asian American man&rdquo; or a &ldquo;gay Asian American man.&rdquo; With a one through seven scale for various questions, they were to rate how American he was. The questions included &ldquo;How fluently do you think this person speaks English?&rdquo; and &ldquo;How integrated is this person in American culture?&rdquo;The results overwhelmingly found that the &ldquo;gay Asian American man&rdquo; scored higher on the &ldquo;Americanness&rdquo; scale that the normal &ldquo;Asian American man.&rdquo;The second study used questions similar in nature, but included more groups of people, with profiles of men, women, whites, and Asian Americans. The hypothetical profiles listed each person as either &ldquo;gay&rdquo; or not specified. Common &ldquo;American&rdquo; names were also given to each imaginary subject. Once again, the study found that Asian Americans who identified as gay were seen as &quot;more American.&quot;&ldquo;One possible extension of this work is that gay Asian Americans may be less likely to have their American identities questioned than straight Asian Americans,&rdquo; said Sapna Cheryan, a UW psychology professor.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=10353" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">[RELATED: Asian students guilty of &#39;colorblind racism,&#39; prof claims]</a>Separate studies by the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/08/key-facts-about-asian-americans/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">Pew Research Center</a> have shown that Asians are the fastest-growing racial group in the U.S. UW, however, notes that they are also consistently perceived as &ldquo;foreign.&rdquo;&nbsp;&ldquo;I am offended that my patriotism is being questioned in this study,&rdquo; Caleb Chung, an Asian American student at Northeastern University, told Campus Reform. &ldquo;Regardless of my race, I was born and raised in the U.S., and I want to be seen as an American.&rdquo;&quot;The bottom line is that if you are an American citizen, you love this country, and you are willing to defend the Constitution and the principles that this country was founded on, you are an American by all means,&rdquo; Joel Valdez, who studied at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, told Campus Reform.&nbsp;Valdez, an intern for Campus Reform&#39;s parent organization the Leadership Institute, noted that he is a Mexican-American and proud to be a citizen of this country: &ldquo;The danger in designating a ranking of Americanism based on a minority status completely undermines the longing for equality that the LGBT community has been fighting for. We are all equal under the red, white, and blue.&quot;Follow the author of this article on Twitter:&nbsp;<a href="http://twitter.com/ethanycai" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@ethanycai</a>

STUDY: LGBT Asian Americans seen as 'more American' than those who are straight

Public universities are offering huge sums of money as salaries for new positions specifically catering to LGBT individuals.Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania is currently seeking a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.higheredjobs.com/search/details.cfm?JobCode=176955321&Title=Pride%20Center%20Coordinator" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">coordinator</a> for its &ldquo;Pride Center.&rdquo; The incumbent will be paid up to $41,000 annually and will be charged with duties such as creating and delivering programs to provide &ldquo;outreach&rdquo; and &ldquo;community building&rdquo; for LGBT students and faculty, as well as their &ldquo;allies.&rdquo;The selected candidate will also be responsible for developing workshops on &ldquo;LGBTQ+ specific topics&rdquo; such as &nbsp;&ldquo;SAFE ZONE trainings,&rdquo; and for planning celebrations of National Coming Out Day, Trans Remembrance Day, and LGBTQ+ history month. He or she will also help organize the university&rsquo;s &ldquo;lavender graduation,&rdquo; a separate graduation ceremony held for students who identify as LGBT.Additional duties for the coordinator will include ensuring the &ldquo;inclusion and visibility&rdquo; of all LGBT students, staff, and faculty, as well as working with administration to ensure that university policies and curricula are &ldquo;LGBTQ+&rdquo; inclusive.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=11395" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">[RELATED: Student charged for allegedly making false anti-LGBT threats against herself]</a>A similar&nbsp;<a href="https://www.higheredjobs.com/search/details.cfm?JobCode=176952629&Title=Visiting%20Scholar%2C%20Intersections%20in%20the%20Lives%20of%20LGBTQIA%2B%20Communities" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">opening</a> at Virginia Commonwealth University promises up to $86,000 each for a maximum of three scholars who will be chosen to &ldquo;promote&rdquo; LGBTQIA+ &ldquo;empowerment, inclusion, and equity.&rdquo; &nbsp;The LGBTQIA+ visiting scholars will be charged with conducting &ldquo;translational research&rdquo; and will &ldquo;promote empowerment, inclusion, and equity for LGBTQIA+ people with multiple marginalized identities.&rdquo;The chosen researchers will be required to advise the university on the creation of its own center &ldquo;focused on LGBTQIA research and advocacy,&rdquo; as well as to teach a course during the academic year. The job listing notes that successful applicants should have &ldquo;research interests relating to LGBTQIA+ people with multiple marginalized identities,&rdquo; as well as &ldquo;lived experience and/or service that informs worldviews and/or perspectives about minority group status, to include race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, class, and disability.&rdquo;&ldquo;I certainly don&#39;t think this is a valid use of university resources,&rdquo; VCU alum Thomas Wagner told Campus Reform. &ldquo;Students shouldn&#39;t wonder why tuition rates continuously increase when every year the school hires more professors to teach a specific political ideology.&rdquo;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9887" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">[RELATED: LGBT-only dorms could &lsquo;backfire,&rsquo; prof warns]</a>&ldquo;It is sad to see postmodern philosophy and identity politics framing the academic curriculum,&rdquo; Wagner said. &ldquo;Hopefully the school returns to teaching people how to think, and not what to think.&rdquo;&nbsp;Campus Reform reached out to both VCU and Shippensburg University but did not receive a response in time for publication.Follow the author of this article on Twitter:&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/celinedryan" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">@celinedryan</a>

Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania is seeking out a coordinator for its Pride Center.

Schools shelling out tens, maybe HUNDREDS of thousands for LGBT staff

The Pride Center at Oregon State University called for Veteran Student Association (VSA) members to be barred from moving into an on-campus student lounge, stating that it is concerned about the veteran students&rsquo; &ldquo;patriotism&rdquo; and the &ldquo;wellbeing&rdquo; of students.In a since-deleted open letter to the OSU community posted on <a href="https://archive.is/vG54o" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">Facebook</a> on March 15, the pride center and the LGBTQ+ Multicultural Support Network said that they oppose moving the VSA into the Student Experience Center Involvement Lounge on campus.The involvement lounge is a space for students to find out how to get involved on campus, according to its <a href="https://experience.oregonstate.edu/resources/involvement-lounge" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">webpage</a>.The Pride Center, which is an entity of the Department of Diversity and Cultural Engagement, stated that their members would be &ldquo;vulnerable&rdquo; to the consequences of deciding to let the vet group occupy that space.&ldquo;The communities that our organizations serve are vulnerable to the ideological and practical consequences that this decision would bring about,&rdquo; the Pride Center and LGBTQ group stated.Specifically, the groups cite President Donald Trump&rsquo;s ban on transgender individuals from serving in the military as part of their reasoning for this move.<img src="//s3.amazonaws.com/campusreform/12006/15532693031851.jpg" style="width: 400px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">&ldquo;This push to curb the rights of transgender people to participate as fully as they desire in US society has caused much distress throughout the LGBTQ+ community,&rdquo; the groups said. &ldquo;We are disheartened to think that our community, which has historically fought to be recognized fully as human beings, [is] being forced to continue this fight.&rdquo;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9646" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">[RELATED: Social justice warriors want universities to &lsquo;ban veterans&rsquo;]</a>However, Trump&rsquo;s policies weren&rsquo;t the only reason for the organizations&rsquo; statement.The Pride Center and LGBTQ+ group also explain that they are concerned with the &ldquo;particular type of American patriotism that would be promoted by centralizing the Veteran Students Association in the [Student Experience Center].&rdquo;&ldquo;We aim to resist the pain that US militarism has caused our siblings in struggle, and we denounce the glorification of the system that is responsible for this violence,&rdquo; the center stated.The groups say that the letter is not supposed to be an attack on veterans but note that the &ldquo;campus LGBTQ+ community is built on legacies of justice that oppose military intervention and war.&rdquo;They conclude their open letter by stating that the student veterans are deserving of a space, but putting them in a spot on the center of campus &ldquo;jeopardizes the wellbeing of many vulnerable students, including those [who are] a part of the LGBTQ+ community.&rdquo;The College Republicans President at OSU, Peter Halajian, told Campus Reform that he cannot see how this is not an attack on veterans, and argued that nobody cares where the VSA office is located. He called the letter &ldquo;disgusting,&rdquo; &ldquo;shameful,&rdquo; and &ldquo;hypocritical.&rdquo;&ldquo;It&#39;s simply the reasoning given that is a disgusting attack. Furthermore, no one is forcing the Pride Center to be in favor of any war; past, present, or future! The fact that the mere sight of veterans services on campus is disturbing to them is just plain sad,&rdquo; Halajian said. &ldquo;The Pride Center can&#39;t on the one hand claim to support veterans well-being (or support LGBT+ veterans at all for that matter) and then be against a conveniently located center for them to get the services and support that they need.&rdquo;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=11395" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">[RELATED: Student charged for allegedly making false anti-LGBT threats against herself]</a>The Pride Center deleted the above post on Thursday and made a follow-up statement.&quot;We have [deleted the post] because the open letter was written by and represents the views of individual students,&quot; the group <a href="https://www.facebook.com/OSUPrideCenter/posts/10156546831549862" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">said</a>. &quot;While Pride Center and SOL student staff have the right to make statements as individuals on issues that are important to them, the posting of this open letter violated our communication policy.&quot;<img src="//s3.amazonaws.com/campusreform/12006/Screenshot_(741)_(1).jpg" style="width: 500px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">&quot;We recognize the statement has been a source of pain for many individuals,&quot; the Pride Center continued. &quot;We welcome and support our veterans. And we share with you that the Pride Center assistant director is working with the Military and Veteran Resources advis[e]r to create healing spaces for those who are hurting.&quot;Campus Reform reached out to Oregon State University for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.Follow the author of this article on Twitter:&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/asabes10" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">@asabes10</a>

The Pride Center and LGBTQ+ Multicultural Support Network at Oregon State University posted that they do not want a student veteran group to occupy a student lounge.

LGBTQ groups: Student vets 'jeopardize' well-being of students

The University of California-Santa Barbara is seeking a new LGBTQ program coordinator to organize &ldquo;identity-based programs.&rdquo; UCSB&#39;s job <a href="https://www.higheredjobs.com/search/details.cfm?JobCode=176898611&Title=LGBTQ%20Program%20Coordinator" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">listing</a> offers up to $57,000 annually, on an hourly basis, for an individual who will be expected to &ldquo;create an inclusive environment&rdquo; for &ldquo;underrepresented, underserved, and marginalized students,&rdquo; including LGBT students, students of color, and students who &ldquo;identify with intersections of multiple identities,&quot; as well as to serve as an &nbsp;&ldquo;advocate for students who identify as LGBTQIA&rdquo; &nbsp;to the university staff. The chosen applicant will be <a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/job-listing/lgbtq-program-coordinator-uc-santa-barbara-JV_IC1147473_KO0,25_KE26,42.htm?jl=3085112423&utm_campaign=google_jobs_apply&utm_source=google_jobs_apply&utm_medium=organic" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">responsible for</a> developing, implementing, and overseeing programming aimed at addressing political, social, emotional, and physical &ldquo;trends and needs in the LGBTQIA community,&rdquo; as well as creating marketing strategies to spread awareness for the university&rsquo;s LGBT Center.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=10616" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: UCSB students demand more resources for illegal immigrants]</a> In addition to managing such strategies, the coordinator will serve as a mentor to student groups that &ldquo;focus on LGBTQIA identities, serving as an &ldquo;advocate for students who identify as LGBTQIA&rdquo; &nbsp;to university staff. He or she will also be responsible for providing &ldquo;transactional advising&rdquo; to students participating in larger campus organizations and student government. UCSB&#39;s LGBTQ program coordinator will also be required to recruit and train a team of student volunteers to represent the LGBTQIA university population in order to &ldquo;ensure timely response to campus activism and outreach.&rdquo; Campus Reform reached out to the university for comment, but did not receive a response in time for press.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=8449" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: UCSB student called &#39;fascist&#39; for questioning aid to illegals]</a>UC-Santa Barbara has a history of catering to the LGBT community. As Campus Reform reported, in January 2016, the school <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=7154" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">used student fees&nbsp;</a>to host a book discussion on &nbsp;&quot;the anti-fat stigma that persists in American culture,&quot; specifically for &quot;fat, gay men.&quot; And, in September 2015, the school <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=6811" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">released</a> a &quot;Homosexuality and Religion&quot; guide that said the Bible objects to members of the LGBT &nbsp;community having equal rights, but that religion shouldn&#39;t get in the way of people&#39;s sex lives.&nbsp;It&#39;s also not the first time that colleges have devoted resources specifically to programs or jobs for LGBT individuals. In August 2017, the University of Wisconsin-Madison <a href="https://wwwt.campusreform.org/?ID=9532" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">announced</a> that it was hiring for someone with &quot;relevant experience working in student organizing and activism around LGBT issues, multiculturalism and social justice in a higher education setting.&quot; Follow the author of this article on Twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/celinedryan" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@celinedryan</a>

Whoever fills the position is eligible to be paid up to $57,000 per year.

Here's how much UC-Santa Barbara is willing to pay an LGBTQ 'advocate'

Harvard University will hire a paid fellow to assist with outreach to the LGBT community in the spring 2019 semester.The decision comes after years of requests by student groups to allocate more resources to making LGBT students feel more welcome on campus, <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/12/14/gsas-bgltq-fellow/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">according to The Harvard Crimson</a>. Harvard has not yet disclosed the &ldquo;BGLTQ&rdquo; fellowship&rsquo;s salary.Harvard&rsquo;s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences made the choice to hire such a fellow following the decisions of other prestigious American institutions, including, <a href="https://ocs.yale.edu/career-resource/yale-lgbt-studies-research" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">Yale</a>, <a href="https://www.brown.edu/academics/gradschool/diversity-0" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">Brown</a>, <a href="https://shass.mit.edu/academics/graduate/diversity-predoc" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">MIT</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://gradschool.princeton.edu/diversity/student-resources/diversity-fellows-program" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">Princeton</a>, to hire fellows with similar objectives.&nbsp;An LGBTQ <a href="https://gsas.harvard.edu/student-life/harvard-resources/lgbtqgsas" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">student group</a> at the graduate school advocated for the recruitment of the fellow.&ldquo;Year after year, we have been telling administrators <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/8j8vh0pjl6t301f/OpenLetterToGSAS.pdf?dl=0" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">that LGBTQ people need better supports</a>,&rdquo; LGBTQ@GSAS asserted in a <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vuT62JnpKwWnxp3CpJ0YVJPTCBBMJ7nuhpUaSlbMvCY/edit?fbclid=IwAR3iiKtiFsYuu_e2eOHEgXihIa7zDx82x2ZDJ1V0GyabVKR_DBxWJreXpNI" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">statement</a> posted to its <a href="https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=LGBTQ%40GSAS&epa=SEARCH_BOX" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">Facebook page</a> in April. &ldquo;Among other things, we have been requesting that Harvard fund a staff person to address the needs of the LGBTQ+ community, as other universities do as a matter of course. Every year they refuse, claiming a flat budget.&rdquo;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=11259" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">[RELATED: DOJ not buying Harvard&rsquo;s defense in affirmative action case]</a>&ldquo;The Office for Diversity and Minority Affairs offers some monetary support to LGBTQ@GSAS, a model which relies on unpaid, volunteer student labor and initiative, and costs a fraction of what a full-time position for a staff person would,&rdquo; the group continued.In April, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences&rsquo; Office of Diversity and Minority Affairs hired its first two paid &ldquo;diversity fellows,&quot; <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/4/13/gsas-2018-diversity-fellows/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">The Crimson</a> reported. Ph.D. students Alyssa M. Hernandez and Alfredo M. Valencia, who currently serve in these capacities, applied for the positions as a way &ldquo;to make underrepresented minorities feel more welcome on Harvard&rsquo;s campus.&rdquo;Hernandez and Valencia also indicated, after speaking with prospective students at several visiting events, that they would focus on the sense of &ldquo;imposter syndrome&rdquo; associated with admission to Harvard as a minority.&nbsp;&ldquo;There&rsquo;s such a reputation, and it&rsquo;s intimidating,&rdquo; Hernandez told The Crimson. &ldquo;Graduate students talk a lot about impostor syndrome and feeling like they didn&rsquo;t deserve to get in. We want to make Harvard more welcoming to students of color.&rdquo;&nbsp;He also indicated that the addition of a third diversity fellow will help GSAS &ldquo;better serve&rdquo; LGBTQ students.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=11600" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration:none;" target="_blank">[RELATED: Harvard gets hammered with lawsuits over &lsquo;sexist&rsquo; same-sex club policy]</a>Harvard did not respond to a request for comment regarding the salary of the LGBT fellow position or the two diversity fellow positions currently filled by Hernandez and Valencia. But Harvard fellows are typically paid &ldquo;between $55,000 and $70,000 per year depending on experience and the nature of each Fellowship assignment,&rdquo; according to the school&rsquo;s human resources <a href="https://hr.harvard.edu/faq/what-salary-range-fellowships" style="text-decoration:none;">site</a>.The page also states that &ldquo;fellowships are eligible for the Harvard University benefits package and this includes vacation time and available health, vision, and dental insurance.&rdquo;Follow the author of this article on Twitter:&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/YoungGaGOP" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@YoungGaGOP</a>

Harvard hires to 'address needs of the LGBTQ+ community'

The University of Pittsburgh Arts Department is now offering students LGBT-themed coloring books in the Frick Fine Arts Library.The books include &ldquo;Drag Queens of the South&rdquo;, and &ldquo;The Big Gay Alphabet Coloring Book.&quot; A series of coloring books on butch lesbians are also available, including &ldquo;Butch Lesbians of the &rsquo;20s, &#39;30s, and &#39;40s&rdquo; and &ldquo;Butch Lesbians of the &#39;50s, &#39;60s, and &#39;70s.&quot;Housed within the University Arts Library at Frick Hall, the coloring books are located along the back wall in the meeting rooms next to the &ldquo;RESIST!&rdquo; and &ldquo;Lesbian Witchcraft&rdquo; zines for interested students. Pitt provides colored pencils alongside the books for use.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=11559" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: UW Madison hosts event for &#39;white identifying LGBTQ+ folks&#39;]</a>Pitt&rsquo;s library system, PITTCat+, houses over half a billion different types of content for student learning and <a href="https://pitt.summon.serialssolutions.com/search?s.q=coloring+books#!/search?ho=t&fvf=SubjectTerms,coloring%20books,f&l=en&q=SubjectTerms:%22Coloring%20books.%22" style="text-decoration: none;">435 books aimed at teaching coloring for Pitt&rsquo;s college students.</a>&nbsp;The collection is &ldquo;for the research, teaching, and learning needs of faculty, staff, and students, which includes collecting materials that represent diverse groups and interests,&rdquo; Kate Joranson, head of the library, told The Pitt Maverick.Joranson added, &ldquo;we [The Frick Library Staff] support Pitt&rsquo;s commitment to diversity and inclusion as a core value.&rdquo;After Joranson ignored&nbsp;The Pitt Maverick&rsquo;s query on the cost of these books, The Pitt Maverick returned to the Frick Fine Arts Library for investigation. However, the books in question were removed the day after reaching out for comment.&nbsp;BEFORE:&nbsp;<img src="//s3.amazonaws.com/campusreform/11605/pitt_2_watermarked.jpg" style="width: 600px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">AFTER:<img src="//s3.amazonaws.com/campusreform/11605/pitt_watermarked.jpg" style="width: 600px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"> The market value of all the books shown in the photographs is $120.40.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=10989" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: UW-Madison renames &lsquo;LGBT Center&rsquo; to avoid &lsquo;binaries&rsquo;]</a>Various other coloring books sit in the same place, none of which include the LGBT-centric coloring books as the day before. The Pitt Maverick requested a comment from Joranson, receiving no response.This article was originally published in&nbsp;<a href="http://www.thepittmaverick.com/2018/12/05/queer-themed-coloring-books-now-available-to-pitt-students/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Pitt Maverick</a>, a conservative student newspaper affiliated with the Leadership Institute&#39;s Campus Leadership Program. Its articles are republished here with permission. Follow The Pitt Maverick on Twitter:&nbsp;<a href="http://twitter.com/@ThePittMaverick" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@ThePittMaverick</a>

UPitt art center pencils in LGBT-themed coloring books

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is hosting an event aimed at &ldquo;white identifying LGBTQ+ folks.&rdquo;The University of Wisconsin-Madison is hosting an <a href="http://today.wisc.edu/events/view/129858" style="text-decoration:none;">event</a> on Nov. 28, titled, &quot;Whiteness in Queer Spaces,&rdquo; inviting students to a &ldquo;discussion on whiteness in LGBTQ+ spaces and community.&rdquo; The Gender and Campus Sexuality Center is <a href="https://www.facebook.com/uwgscc/photos/gm.350655132348688/10156383597148283/?type=3&theater" style="text-decoration:none;">sponsoring</a> the event.&ldquo;This is an intended&nbsp;[sic] for space, meaning intended for white identifying LGBTQ+ folks to address and discuss their role in oppressive whiteness in queer spaces, community, and beyond,&rdquo; the event description reads.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=11157" style="text-decoration:none;">[RELATED: Prof calls on art teachers to reject &lsquo;geometry of whiteness&rsquo;]</a>&ldquo;We make programming about race and ethnicity available to all students because research shows that students of color here report a less favorable experience (for example, being more likely to experience harassing or hostile behavior) than white students,&rdquo; UW Madison spokeswoman Meredith McGlone told Campus Reform. &ldquo;Our goal is for all students to feel welcome and able to thrive.&rdquo; &nbsp; &ldquo;We do not discriminate based on race, gender or other characteristics &ndash; events are always open to anyone who wishes to attend,&rdquo; McGlone added.UW Madison renamed its LGBT Center the &ldquo;Gender and Sexuality Campus Center&rdquo; to include students who identify with labels outside of the four included in LGBT.<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=10989" style="text-decoration:none;">[RELATED: UW-Madison renames &lsquo;LGBT Center&rsquo; to avoid &lsquo;binaries&rsquo;]</a>A March 2018 study <a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=10614" style="text-decoration:none;">conducted</a> by Campus Reform found that 95 percent of student fees going toward partisan student organizations at UW Madison went to groups of a left-leaning perspective.Follow the author of this article on Twitter&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/knelson1776" style="text-decoration:none;">@knelson1776</a>

UW Madison hosts event for 'white identifying LGBTQ+ folks'

A member of student government at Ohio University has been charged with a misdemeanor after she allegedly made false statements to police about receiving threatening messages.&nbsp;Anna Ayers, who is a member of the OU student senate, was arrested Monday and charged by the Ohio University Police Department with three separate counts of &ldquo;making false alarms.&rdquo; It is alleged that Ayers falsely reported multiple threatening messages, including a &ldquo;death threat,&rdquo; which she claims was because of her being a member of the LGBTQ community.&nbsp;But an OU police department investigation revealed that Ayers&rsquo; claims were false. The probe further uncovered that Ayers had &ldquo;placed the messages herself, prior to reporting them,&rdquo; according to an OU police statement.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=8169" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">[RELATED: Pro-life students accosted, again, at Ohio University]</a><img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/campusreform/11395/Screenshot_(104)4.jpg" style="width: 600px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">&ldquo;Ayers previously reported receiving a series of threatening messages, two of them in the Student Senate office, and one of them at her residence,&rdquo; the OU Police Department&#39;s statement reads, adding that, &ldquo;subsequent investigation by OUPD found that Ayers had placed the messages herself, prior to reporting them.&rdquo;Ayers, the former student senate appropriations commissioner, reported to the student senate last week that she received a note in the student senate office on September 27, which she said &ldquo;expressed extreme hatred&hellip; because of who I am,&rdquo; according to an <a href="https://www.thepostathens.com/article/2018/10/ohio-university-student-senate-lgbt-death-threat" style="text-decoration:none;">article</a> in The Post, a student-run newspaper on campus.The following week, October 6, Ayers thanked supporters on Twitter for being with her &ldquo;during a pretty awful time.&rdquo;<img src="//s3.amazonaws.com/campusreform/11395/Screen_Shot_2018-10-09_at_2.03.22_AM.jpg" style="width: 600px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"> The E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at OU, which Ayers attends, tweeted its support for the former student senator.&nbsp; <img src="//s3.amazonaws.com/campusreform/11395/Screen_Shot_2018-10-09_at_2.01.08_AM.jpg" style="width: 600px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"> Ayers alleged that she received additional death threats contained within messages on notes. The messages took aim at her identity as an LGBTQ community member, according to her account.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9765" style="text-decoration:none;">[RELATED: University bans classroom protests after controversial sit-in]</a>&ldquo;Making &lsquo;false alarms&rsquo; is a first-degree misdemeanor that can carry a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.&rdquo; According to an OU Police Department tweet, &ldquo;Ayers is scheduled to appear in Athens County Municipal Court Thursday morning.&quot;&ldquo;We are still processing and encouraging our members to take time to heal and utilize campus support resources right now,&rdquo; Student Senate President Maddie Sloat said in a statement to Campus Reform. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re complying with the investigation and OUPD. We hope Anna receives the help that she needs.&rdquo; With regard to her position in [the student senate, spokesperson for the student government organization told Campus Reform,&nbsp;&ldquo;Anna Ayers resigned from her position this morning.&quot;&ldquo;All complaints of harassment and threats of violence are taken seriously at Ohio University and investigated as fully as possible with a desire to uncover facts,&quot; Carly Leatherwood, senior director of communications at Ohio University told Campus Reform in a statement on Tuesday.&quot;As a matter of process, in addition to adjudication in the criminal court, any student who is charged with a crime is referred to the Office of Community Standards and Student Responsibility in order to determine if a violation of the Student Code of Conduct has occurred,&quot; Leatherwood added.The Ohio University police department referred Campus Reform back to its press release and did not offer any further information. Campus Reform reached out to Ayers for comment but did not hear back in time for publication. &nbsp;Follow the author of this article on Twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/Zach_Petrizzo" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@Zach_Petrizzo</a> &nbsp;