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Friday, October 7, 2016

We're Watching You: NCState Installs Surveillance Cameras Inside Sorority, Fraternity Houses

By Rick Pearcey • October 7, 2016, 11:21 AM

Anthony Gockowski reports:

The cameras were ostensibly there to monitor entrances for security purposes, but Campus Reform has learned through multiple sources that they were set up in a manner conducive to monitoring student behavior in their personal living spaces.

Read more.



Thursday, October 6, 2016

Humane and Constitutional Grounds for Casting the Secularist Devil Out of Georgia Education

By Rick Pearcey • October 6, 2016, 01:10 PM

In his American Dispatch column, Todd Starnes writes:

Jesus just got kicked out of public schools in Henry County, Georgia. 

The school district fired off a directive to school administrators ordering them to eradicate anything remotely religious from all public school buildings.

On the main page of The Pearcey Report, I draw attention to three elements in the Starnes story. First, "The Dictators" -- that is, the federal government, which is dictating to a local state school district what its educational policies ought to be.

Second, "The Slaves" -- that is, the oppressed "students at public schools in Henry County, Ga." And third, "Masta" Rodney Bowler -- because slaves have "mastas," and in this case that masta would be the Superintendent Rodney Bowler, trying to whip those students (and their parents, etc.) into shape, into servile obedience to the dictators in that Big White House in Washington, D.C.

When someone on Facebook responded by asking, "Does that directive include anything Islamic? Humanistic?" I replied:

"The edict made no mention of the Koran or prayer rugs," Todd Starnes writes.

The deeper point is a deeper flaw in the secularist attack -- that is, the false proposition that the "Establishment Clause stipulates that the government may not promote or affiliate itself with any religious doctrine or organization," as the communications director for the school district puts it -- and totally mangles it.

This mangling is horse hockey from the mouth of secular mythology.

In fact, the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment LIMITS CONGRESS ("Congress shall make no law ..."), not the American people and not the individual states -- such as Georgia, for example.

There is supposed to be a diversity of power exercised among the individual states, not a monoply of Federal State Power imposed by Washington, D.C., dictators.

Central to the whole purpose of the Declaration and U.S. Constitution is to protect free Americans from a monopoy of Federal Gov't power -- which has no [Constitutional] authority, as written, to tell the States or local schools boards how to run their schools.

We are a free people, not an enslaved people.

What we are witnessing is the imposition of an extremist secular dictatorship in total opposition to the enduring and defining mainstream of the American ethos, as set forward in the Declaration and Bill of Rights.

"This is an attack upon human freedom and upon human dignity," I concluded. "Our job is to absolutely and totally cast that ugly, inhumane, and extremist dictatorship into the deep blue sea."



Wednesday, October 5, 2016

The Top 10 American Schools Supporting Terrorists

By Rick Pearcey • October 5, 2016, 09:41 AM

In alphabetical order, as noted at Frontpagemag:

1. Brooklyn College (CUNY)

2. San Diego State University

3. San Francisco State University 

4. Tufts University 

5.  University of California Berkeley

6.  University of California Irvine

7.  University of California Los Angeles

8.  University of Chicago

9.  University of Tennessee Knoxville

10. Vassar College

Read more.



Friday, September 16, 2016

Brown and WashU St. Louis Embrace Free Expression

By Rick Pearcey • September 16, 2016, 10:16 AM

Because it is more difficult to sustain an irrational religious or secular cult -- or any other form inhumanity -- when a society affirms the God-given unalienable right to think, speak, and live free, we welcome news via Campus Reform that two unversities (in addition to the University of Chicago) are publicly bucking the cult of political correctness and reaffirming freedom of expression. 

According to Campus Reform, Washington University "affirmed its 'unwavering commitment to freedom of expression and the free exchange of ideas' with a strongly-worded statement of principle by the faculty."

In addition, we have Brown University, whose president Christina Paxton in a WPost op-ed embraced "Freedom of expression" as an "essential component of academic freedom, which protects the ability of universities to fulfill their core mission of advancing knowledge. Suppressing ideas at a university is akin to turning off the power at a factory," Paxton wrote, according to Campus Reform.

The human calling to "test everything" and to bring the results of that testing out into the public square is an essential component of any society that would be enlightened and humane. 

Bravo to Brown and WashU. To transpose a phrase, may other universities see light in your light.

Go here to read the report from Campus Reform.



Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Corrupt Academics and the Media

By Rick Pearcey • September 6, 2016, 10:19 AM

Walter E. Williams writes at CNSNews.com:

Some are puzzled by the dishonesty, lack of character and sheer stupidity of many people in the media. But seeing as most of them are college graduates, they don't bear the full blame. They are taught by dishonest and irresponsible academics. Let's look at it.

"A Clash of Police Policies," a column written by Dr. Thomas Sowell, presents some readily available statistics: 'Homicide rates among black males went down by 18 percent in the 1940s and by 22 percent in the 1950s. It was in the 1960s, when the ideas of Chief Justice (Earl) Warren and others triumphed, that this long decline in homicide rates among black males reversed and skyrocketed by 89 percent, wiping out all the progress of the previous 20 years."

Read more.



Wednesday, June 22, 2016

U.K. Girls Schools Instructed Not to Call Students "Girls"

By Rick Pearcey • June 22, 2016, 10:11 AM

"Teachers at a conference for U.K. girls' schools last week were instructed to call students 'pupils' instead of 'girls' so as to avoid offending the gender-confused," Mark Hodges reports at LifeSiteNews.

No word yet on whether U.K. mathematicians should tell students that 2 apples plus 2 apples equals 4 apples so as to avoid offending the math-confused.

There is word, however, that university physicists are instructing teachers not to tell students that "here" differs from "there" so as to avoid offending the spatially confused. 



Wednesday, June 8, 2016

"Transgenderism" Added to Kindergarten Curriculum

By Rick Pearcey • June 8, 2016, 09:00 AM

"Students as young as five years old -- kindergartners -- are going to be taught about the ins and outs of 'transgenderism' in all public schools in Washington, beginning in the fall 2017 semester," Cheryl Chumley reports at WND.

In fact, no child of any age should be subjected to extremist "transgender" propaganda.

But if parents really want to protect their children from systematic fanaticism now, and if they want protect their nation from the enslaving impact of systematic fanaticism after their children have been thoroughly indoctrinated and radicalized, they would do well to insist upon parental responsibility and authority over the education of those who, after all, are in fact their children.

And that needs to happen now, if not yesterday. Forever end the monopoly and the failure of state control over education.



Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Virginia School Board Unanimously Rejects Obama Transgender Bathroom Dictate

By Rick Pearcey • May 24, 2016, 10:30 AM

"A Virginia school board unanimously approved an ordinance on Friday resisting the Obama administration's transgender bathroom edict and requiring students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond with their biological sex," Claire Chretien reports at LifeSiteNews.

"The ordinance, which immediately took effect, allows public school students in Grayson County, Virginia, to request to use a single-stall facility but prevents them from accessing facilities that don't correspond with their biological sex," LifeSite reports.

Read more.

Related
Nancy Pearcey: Transgender Extremism -- The Inhumane Ideology Behind Unsafe Showers, Restrooms, and Dressing Rooms

J. Richard Pearcey: The Revolt of Intelligence Against "Marriage Equality"



Thursday, May 19, 2016

Now Louisiana Tells Schools to Ignore Obama's Dead-on-Arrival Transgender Order

By Rick Pearcey • May 19, 2016, 09:52 AM

"Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said the [Obama] order lacks not just the force of law, but any constitutional standing or common sense," LifeSiteNews reports.

"In his own letter to state educational leaders, Landry said he wrote 'to reassure' them that he 'will vigorously defend the state and its citizens from unlawful action threatened on the basis of this incorrect interpretation of law'," LifeSite reports.

"Let me be perfectly clear," Landry states in his letter, "President Obama and his appointees do not have legal authority to require our children share locker rooms and bathrooms with children of the oppositive sex."

Louisiana thus "joins the growing list of states that told the Obama administration its transgender guidelines are dead on arrival and will not be implemented in the remaining months of his lame duck presidency," LifeSiteNews states.



Monday, April 18, 2016

Texas University OKs Concealed Carry in Classrooms

By Rick Pearcey • April 18, 2016, 09:31 AM

"Texas A&M University officials cleared the way for concealed-carry permit holders to cart their guns into classrooms with 'few major restrictions,' according to the new policy," Cheryl Chumley reports at WND.

Read more.



Friday, March 25, 2016

Michigan House Slaps Board of Education Over Shadowy Gender Identity Push

By Rick Pearcey • March 25, 2016, 09:17 AM

Peter Hasson reports at the Daily Caller:

Voicing their clear opposition to a guidance from Michigan's Board of Education that would push schools to allow male students to use girls bathrooms and locker rooms, Republicans in the state legislature hit board members where it hurts: their wallets.

A House appropriations subcommittee amended a budget bill on Wednesday to strip all travel and per-diem funding from the Board of Education, meaning board members will have to pay for travel expenses out-of-pocket if the budget bill is approved.

"According to a statement from Michigan House Speaker Kevin Cotter, the Board 'failed to notify the state Legislature before moving forward on this controversial proposal'," the DC reports.

"The Board kept the public [in] the dark as well, issuing the guidance without a press release," the DC states.

"We have heard from countless parents who are upset at being deliberately cut out of their children's education, and are livid at a government body that is trying to cut them out under the cover of night," Speaker Cotter is quoted as saying.

"The word is out now on their divisive plan, and many parents are scrambling to have their voices heard."

"Originally, the public had only until April 11 to comment on the proposed guidance," the DC reports. But "facing strong public backlash, the Board announced the comment period would be extended an additional 30 days. The public can submit feedback on the proposed policy here." 

Related
Michigan Public Schools to Let Students Choose Gender, Name, Bathroom 

American College of Pediatricians: Gender Ideology Harms Children



Monday, March 21, 2016

Michigan Gov't Schools to Let Students Choose Gender, Name, and Bathroom

By Rick Pearcey • March 21, 2016, 11:10 AM

Peter Hasson reports at the Daily Caller:

Michigan's State Board of Education has drafted a guidance that would push the state's schools to allow all students, regardless of parental or doctoral input, to choose their gender, name, pronouns, and bathrooms.

Spearheaded by board president John C. Austin and signed by state superintendent Brian Whiston, the guidance informs Michigan public schools that only the students themselves -- i.e. not their parents or doctors -- can determine what their individual gender identities are.

"The responsibility for determining a student's gender identity rests with the student. Outside confirmation from medical or mental health professionals, or documentation of legal changes, is not needed," the guidance states.

This government school "guidance" comes on the heels of an announcement by the American College of Pediatricians (ACP) warning against the dangers of gender ideology. 

The ACP "issued a position statement last month entitled 'Gender Ideology Harms Children,' which will be followed by a peer-reviewed statement on the subject that's expected to be released by summer, the college told CNSNews.com," CNSNews reported last week.

"The American College of Pediatricians urges educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex," the ACP said in a statement issued February 2.

"Facts -- not ideology -- determine reality," the ACP stated, according to CNSNews.com.

Michigan State's Board of Education "president John Austin did not immediately reply to The Daily Caller's request for comment," the DC reports.



Thursday, March 3, 2016

Hating Freedom: Leftist Fascists Take Over College Campuses

By Rick Pearcey • March 3, 2016, 10:57 AM

A week ago today, the extremist ugly head of campus "liberalism" snapped and snarled at California State University Los Angeles.

The occasion was the appearence of Ben Shapiro to give a speech. Shapiro writes:

Hundreds of students gathered to chant slogans, block entrances and exits to the student union auditorium, rough up those who wished to enter, pull the fire alarm, and trap other students inside that auditorium under threat of violence. Police officers stood aside and allowed that mob to violate basic safety protocols, reportedly at the behest of the school administration.

"This is America in 2016, on a state-funded university campus," Shapiro observes. 

How has the U.S. arrived at this unsafe place?

"We have spent two generations turning college campuses from places to learn job skills to places to indoctrinate leftism and inculcate an intolerant view of the world that insists on silencing opposition," Shapiro explains.

"We have made campuses a fascist 'safe space' on behalf of the left. Anyone who disagrees must be shut down, or threatened or hurt."

This hatred against freedom is not limited to university extremists.

"We've entered an era of politics in which baseless feelings count more than facts, in which political correctness means firing those with different viewpoints, in which government actors insist that they can police negative thoughts," Shapiro writes.

"We're on the edge of freedom's end, and many Americans don't even see it," Shapiro concludes.

"They would have had they been at CSULA that day. And they will soon enough if they don't stand up for their rights today."



Thursday, February 25, 2016

Students Told to Write Essay on Their Conversion to Islam

By Rick Pearcey • February 25, 2016, 07:17 AM

Todd Starnes writes:

British moms and dads were fuming after a school instructed students to write an essay explaining why they had converted to Islam.

Gemma Gough posted the assignment on Facebook -- and said her child would not be completing the assignment.

"This is not acceptable," she wrote. "Kids are too impressionable and imagine if these letters got in the wrong hands in years to come."

"The 12- and 13-year-old kids at Beaucamps High School in Guernsey were told to consider what it would be like to become a Muslim," Starnes explains. "They also had to write a letter to their loved ones explaining their decision to become a Muslim."

According to Starnes, the "controversial lesson was part of a creative writing exercise as part of a religious education lesson, The Daily Mail reports. The school pointed out that it was a make-believe scenario -- and no child was actually forced to convert to the Islamic faith."

No doubt appropriately skeptical, "local residents were not convinced," Starnes notes.

Read more.



Monday, August 31, 2015

Students Risk Failing Grades for Saying "Male," "Female," "Illegal Alien"

By Rick Pearcey • August 31, 2015, 07:10 AM

Peter Hasson reports at Campus Reform:

Multiple professors at Washington State University have explicitly told students their grades will suffer if they use terms such as "illegal alien," "male," and "female," or if they fail to "defer" to non-white students.

And by all means, students, never, ever think for yourself or question authority, professorial or otherwise.

Or you can stand up. Be a human being. Refuse to submit to the coercive establishment. And stop funding campus oppression.

Related
Don't Think, Just Agree: The Closing of the Campus Mind
School District: No More "Boys" and "Girls" -- That's Judgmental



Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Walter E. Williams: Academic Fascism

By Rick Pearcey • August 11, 2015, 10:26 AM

Walter Williams writes in a column published today:

From the Nazis to the Stalinists, tyrants have always started out supporting free speech, and why is easy to understand.

Speech is vital for the realization of their goals of command, control and confiscation. Free speech is a basic tool for indoctrination, propagandizing, proselytization. Once the leftists gain control, as they have at many universities, free speech becomes a liability and must be suppressed. This is increasingly the case on university campuses.

Williams supports his thesis with examles from the University of California, Harvard, Oberlin College, Vassar, Azusa Pacific, and Brandeis University and then writes:

Western values of liberty are under ruthless attack by the academic elite on college campuses across America. These people want to replace personal liberty with government control; they want to replace equality before the law with entitlement. As such, they pose a far greater threat to our way of life than any terrorist organization or rogue nation. Leftist ideas are a cancer on our society.

"Ironically," Williams concludes, "we not only are timid in response, but also nourish those ideas with our tax dollars and charitable donations."

There is no humane reason to support this kind of oppressive agenda that poses as liberation but ends in unfreedom. Far better to "test everything."



Friday, May 8, 2015

School District: Feds Forced Policy Allowing Transgenders to Use Bathrooms of Their Choice

By Rick Pearcey • May 8, 2015, 12:04 PM

The Money, the Power, the Oppression, and the Corruption: Fairfax County Public Schools in northern Virginia say "they were mandated by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights to add 'gender identity' to [its nondiscrimination] policy — or else risk losing federal funding," Todd Starnes writes at Fox News.

Read this story. In it, you see community leaders such as pastor Martin Baker of Burke Community Church take a stand, saying, "The damage and destruction to our children, teens and impacted adults will be incalculable.”

Baker warned in an email to his 3,000-member church that “everything from locker rooms to bathrooms will be potentially open for people who simply feel that their inner sexuality does not match their outer, physical sexuality."

School board member Elizabeth Schultz is outraged, according to Starnes. "While the underlying issue is somewhat sensational, it is the gravitas in overreach of the federal government and the implications thereof that is so very chilling,” she is quoted as telling Starnes.

"It could have implications for every public school district in the nation. If they’re going to come for us, they’re going to come to them next," Schultz said.

This story, and so many others like it, ought to send chills up the spine of any person who cares about education, who cares about students, and who cares about reasserting and sustaining a humane society in the United States.

We must realize that the attacks of secularists in government, and in other centers of cultural power, upon the freedom and dignity of Americans of all ages and in every sphere of society will continue for ever and ever, creating evermore havoc and hell on earth, until "We the People" rise up and throw the oppressor into the deep blue sea.

To see a framework for mobilizing a humane, peaceful, and strategic counterbalance to secular and federal oppression, please consider "How the New Resistance Can Win the Culture War."



Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Don't Think, Just Graduate: University of North Texas Students Outraged With Republican Commencement Speaker

By Rick Pearcey • April 22, 2015, 09:17 AM

Bethany Salgado reports at Campus Reform:

Students at the University of North Texas are outraged with the school’s chosen commencement speaker for next month’s graduation and more than 2,400 students have signed a petition to have him replaced.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) is set to speak at the ceremony in May, but students who have signed the petition argue that he is unfit to speak because they disagree with his political stances.

"Kimberly Williams, a student who signed the petition, wrote that, '[h]e is not the appropriate person to lead our young leaders into the world,' and continued on to list specific incidents of his alleged anti-feminism," Salgado writes.

Another student, Allyson Nophsker said, accordidng to Salgado, "I'm signing because I want to attend my own graduation ceremony, but cannot due to my moral disagreements with Abbot's [sic] policies."

"According to the Houston Chronicle, University President Neal Smatresk would not budge on the school’s selection," Salgado reports.

"He's a new governor, he's supportive of higher education. Why wouldn't we want to celebrate the success of our institution in its 125th year with him?" Smatresk said, according to Salgado.

Comment: If you'd like your college student to develop the ability to think independently and to acquire tools of sales resistance to any notion of "Don''t Think, Just Believe" (whatever your college professor tells you, for example) or "Don't Think, Just Graduate," you may want to check out Nancy's new book Finding Truth: 5 Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism, and Other God Substitutes.

Nancy wrote Finding Truth to counter the easy believism that characterizes so much of today's society -- whether in church, on campus, across media, in the boardroom, or at the voting booth.

Just off the top of my head, I can think of more than 2,400 college students who might benefit from exposure to such a book.



Thursday, April 9, 2015

Don't Think, Just Agree: The Closing of the Campus Mind

By Rick Pearcey • April 9, 2015, 10:26 AM

"I can't have you participate in class anymore," the professor of soical welfare and policy said.

Thus begins Devorah Goldman's Weekly Standard account of the terrifyingly small-minded world of the Hunter College School of Social Work, where Marxist zombies walk to and fro, seeking to devour whatsoever human brains dare exhibit independence of thought.

Apparently, group "diversity" reigns, along with group "thought."

But is there a silver lining? If you want to become a zero, meld with the borg, enjoy becoming cannon fodder for the revolution, and learn how to "tolerate everything but disagreement," then education camps like Hunter College could be just the cage for you.

Then again, can we really trust Goldman's account? Her mind seems suspiciously independent. The machine is watching.

Related
Thomas Sowell: The Blessings of Inequality



Friday, December 19, 2014

Video: Students Agree to Deport Americans in Exchange for Illegal Immigrants

By Rick Pearcey • December 19, 2014, 09:01 AM

Maggie Lit reports at Campus Reform:

Students at George Washington University (GWU) willingly signed a petition supporting the deportation of one American citizen in exchange for one illegal immigrant.

"Please sign our petition for President Obama to deport one American citizen, in exchange for one undocumented immigrant," read the petition. "Everyone must be allowed a shot at the ‘American Dream.' Americans should not be greedy. Let us right the wrongs of our past and make another’s dreams come true."

"It makes sense," one student told Campus Reform. "Like, I’ve noticed that there is a lot of like hatred against undocumented immigrants and it’s not necessarily their fault."

Watch the video here



Thursday, December 11, 2014

Student: Texas Prof Calls Ted Cruz "Bast---," Compares Tea Party to Nazis

By Rick Pearcey • December 11, 2014, 09:36 AM

Maggie Lit reports at Campus Reform:

A Texas psychology professor was caught on video last month comparing the Tea Party to the Nazis.

Dr. Blake Armstrong, a South Texas College (STC) professor, told students not to tell anybody about his assertions; however an anonymous student who had enough of the professor’s anti-Republican rants decided to record the class on Nov. 17, as reported by The Blaze.

"This semester, [Dr. Armstrong] insulted Republicans about three times before this video was recorded," the student said, according to Jason Howerton at The Blaze

The student also said the professor "called Sen. Ted Cruz a bast--- for using the last name Cruz to win his election. I didn’t know exactly what he meant, but I decided to start recording,' The Blaze reports.

"It's very easy to see that [Amstrong] has a vendetta against Republicans and religion with an emphasis on Christianity," the student also reportedly said.

The "psychology concentration" page at South Texas College provides publicly available contact information for Mr. Armstrong (email: blakea@southtexascollege.edu, phone: 956-447-6658).



Monday, December 1, 2014

Opposition to Common Core Spurs Jump in Homeschooling

By Rick Pearcey • December 1, 2014, 07:00 AM

Perry Chiaramonte reports at Fox News:

The homeschooling boom is getting a new push due to opposition to Common Core, the controversial national education standard that some parents claim is using their children’s public school lessons to push a political agenda, according to critics of the Washington-backed curriculum.

North Carolina, already a home-schooling hotbed, saw a 14 percent rise last year in the number of students being educated at home, according to a report from Heartlander Magazine. Similar increases have been seen in Virginia, California and New York, according to education activists.

"If you look at national, and even state polls, you can see that the more familiar people become with Common Core, the more they dislike it," Bob Lubke of the North Carolina-based Civitas Institute is quoted as telling Fox News. "They feel like they are losing control of what their kids are learning."

"The uptick in homeschooling has become a trend across the nation over the past couple of years, even in states like New York and California,” Glyn Wright said, according to Fox News. "Americans have rejected the Common Core initiative because they are tired of unaccountable federal bureaucracy, especially when it comes to their child’s education, and because they are seeing first-hand the poor quality and content of the Standards that are meant to prepare children for the workforce instead of giving them a well-rounded, superior education."



Thursday, October 9, 2014

School District: No More "Boys" and "Girls" -- That's "Judgmental"

By Rick Pearcey • October 9, 2014, 09:44 AM

Katherine Timpf reports at National Review:

A Nebraska school district has instructed its teachers to stop referring to students by "gendered expressions" such as "boys and girls," and use "gender inclusive" ones such as "purple penguins" instead.

"Don’t use phrases such as 'boys and girls,' 'you guys,' 'ladies and gentlemen,' and similarly gendered expressions to get kids' attention," instructs a training document given to middle-school teachers at the Lincoln Public Schools.

"The instructions were part of a list called '12 steps on the way to gender inclusiveness' developed by Gender Spectrum," National Review reports. Gender Spectrum is "an organization that 'provides education, training and support to help create a gender sensitive and inclusive environment for children of all ages'."

"We don’t get involved with gender preferences. We’re educating all kids," says Lincoln Superintendent Steve Joel. "We can’t be judgmental."



Thursday, July 3, 2014

French Resistance Defeats LGBT Lobby

By Rick Pearcey • July 3, 2014, 07:37 AM

Parents in France are successfully revolting against the homosexualist indoctrination of their children in French schools, write Judith Reisman and Tom Hampson.

"Plans for homosexual marriage met with massive French opposition from the French people, and it looks like gender re-education has taken a major hit as well," say Reisman and Hampson at WND.

Related
Update: 1.4 Million French March Against Homosex "Marriage" 
French Protests: Marriage = One Man + One Woman
Obama DOJ: Children Do Not Need -- and Have No Right to -- Mothers



Friday, June 13, 2014

Obama: Spending on Prisons Among Reasons "Tuition Has Gone Up"

By Rick Pearcey • June 13, 2014, 10:38 AM

Craig Bannister reports at CNSNews.com:

Pres. Obama says spending on "less productive" things "like prisons" is driving up tuition costs. In an interview discussing his plan to cap student loan repayments, Obama said:

"The main reason that tuition has gone up so much is that state legislatures stopped subsidizing public universities as much as they used to, in part because they started spending money on things like prisons and other activities that I think are less productive.  And so schools then made up for the declining state support by jacking up their tuition rates."

Read more.



Wednesday, June 4, 2014

"Jew Incinerator Game" at Chicago Public School

By Rick Pearcey • June 4, 2014, 11:01 AM

Warner Todd Huston reports at Breitbart:

The mother of a Jewish Chicago Public Schools (CPS) student tried for weeks to get the CPS to address the anti-Semitic bullying being perpetrated against her eighth-grader, but little was done until the parent contacted local media. The bullying got so bad that kids had joined an online game with a team called the "Jew Incinerators."

On May 23, Chicago's CBS affiliate reported on the story of a student at the Ogden International School who suffered constant anti-Semitic taunts for weeks. The hate grew so bad that the bullies created a team for the online game Clash of Clans that they named the "Jew Incinerator Clan."

To describe the team, the kids wrote, "Heil! Throw Jews into ovens for a cause. We are a friendly group of racists with one goal -– put all Jews into an army camp until disposed of. Sieg! Heil!"

"It's disturbing," Lisa Wolf Clemente, parent of the eight-grader is quoted as saying. "They're using a game as a catalyst to truly spread hate."

"I’m 42 years old. I’m not new to this world," Clemente told a local CBS outlet, quoted by Breitbart. "I didn’t become Jewish yesterday. I felt naive and shocked. We are in the year 2014. Really? At a school that my son has gone to? And I shake because I watched this group grow literally from four. Kids were just joining and joining."

According to Breitbart, "Mrs. Clemente tried several times to get authorities at the school to respond to her requests for action, but it wasn't until the media began to talk about the incident that action was taken."

Related
Fascism Is Back



Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Bible Ban Lifted in Florida's Broward County Schools

By Rick Pearcey • May 20, 2014, 09:58 AM

In the face of legal action threatened by attorneys from Liberty Institute, Broward County Public Schools have "capitulated and will allow Bibles into the classroom," reports Ken Klukowski at Breitbart.

"In a letter dated Sunday, May 18, first obtained by Breitbart News, the school system has completely reversed course," Klukowski writes. "The letter tells Liberty Institute Litigation Director Hiram Sasser that the school 'does not ban the Bible' and specifies that students may read it during the same class times when it had been previously barred. The letter also says that the school will comply with Liberty Institute’s demand that all teachers be trained in what the Constitution requires by way of upholding students' First Amendment rights."

"Park Lakes Elementary School teacher Swornia D. Thomas [photo] reportedly reprimanded student Giovanni Rubeo for bringing his Bible to class, according to the Institute," the Washington Times reports. The school teacher "then ordered" Giovanni "to hand the Bible over and 'get his father on the phone,' the nonprofit said," according to the Washington Times.

In this voicemail, elementary school teacher Swornia Thomas says Giovanni "is not permitted to read those books in my classroom."



Wednesday, May 7, 2014

University Reverses Professor's Ban on Graduates Thanking God

By Rick Pearcey • May 7, 2014, 01:01 PM

Fox News reports:

Officials at East Carolina University are telling students to disregard instructions from a chemistry professor who told them they were prohibited from mentioning God during a departmental graduation ceremony.

In an email obtained by Campus Reform, Assistant Professor Eli Hvastkovs told his students to prepare "family friendly" statements for the chemistry department's recognition event. He said the remarks should refrain from mentioning God. 

"I've had some submissions that needed to be edited. So here are some guidelines," Hvastkovs says in the email. 
 
The professor's first guideline states, "You can't thank God. I'm sorry about this -- and I don't want to have to outline the reasons why."

"University officials told WNCT-TV the email was not authorized by the school and that the incident is being used to boost awareness of students' free speech rights," Fox continues.

"In a separate email to chemistry students this week, ECU Provost Dr. Marilyn Sheerer said that religious references 'of any type' will not be restricted," according to Fox.

"These statements can be your personal expressions and as such the University will only limit these expressions, as permitted by applicable First Amendment law," Sheerer is quoted as saying.

"In an interview with Campus Reform last week, Hvastkovs defended the e-mail, which he said was necessary because too many students recognized religious figures during last year's ceremony," Fox reports.

"It's not a religious ceremony," Hvastkovs is quoted as saying. "It's purely educational."

Comment: Officials at East Carolina University are correct in their decision to tell students to disregard instructions that prohibit the mention of God during a chemistry department graduation ceremony.

For one thing, there is nothing in chemical science that prohibits the Creator. In fact, it's the other way around, for God is a science-starter, not a science-stopper. Chemists or professors of chemistry who believe in materialism or naturalistic philosophy may reject the concept of a Creator, but this is their philosophy talking, not their science talking. And it is poor philosophy at that.

Second, there is nothing in the First Amendment that prohibits science students, or any student of any academic discipline in the United States, from thanking God during graduation. Again, it's quite the other way around. What the First Amendment places limits upon is Congress (not students) -- "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Needless to say, students of East Carolina University are not Congress. And whether such students decide to thank God or not, this is a matter of no Constitutional concern to the federal government.

Regarding the professor's comment that graduation is an "educational" ceremony, not a "religious" one, I should point out the Judeo-Christian worldview is in no way "religious" in the manner that the professor seems to have in view. This worldview is profoundly pro-education.

The Judeo-Christian worldview is open to verification, for example, to questioning and critical thinking, and does not ask for commitment divorced from facts, empirical evidence, or solid reasoning. That view of "faith" is sub-Biblical and speaks more of a dumbed-down secularism or age-old gnosticism that no thinking, creative person serious about the basic questions of life ought to embrace.

The thought-forms expressed in the data of the Judeo-Christian worldview encourage science, encourage the life of the mind, and encourage the wholistic, non-hypocritical application of truth across all of life.

It is the sort of thing that if true, ought to be affirmed but that, if false, ought to be rejected. I must say, as a free-thinker, this is a mentality I greatly appreciate.

The whole point is that of verifiable and knowable truth that sets human beings free -- across the whole of life and in the depths of human existence.

For what reason? So that human beings might experience substantial healing in relationship to the Creator, to our fellow man, and to the cosmos.

Nothing could be more natural than that students and professors of chemistry (and even chemistry itself) express the thankfulness that arises in response to the verifiable Ultimate Person who embedded the possibility of chemistry in the natural order in the first place.

Education is doxology. It leaves religion far behind.



Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Americans Now "Racist" for Waving American Flag

By Rick Pearcey • May 6, 2014, 09:41 AM

Bob Unruh writes at WND:

Americans now are being blasted as "racist" for the simple act of waving an American flag.

It happened Monday in California to a small group of protesters who waved U.S. flags in front of a school where officials had banned the practice to avoid violence threatened by Hispanic students celebrating Cinco de Mayo.

The controversy developed in 2010, when school officials ordered students not to wear U.S. flag-themed shirts on the Mexican holiday. The ban has been upheld by a federal appeals court.

The controversy brought a small group of protesters out Monday, and the community reacted immediately.

“What’s wrong with these white people holding up American flags in Morgan hill??? Racist a-holes,” wrote Gia Lee in a feed monitored by Twitchy.

"The report also noted the school superintendent was confirming that students wearing American flag-themed shirts on Monday 'won’t be kicked out," according to Unruh at WND. "Read that sentence again and then cringe at the fact that had to be said in the United States,' the Twitchy report said."

Unruh also writes that the "San Francisco Chronicle reported a group called Gilroy-Morgan Hill Patriots stood in front of Live Oak High School for about an hour waving American flags.

"The protest followed the decision earlier this year by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that school officials, in a dispute four years ago, were right to suspend the First Amendment rights of students who wanted to wear U.S. flag-themed shirts on Cinco de Mayo."

Here is the website for Live Oak High School. The principal is Lloyd Webb.



Monday, April 21, 2014

Mourning Joe: "Asinine" Kansans Should Shut Up About Michele Obama's HS Graduation Visit

By Rick Pearcey • April 21, 2014, 10:57 AM

So says Joe Scarborough of MSNBC.

Memo to Joe: Having the 1st Lady of the United States show up to speak might have been a big deal in the past. That is no longer the case.



Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Italian Parents Push Back Against "Gender Deconstruction" in Schools

By Rick Pearcey • April 8, 2014, 11:23 AM

Hilary White reports at LifeSiteNews.com:

This week, a group of parents told the city administration in the small Tuscan town of Pontassieve that they would not go along with the introduction of the homosexualist "gender" ideology in their schools.

The parents addressed the proposed "ECOS -- Deconstructing to Build" program that aims to "help eliminate the stereotypes associated with gender." Parents quoted the Italian Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights that say in the area of public education, the state "must respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching is in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions." The school, they said, "must not invade the field of education within the family."

The parents said, "The appropriate and necessary fight against bullying and all forms of discrimination cannot be manipulated by anyone or used to spread messages of other kinds, such as the affirmation of gender identity."

"While a project to make 'diversity education' standard throughout Italy’s schools has been successfully blocked in Parliament, the same work is proceeding at the municipal level," White reports. "It was recently blasted by the Archbishop of Turin who called it an attempt to turn local schools into 're-education camps' for the extreme left."

LifeSiteNews also reports that, "at the same time, a set of government guidelines instructs journalists never to portray homosexuals or 'transsexuals' in a negative light. The document, created according to a mandate by the Council of Europe, threatens journalists with unnamed 'professional sanctions' and even possible jail time for failing to comply."

Related
Transgender Politics and the Facts of Life 
The Revolt of Intelligence Against "Marriage Equality" 
Pink Is the New Brown: Mozilla, Homofascism, and the Pink Swastika



Thursday, April 3, 2014

Furor at Catholic High School After Nun Presents Church Teaching on Homosexuality

By Rick Pearcey • April 3, 2014, 11:21 AM

Kirsten Andersen reports at LifeSiteNews:

A North Carolina Roman Catholic school [held a meeting April 2] to address the concerns of parents and students who say they are outraged about remarks a visiting nun made criticizing homosexuality, divorce, and sex outside of marriage during a recent speech.

Dominican Sister Jane Dominic Laurel, who often speaks to high school and college-age students on matters of sexuality, gave an hour-long presentation to students at Charlotte Catholic High School on March 21 called "Masculinity and Femininity: Difference and Gift." School officials told the Catholic News Herald she spent about half her allotted time discussing homosexuality, blaming its rising influence in part on fatherless homes created by divorce and extramarital sex. . . .

Although the Catholic Church has always held both homosexual behavior and sex outside of marriage to be gravely sinful, students and parents at the Catholic school reacted to her remarks with shock and anger, launching both an online petition and a letter-writing campaign calling the sister’s words "offensive and unnecessarily derogatory."

"Not all students were upset by the nun’s presentation," LifeSiteNews reports. "A group of students who adhere to Catholic teaching on sexuality have launched a counter-petition condemning the protesters’ actions. 'We are outraged that the topics talked about are being debated within a community where the shared faith teaches us what truly is holy and that anyone would stand up against a nun, who has given her life for the Lord, and blantly [sic] deny God's teachings,' the petition reads."

Related
Obama OKs Killing Unborn in Notre Dame Speech 
The Revolt of Intelligence Against "Marriage Equality" 
Memo to Conservatives: Accepting Homosex "Marriage" Opens Door to "Unlimited Statism" 
Memo to Supreme Court: Who Respects the Human Body? Not Homosexuals 
Quack! Earth Needs Men Who Stare at Ducks and Women



Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Northeastern University Suspends "Students for Justice in Palestine"

By Rick Pearcey • March 18, 2014, 08:53 AM

Ilya Feoktistov writes at Frontpagemag.com:

A young man from Brookline, Massachusetts poses for a photo somewhere inside the Palestinian territories. He’s got a bullet belt wrapped around his shoulders, wannabe-Rambo-style. Together with a young woman, he’s proudly showing off a terror group’s PK-class machine gun. A gun like that can take down a helicopter or pierce a Humvee’s armor. The AR-15 "assault" gun used to massacre the children of Newtown, CT is little better than an old hunting rifle compared to the firing power of this killing machine, whose likely main purpose is to massacre the children (and adults) of Israel.

The young man is Max Geller, leader and spokesman of Northeastern University’s Students for Justice in Palestine (NU SJP). The young woman is also a NU SJP member.

Last week, Northeastern suspended NU SJP after years of anti-Semitic vandalism, glorification of terrorist groups, calls for the destruction of Israel, and other actions by NU SJP’s leadership, all of which have created a hostile learning environment for Jewish pro-Israel students on campus. . . .

Here is Northeastern's "Statement on Students for Justice in Palestine," dated March 17, 2014.

Read more on "Northeastern U. Suspends 'Students for Justice in Palestine'."



Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Federalizing 4-Year-Olds: Human Freedom vs. the Theocracy of Secularism

By Rick Pearcey • March 12, 2014, 12:09 PM

Terry Jeffrey writes at CNSNews.com:

Will America be a better and freer country three decades from now if the children who turn four in this decade spend most of their waking hours with members of a government teachers union rather than with their moms?

President Barack Obama's vision of America, not surprisingly, starts with very young children spending their time in the custody of government employees.

"I believe we should start teaching our kids at the earliest ages," Obama said last week. When he used the word "we" here, Obama was not talking about Michelle and himself, he was talking about the government. When he used the words "our kids," he was not talking about his own children -- who attend the most expensive private school in Washington, D.C. -- he was talking about other people's children and grandchildren.

What Obama wants, quite literally, is their souls.

"So we're trying to help more states make high-quality preschool and other early learning programs available to the youngest kids," Obama went on, prosaically. The budget he presented to Congress was more concrete: It calls for $75 billion in federal spending over the next 10 years to support universal government "education" of 4-year-olds.

If you think Obama is satisfied with taking the 4-year-olds of America, think again.

"I think that there still needs to be great understanding of what the president has put on the table is really a birth-to-five proposal, recognizing that you can't start at 4-year-olds," Jeffrey quotes Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius as saying in April 2013 at the National Press Club.

"We really need to start at birth," Sebelius is also quoted as saying. "So, there will be an enhancement of home-visiting. . . ."

If I thought the secularist vision of life held intellectual weight, I would in all likelihood advocate similar policies, for what Obama & Co. are pushing is consistent with that vision's glorified view of the state and depressed view of the individual person, the family, and all else that might provide a check and balance on the governmental monopoly of power.

But the theocracy of secularism, which wars against the rules of freedom, lacks the intellectual and ethical resources to sustain human freedom and dignity. It is a conceptual and practical dead end.  

Rather than submit to a metastasizing regime, it seems better that free-thinking Americans rise up, speak out, and throw out these totalitarian control freaks. It's called the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the essence of being human, and liberating resistance in community with God and man.

Read more on "Federalizing 4-Year-Olds," by Terry Jeffrey.

Related
Hollywood Actress: Public Schools Brainwashing Kids With "Progressive Agenda" 
Public Schools Turning Teens Into Relativists 
Fascism Is Back
Memo to Conservatives: Accepting Homosex "Marriage" Opens Door to "Unlimited Statism" 



Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Homeland Security Will Not Deport German Christian Homeschoolers

By Rick Pearcey • March 5, 2014, 08:48 AM

Dr. Susan Berry reports at Breitbart.com:

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has verbally informed the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) that the Romeike family, German homeschoolers who sought legal asylum in the United States, has been granted indefinite deferred action status, which means that the order for their removal from the United States will not be acted upon.

As Breitbart News reported Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court had denied the Romeike family’s petition for certiorari, or review. According to a press release Tuesday by HSLDA, however, news of the Supreme Court’s denial sparked "an immediate and unprecedented reaction." Fox News informed HSLDA that it recorded one million page views of the story about the Romeike family within 24 hours -- an all-time high.

"HSLDA Director of International Affairs Michael Donnelly observed that the only reason the Romeike family had to come to America was because of Germany’s repressive policy towards homeschoolers," Breitbart reports.

"Germany’s persecution of homeschooling parents continues and is one reason, I suspect, that DHS was willing to grant the family indefinite status," Donnelly said in the March 4 press statement.

"How could our country send this loving, peaceful family back to be crushed by outrageous fines, criminal prosecution, and the loss of their children?," also said in the press statement. "Today Germany is holding another family prisoner only because they wanted to leave to go to France to homeschool their children. How could we send the Romeikes back to be treated like that?"

Related
Homeschoolers Told: Go Back to Persecution 
Thoughtcamp Watch: Brits to Tighten Screws on Homeschooling?



Monday, March 3, 2014

Hollywood Actress: Public Schools Brainwashing Kids With "Progressive Agenda"

By Rick Pearcey • March 3, 2014, 08:28 AM

Ericka Andersen writes at The Foundry:

An actress who was formerly quiet about her political beliefs has come out against what she calls "a progressive agenda" in America’s public schools.

Sam Sorbo, the wife of Hercules actor Kevin Sorbo, homeschools her children and recently began publicly writing about the topic of education.

In an interview with The Blaze’s Dana Loesch, Sorbo said she initially did not think writing about education would cause much political controversy -- but she was wrong.

"Of course school is the most political, because that’s where the progressive agenda is coming out the strongest and the hardest," Sorbo is quoted as saying. 

According to Andersen, "Sorbo said she was hesitant to reveal her faith or political beliefs publicly because of possible backlash and negative reaction from Hollywood. But she could not remain silent on education."

"You people who send your kids to school, you have no idea what the schools are doing to their fresh little brains, in brainwashing them into this progressive, liberal -- it’s antithetical to America, the agenda that they’re being indoctrinated with," Sorbo said, according to Andersen.

Related
Fireproof -- Reel Rebel Upsets Tinseltown Stereotypes
Public School Promotes 5 Pillars of Islam
High Schoolers Perform Bestiality-Themed Play
Public Schools Turning Teens Into Relativists
Ending Regressive Public Education 
Where Do Public School Teachers Send Their Own Kids?



Thursday, October 31, 2013

Classroom Gloom: "Boys Are Treated Like Defective Girls"

By Nancy Pearcey • October 31, 2013, 09:12 AM

Christina Hoff Sommers writes at Time magazine:

Being a boy can be a serious liability in today’s classroom. As a group, boys are noisy, rowdy and hard to manage. Many are messy, disorganized and won’t sit still. Young male rambunctiousness, according to a recent study, leads teachers to underestimate their intellectual and academic abilities.

“Girl behavior is the gold standard in schools," says psychologist Michael Thompson. “Boys are treated like defective girls.”

"These 'defective girls' are not faring well academically," Sommers continues. "Compared with girls, boys earn lower grades, win fewer honors and are less likely to go to college. One education expert has quipped that if current trends continue, the last male will graduate from college in 2068. In today’s knowledge-based economy, success in the classroom has never been more crucial to a young person’s life prospects. Women are adapting; men are not."

Christina Hoff Sommers is author of The War Against Boys: How Misguided Policies Are Harming Our Young Men.

Related
Massachusetts Forces Schools to Let "Transgender" Boys Use Girls' Restrooms, Lockers 
Ending Regressive Public Education



Friday, October 25, 2013

University Bans "Offensive" Cowboy and Indian Costumes for Halloween

By Rick Pearcey • October 25, 2013, 12:33 PM

Lucy Kinder reports at the UK Telegraph:

University students in America have been told not to wear "offensive" Halloween costumes including cowboys, Indians, and anything involving a sombrero.

Students at the University of Colorado Boulder have also been told to avoid "white trash" costumes and anything that portrays a particular culture as "over-sexualised" -- which the university says includes dressing up as a geisha or a "squaw" (indigenous woman).

According to Kinder, "A university spokesman called cowboy costumes a 'crude stereotype'."

Also of Interest
Extremist Prof Arrested After Profane Tirade at Pro-Life Students 
Sexual Assaults Fell 90% After Colorado Springs University Legalized Campus Guns 
Redskins Owner: "We'll Never Change the Name"



Thursday, October 17, 2013

Where Do Public School Teachers Send Their Own Kids?

By Rick Pearcey • October 17, 2013, 09:10 AM

Larry Elder writes:

Urban public school teachers are about two times more likely than non-teachers to send their own children to private schools. . . .

One study found that in Philadelphia a staggering 44 percent of public school teachers send their own kids to private schools.

In Cincinnati and Chicago, 41 and 39 percent of public school teachers, respectively, pay for a private school education for their children.

In Rochester, N.Y., it’s 38 percent. In Baltimore it’s 35 percent, San Francisco is 34 percent, and New York-Northeastern New Jersey is 33 percent.

In Los Angeles nearly 25 percent of public school teachers send their kids to private school versus 16 percent of all Angelenos who do so.

Relate
Spying on School Kids 
Public Schools Turning Teens Into Relativists
Massachusetts Forces Schools to Let "Transgender" Boys Use Girls' Restrooms, Lockers



Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Texas School District’s Warning Signs May Make Criminals Think Twice

By Rick Pearcey • October 15, 2013, 09:08 AM

David Urbanski reports at The Blaze:

One school district in the Amarillo, Texas, area isn’t messing around when it comes to potential intruders.

The Shamrock Independent School District has added two signs warning troublemakers that staff members are armed and may use force to protect its 450 students.

Photos that accompany the news story show that the signs state the following: "Attention. Please be aware that the staff at Shamrock ISD is armed and may use whatever force is necessary to protect our students."

The school district has also "installed 30 security cameras as well as an intercom system and bulletproof windows," and "according to KHOU-TV in Houston, most parents are happy with the stepped-up security," the Blaze reports. 

Related
Emily Miller on Self-Defense and the Connecticut Tragedy
Texas Town Lets Teachers Carry Guns



Saturday, October 12, 2013

High Schoolers Perform Bestiality-Themed Play

By Nancy Pearcey • October 12, 2013, 05:00 PM

According to AZCentral.com, students in an Arizona high school performed  

The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? by Edward Albee, an absurdist play in which one of the characters falls in love with a goat. It includes the use of several vulgar sexual terms. . . .

In the play, a middle-aged man leads an ideal life with his wife and teenage son, until he admits that he is also in love with a goat named Sylvia, with whom he has had sex. The play explores themes of tolerance, morality and revenge, and includes scenes of homosexuality and incest.  

I remember this play well -- I wrote about it in Total Truth. But at the time, I did not anticipate that it would filter down to the high school level. Here's what I said there to explain the worldview backdrop: 

In the past, it was Christians who warned that Darwinian evolution would ultimately destroy morality, by reducing it to behavioral patterns selected only for their survival value. Back then, evolutionists would often respond with soothing reassurances that getting rid of God would not jeopardize morality -- that “we can be good without God.” But in recent years, evolutionists themselves have begun bluntly declaring that the theory undercuts the basis of ­morality.

For example, biologist William Provine of Cornell travels the lecture circuit telling university students that the Darwinian revolution is still incomplete, because we have not yet embraced all its moral and religious implications. What are those implications? Provine lists them: “There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will.” Thus evolutionary psychologists are simply completing the Darwinian revolution by drawing out its full implications. They are connecting the dots, by showing what consistent Darwinism means for morality.

The results can be quite abhorrent. A few years ago, conservative commentators around the country gave a collective gasp when an article appeared by a Princeton University professor supporting -- of all things -- sexual relations between humans and animals. The professor was Peter Singer, already notorious for his support of animal rights. (Apparently we ­didn’t realize what kind of rights he meant . . . ­)

The article was titled “Heavy Petting,” and in it Singer makes it clear that his real target is biblical morality. In the West, he writes, we have a “Judeo-Christian tradition” that teaches that “humans alone are made in the image of God.” “In Genesis, God gives humans dominion over the animals.” But evolution has thoroughly refuted the biblical account, Singer maintains: Evolution teaches us that “We are animals” -- and the result is that “sex across the species barrier [isn’t that a scientific-sounding euphemism?] ceases to be an offence to our status and dignity as human ­beings.”

These sentiments do not remain carefully contained within academia, but trickle down into popular culture -- where they have a much greater impact on the public. In 2002 a play opened on Broadway to rave reviews called The Goat, or, Who Is Sylvia? featuring a successful architect who confesses to his wife that he has fallen in love with someone else. The object of his affection turns out to be a goat named Sylvia. Apparently, playwrights no longer feel that they can get enough dramatic tension out of an ordinary affair; to really create drama, they must probe the theme of ­bestiality.

A culture is driven by a kind of logic: It will eventually begin to express the logical consequences of the dominant worldview. If evolution is true -- if there really is an unbroken continuity between humans and animals -- then Singer is absolutely right about what he calls “sex across the species ­barrier.”

Once again, all the dots connect back to your view of ­origins.

Related
Dawkins: Nazi Eugenics "May Not Be Bad"?
Paging Nancy Pearcey: Evolution in Pop Culture



Friday, October 11, 2013

Training Kids to Think Bill of Rights Is Outdated

By Nancy Pearcey • October 11, 2013, 09:44 AM

And should be changed. In an article titled "Common Core Assignment," Joe Newby writes at Examiner.com:

A mother in the Bryant School District in Arkansas
-- a district using the controversial Common Core curriculum -- was surprised to learn her sixth-grade daughter was given a team assignment to revise the Bill of Rights, pruning two amendments from the Constitution while adding two others, Twitchy reported Monday, citing a report at the Digital Journal.

The assignment made the assumption that the United States government has determined that the Bill of Rights "is outdated and may not remain in its current form any longer." 

Related
Ending Regressive Public Education 
Brennan Takes Oath on Draft Constitution -- Without Bill of Rights



Thursday, October 10, 2013

Are Anti-Bullying Programs Having an Opposite Effect?

By Rick Pearcey • October 10, 2013, 08:51 AM

A CBS affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth reports:

A lot of schools spend countless hours trying to stop bullying. But some question if they are sending the right message.

It started as a simple look at bullying. University of Texas at Arlington criminologist Seokjin Jeong analyzed data collected from 7,000 students from all 50 states.

He thought the results would be predictable and would show that anti-bullying programs curb bullying. Instead -- he found the opposite.

Jeong said it was, “A very disappointing and a very surprising thing. Our anti-bullying programs, either intervention or prevention does not work.”

But how surprising is this, really, especially if some of the "anti-bullying"campaigns are themselves "unsafe"?

Related
Obama "Safe Schools" Chief Praised Child-Sex Promoter
President's Bully in Chief: Obama Is Telling Kids, F--- Your Parents
New Pro-Marriage TV Ads Feature Victims of Bullying by Homosex Activists 
Rosie O'Donnell's Oppressive Coat



Monday, October 7, 2013

Chemistry Prof Rebuked by Faculty for Acknowledging "Holes" in Darwinian Theory

By Rick Pearcey • October 7, 2013, 12:43 PM

David Klinghoffer writes at Evolutionnews.org:

A chemistry professor at the University of Iowa got slammed recently by colleagues for voicing the view that Darwinian evolutionary theory has "holes . . . that are big enough to drive a semi-truck through."

The professor, Ned Bowden, was writing in an official university publication, Iowa Now, and 25 of his fellow faculty members took umbrage.

They signed a collectively authored letter chastising him, reminding Dr. Bowden that Evolution Is a Fact -- "we no longer debate the central principles of evolutionary theory as a scientific framework for understanding Earth's diversity" -- and chiding Iowa Now for publishing the piece and thereby doing "a disservice to the university."

Klinghoffer notes that "Bowden's remark about the semi-truck is actually in the context of a very mild article, 'Common Ground: A Case for Ending the Animosity Between Science and Religion,' expressing the general view that science and religion need not conflict.

In the article Bowden "makes crystal clear that he is no Young Earth Creationist -- 'I have utter confidence in radioactive dating'," Klinghoffer quotes Bowden as saying.

"There's not a word about intelligent design either," Klinghoffer observes. "In fact he uses a standard theistic evolutionary formulation about how 'it is highly possible that evolution was the tool that God used to bring humans into being.'

"Poor guy!," Klinghoffer writes. "Many theistic evolutionists -- not, I'm sure, Dr. Bowden, who seems very sincere -- embrace the idea because it's supposed to protect you from attack by Darwinists. So that's a prophylactic, like some others I can think of, that's not 100 percent effective after all."

Related
Atheist Philosopher: Students Should Be Taught About Intelligent Design Theory
Review of "Darwin's Doubt," New Book by Cambridge Ph.D. Stephen Meyer
He "Dared to Question" Evolution



Monday, September 30, 2013

Atheist Philosopher: Students Should Be Taught About Intelligent Design Theory

By Nancy Pearcey • September 30, 2013, 11:03 AM

Bradley Monton, a philosophy professor at the University of Colorado, identifies himself as an atheist. But in his book Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design, he explains why he thinks teaching students about the concept of a designer for nature is good pedagogy. 

From an interview in Salvo:

Do you think intelligent design should be taught in public schools?

What I know from being a teacher these past thirteen years is that it's wrong to ignore matters that students may have heard about or are certainly going to hear about in the future. For example, did you know that the California teacher guidelines for K–12 students state that if a student asks about intelligent design, he should be told that it doesn't belong in the science classroom -- that he should talk to his family or pastor about it instead? Shutting down discussion and debate in this fashion is bad pedagogy. Teachers should be forthright about all of the evidence and tell students that issues regarding the origin of life are still open for debate.

Do you teach your own students about intelligent design?

Yes, I do talk about intelligent design in my philosophy of science course, and the students are very interested in it. In high school, science was taught to them as just a monolithic body of facts with no understanding of theory development or of how the theories we have now were built by scientists rejecting past theories and in ways that were often controversial and involved scientific revolutions and complicated factors of human psychology. As a result, they don't understand how science works. I have found intelligent design to be a fruitful way of teaching students how science actually functions and that it is a human endeavor filled with controversy.

You write in your book that you don't fully endorse intelligent design. In your opinion, what are some of the weaknesses of ID?

At one time, I would have said that the greatest weakness was the failure of ID proponents to put a theory on the table that makes testable predictions, but that all changed with Jonathan Wells's book The Myth of Junk DNA. In it, Wells predicted that this purported junk DNA -- these stretches of DNA in our genome that many scientists had claimed were useless -- would be purposeful for the structure of human biology. Well, within the past year or so, empirical investigation has confirmed that there is in fact much less junk DNA than scientists had previously thought. It's just a great example of a testable prediction that was made by a proponent of intelligent design that turned out to be successful.

Related
From Stephen King to Francis Schaeffer: Cosmos "Suggests Intelligent Design"
Christianity Is a Science-Starter, Not a Science-Stopper 
Christmas Spirit in Space and Time 



Friday, September 20, 2013

Study Philosophy, Make Money -- and More of It!

By Rick Pearcey • September 20, 2013, 01:51 PM

Stop the presses. It turns out that philosophy majors can actually make money after graduation: $81,200 annually, the data indicate.  

This is according to "Annual Salary" information collected since 2008 on the "median salary of mid-career graduates without higher degrees," as stated by this chart (click on image to enlarge, scroll to bottom) that appears on the website of Colorado State University. 

A salary of $81,200 means philosophy majors outperform their counterparts who majored in sociology, psychology, art history, English literature, biology, history, business, political science, and chemistry.  

In addition, philosophy majors rank at the very top (with math majors) when it comes to salary growth, meaning the "increase from starting to mid-career median salary of graduates without higher degrees," according to a companion "Salary Growth" chart.

So, whether you are working through Francis Schaeffer's "Basic Philosophic Questions," taking Nancy Pearcey's apologetics classes at HBU, or exploring some of our worldview articles at The Pearcey Report, rejoice: There's bankable gold in them there cogitations. 

Or like Descartes almost said: I think, therefore, I earn.

HT: Gary Hartenburg



Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Nancy Pearcey Speaking on "Saving Leonardo"

By Nancy Pearcey • September 18, 2013, 11:40 AM

Readers of The Pearcey Report may be interested know that I will be speaking at the Southwest Conference on Christianity and Literature on the campus of Houston Baptist University on Friday at 2:15. My talk draws on themes from Saving Leonardo and is titled, "Recovering Our Virtue: Does Dickens Succeed in Overcoming the Fact/Value Split in Hard Times?"

In the novel Hard Times Dickens is doing battle with philosophies like empiricism and utilitarianism, which had come to dominate the public sphere of politics and economics. Writing at the height of the industrial revolution, Dickens realized that the impact of these philosophies was reductionistic and dehumanizing, and he raises the question: In an age where Truth has been identified solely with empirical fact, what is the truth status of Goodness and Beauty?

Dickens knew that the outstanding philosopher of utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill, had undergone a personal crisis (related in Saving Leonardo). He recasts Mill's story as the plot line in the novel.

Here is a brief preview of my remarks:

When John Stuart Mill was born, his father was close friends with Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism. They decided to turn the boy into a kind of experiment: They would educate him from a young age to become a prophet for their utilitarian creed.

And it worked. As a young man, Mill was brilliant. He was writing for professional journals, he had founded several intellectual societies, and he was heralded as the crown prince of an influential utilitarian movement in politics.

But at the age of twenty, Mill suffered a mental crisis. As he wrote in his Autobiography, it came crashing down on him that he had been turned into little more than a "reasoning machine." He felt he had been robbed of entire dimensions of life.

So intense was Mill's depression that he compared himself with someone on the threshold of a religious conversion. Yet he did not find a resolution to his crisis in religion. Instead, he found it in poetry. His depression lifted when he discovered the poetry of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and the other Romantics.

Now, however, he was faced with a dilemma. The discovery of poetry and beauty had saved his life. But his philosophy did not allow for any form of truth except the empirical and the quanitfiable.

How would Mill resolve the conflict?

And how would Dickens resolve the conflict in his fictional treatment of the same issues? Most importantly, how can we stand against the inhumane reductionism and scientism of our own age and assert once again that Goodness and Beauty are rooted in Truth?

According to the conference website, online registration "is $85 per professional ($95 at the door) or $55 per graduate student ($65 at the door) and includes the Friday dinner meal. In addition, all registrants must be current members of Conference on Christianity and Literature. The membership rates are $35 per year or $60 for two years."

On the topic of conferences, Rick and I are excited to announce that we are developing plans for conferences where together we address the critical challenges of our day, in light of the liberating and reality-oriented principles set forth in the Judeo-Christian worldview. Stayed tuned for updates on this initiative.



Tuesday, September 17, 2013

“Anarchaqueer��? Proudly Destroys College 9/11 Memorial

By Rick Pearcey • September 17, 2013, 09:48 AM

Mark Tapson writes at Frontpagemag.com:

Last week at more than 200 colleges and high schools across the nation, students came together to arrange memorials on campus featuring thousands of flags representing each victim of Islamic terrorism on that date.

Who could find that gesture offensive?

Five student protesters at Middlebury College in Vermont, brainwashed by multiculturalist nonsense, that’s who.

For an exploration into the "mind" of an "'anarchaqueer' who 'hates the police' and whose goal is to 'dismantle all systems of oppression,'" and who "decided to respect the massacred dead by dismantling a 9/11 memorial respectful of massacred Americans," read Tapscott's column here.

"Remember," Tapscott concludes, "this is a woman ["queer" Amanda Lickers, photo] who was invited to facilitate a workshop on settler responsibility and decolonization on campus, so there are students at Middlebury supportive enough of her radical multiculturalism to attend a workshop and at least one person there -- a professor or administrator -- with the authority to invite her. Hopefully her vandalism and subsequent unhinged statement will give them second thoughts about asking her back."

See Also
Extremist Prof Arrested After Profane Tirade at Pro-Life Students 
Campus Rape Victim: "I Was in a Safe Zone and My Attacker Didn't Care" 
"Gay" Totalitarianism



Monday, September 16, 2013

Fatherlessness a Gateway to Poverty, Drugs, Violence -- But There's Hope in New York City

By Nancy Pearcey • September 16, 2013, 10:59 AM

It's all too easy to bemoan the problem -- studies show clearly that growing up fatherless greatly increases the chances of a host of social pathologies, from poverty to drugs to violence.

Here's a program that is working on a positive solution: The City University of New York (CUNY) Fatherhood Academy, part of the university's Young Men’s Initiative, is a free, five-month, three-day-a-week program that helps young fathers, from age 18 to 24, earn a GED, prepare for college, get work experience, explore careers, and learn about topics like parenthood.

Seron Douglas, a recent grad of the program, and a single dad of a four-year-old, said, "The program has helped me become a man. I grew up without a father so I had no one to look up to or to learn from. The academy taught me what a father teaches a son -- how to speak to people and how to present myself. It changed my life."

Through the program, he landed a job as a bartender at the U.S. Open, and after this stint he is hoping to find a permanent part-time job with the help of the program. "I am thinking about my future and my son’s future,” said Seron. “I will go to college, get a good job. I never talked like this before."

According to the CUNY Fatherhood Academy, one in three children under the age of 18 in New York City grows up without a dad. This crisis disproportionately impacts the city’s black and Latino children, as 51 percent of black and 46 percent of Latino children are being raised in fatherless households, compared to 11 percent of white children.

"Those statistics change when we introduce education as well as employment -- they change drastically," said program coordinator Raheem Brooks. "Fathers are more present in their children's lives, which then affects poverty."

For more, check out these sources:

* CUNY Fatherhood Academy Helps Young Dads 
* Free NYC Program Helps Young Fathers Get on the Right Track 
* CUNY Fatherhood Academy at LaGuardia Community College Makes Difference in Young Men’s Lives



Monday, September 9, 2013

Nancy Pearcey Offers University Faculty In-Service Training on Christian Worldview

By Nancy Pearcey • September 9, 2013, 10:54 AM

It was an honor to deliver the annual faculty in-service training at Southern Adventist University (SAU) a couple of weeks ago. I started with a presentation on making the "Case for Christianity Across the Curriculum" to explore how to incorporate verifiable Biblical truth and apologetics into the subject matter of every discipline on campus.

I followed up with "Speaking Truth to a Secular Age," giving concrete examples on how to "translate" reality-oriented Biblical principles from religious jargon into the language of today’s secularized world, and to do so without compromise. Most students at Christian colleges will go to work in the public sphere, and they need learn how to speak authentically and persuasively from a factual Biblical perspective into the challenges that beset their chosen fields of work.

My final presentation focused on what to expect from incoming students -- what worldview is most common among young people today? -- and how to "Give Students a Biblical Playbook."

In addition, I was invited to a luncheon with the university's Faith-Science Discussion Group. Many of the faculty had read my book The Soul of Science and were eager to discuss it.

In preparation for my visit, SAU ordered copies of Total Truth: Liberating Christianity From Its Cultural Captivity for the entire faculty, including part-time and adjunct faculty. It was clear that faculty members were well prepared for the in-service training. Their questions and comments were well informed, and the interaction was both intellectually and personally inspiring.

Dr. Greg King, dean of the School of Religion and professor of Biblical Studies at SAU, wrote afterward, "You did a superb job highlighting the significance of a Christian worldview and helping us see how to apply that worldview to some important topics. Your time here was both an inspiration and a blessing to the faculty and to me personally."

Southern Adventist is ranked by U.S. News & World Report in 2013 as one of the best regional colleges in the south. Peruse its lovely campus here.



Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Pledge of Allegiance on Trial in Boston

By Rick Pearcey • September 4, 2013, 07:20 AM

The Boston Herald reports:

The state Supreme Judicial Court will begin hearing arguments this week in an atheist Acton couple’s quest to strike the words "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance their children say in the Acton-Boxboro Regional School District.

Related 
Home Depot Fires Man for Wearing "Under God" Pin: Video
Oregon Panel OKs Bill Requiring Daily Pledge of Allegiance in Schools
White House Correspondent Doesn't Stand for Pledge of Allegiance 
Double Bogey: NBC Edits Out "Under God" From Pledge
Democrat Activists Behind School Ban on Pledge of Allegiance 
The Declaration of Independence



Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Public School Promotes 5 Pillars of Islam

By Rick Pearcey • August 20, 2013, 07:14 AM

Todd Starnes writes at Fox News:

Parents at a Wichita, Kan. elementary school were shocked to discover a giant wall display inside the building promoting the five pillars of Islam.

The large exhibit was erected before the start of the school year as part of a religion component being taught at Minneha Core Knowledge Magnet School, a school district spokesperson told Fox News.

"The bulletin board that originally caused the concern does represent the 5 Pillars of Islam -- in a historical context of their studies," the spokesman is quoted as saying. 

According to Starnes, "The district said the photograph of the bulletin board is misleading because it is 'without context'."

"There is also a painting of the Last Supper hanging in the school as part of the study of art and the Renaissance period," the spokesman is also quoted as saying. "A photo take of a bulletin board without context is misleading, and some have taken it out of context without having all the information."

"Nevertheless," Starnes writes, "the school has removed the Islamic bulletin board until the subject matter is taught later this fall."

Related
Islamist Group in America: We’ll Impose Sharia on Christians 
Florida Megachurch Pastor's Ties to Islamists



Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Stage Set for Molestations, Privacy Violations in California Schools

By Rick Pearcey • August 13, 2013, 10:19 AM

Becky Yeh writes at OneNewsNow:

With the stroke of a pen on Monday, California became the first state to enshrine rights for transgender students in state law -- setting the stage, say pro-family leaders, for young girls to be molested in school locker rooms by boys who believe they are girls.

Without comment, California Governor Jerry Brown yesterday signed into law a bill (AB 1266) strengthening the rights of transgender students (K-12) in the state’s public schools.

It makes the Golden State the first state in the nation to allow participation in "sex-segregated programs, activities, and facilities" in public schools based on a student's gender identity.

Under the new law, public schools will be required to allow the students access to whichever restroom and locker room they want -- and it would allow boys to take showers with girls just because they say they feel they are female.

"It's an outrageous and egregious violation of the privacy and decency for young women and young girls all throughout the state of California,” Brad Dacus of the Pacific Justice Institute is quoted as saying. "This new law will even allow boys to play on girl's athletic teams. So this is a serious violation of the fundamental right of young people up and down the state of California."

All of this is allowed "under the guise of providing special rights and protections for children with a gender-identity disorder," Yeh writes. "If a boy wants to molest a girl, he can follow her into a restroom and violate her."

Comment: To paraphrase bluesy rocker Janis Joplin, freedom's just another word for no privacy left to lose.

Inalienable rights -- rooted in the Creator, as opposed to sociological fads posing as "rights," left, right, or center -- lift a people up and help to set them free. But phony rights, even when duly enacted into law by people wearing suits and ties, hurt them and bring them down. A culture can drown in the sewage of its "mainstream."

Related
Don't Worry, Ladies, It Was a Transgender Spy Cam 
College Lets Transgender Man Expose Himself to Young Girls 
The "Gay" Anti-Science



Wednesday, July 3, 2013

DOJ: Governments Can Punish Homeschoolers

By Rick Pearcey • July 3, 2013, 07:15 AM

Bob Unruh writes at WND:

The U.S. Department of Justice has revealed in a court filing it agrees with the philosophy of the German government that bureaucrats can punish homeschooling parents.

And the agency explained parental rights to keep their children free from instruction that violates their faith essentially are negligible when the government’s goal is an "open society."

The arguments were made in a pleading before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that encourages the judges to send a German homeschooling family, the Romeikes, back to Germany where members likely would face persecution.

"The goal in Germany is for an 'open, pluralistic society,'" wrote the government’s pleading, signed by Senior Litigation Counsel Robert N. Markle in Washington. So, he said, there is a law requiring attendance by all at government schools and punishment is levied against anyone failing to comply, whether they are truant or have religious objections to the indoctrination at the public schools. . . .

The Home School Legal Defense Association, which is fighting on behalf of the family, said, Germany’s actions amount to persecution -- a platform on which the Romeikes should be granted asylum.

"'Silencing the "intolerant" to promote tolerance is not only illogical; it is antithetical to any theory of freedom of conscience,' the organization argued earlier," reports WND.

WND also reports that a "Nazi-era law in Germany in 1938, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, eliminated exemptions that would provide an open door for homeschoolers under the nation’s compulsory education laws."

Related
Homeschoolers Told: Go Back to Persecution 
Houston Baptist U in Top 10 "Best Colleges for Homeschool Graduates" 
Thoughtcamp Watch: Brits to Tighten Screws on Homeschooling?



Thursday, June 13, 2013

NYC Teacher Assigns Suicide Notes for Homework

By Rick Pearcey • June 13, 2013, 09:34 AM

Margaret Hartmann reports at NYMagazine:

The latest school assignment infuriating New York parents comes from Jessica Barrish, a new English teacher at York Prep, who had students as young as 14 write suicide notes from the perspective of a character in The Secret Life of Bees last month.

Related
Student Reprimanded for Defending Classmate Against Knife-Wielding Bully 
Texas High School Student Suspended for Saying Homosexuality Is Wrong



Monday, June 10, 2013

Student Reprimanded for Defending Classmate Against Knife-Wielding Bully

By Rick Pearcey • June 10, 2013, 11:10 AM

A bully with a knife had a classmate in a headlock and could slit his throat at any moment.

Seventh-grader Briar MacLean of Calgary intervened and protected the boy from this immediate threat. 

But "instead of getting a pat on the back for his bravery, Briar was made to feel as if he had done something terribly wrong. The police were called, the teen filed a statement and his locker was searched," Jen Gerson reports at the National Post.

Briar's mother was "politely informed" by the vice principal that the school "did not 'condone heroics'" and that her son Brian "should have found a teacher to handle the situation."

The mother asked the vice principal, "In the time it would have taken him to go get a teacher, could that kid’s throat have been slit?"

The vice principal "said yes, but that’s beside the point," the Post reports. We "don’t condone heroics in this school."

Related
Public Schools Turning Teens Into Relativists
Texas High School Student Suspended for Saying Homosexuality Is Wrong
Mandated Curriculum: "Everything I Love About Teaching Is Extinct" 



Thursday, June 6, 2013

Valedictorian Teen Stuns Anti-Prayer School With "Lord's Prayer" -- Video

By Rick Pearcey • June 6, 2013, 10:00 AM

Chelsea Schilling reports at WND:

In unapologetic defiance of a South Carolina school district’s ban on prayer at graduation ceremonies, valedictorian Roy Costner IV shredded his approved speech and rocked the crowd at his high-school commencement -- with a reading of the "Lord’s Prayer." 

The audience went wild June 1 when Costner surprised attendees of the Liberty High School graduation at Clemson’s Littlejohn Colliseum with his tribute to the Almighty.

Immediately after he took the stage, Costner explained to the crowd that his original graduation speech had been pre-approved by the administration -- but he didn’t proceed as they had planned.

"Those that we look up to, they have helped carve and mold us into the young adults that we are today," Costner said.

"I’m so glad that both of my parents led me to the Lord at a young age," the Valedictorian continued.

"And I think most of you will understand when I say, 'Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done: on Earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us for our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen.'"

As this YouTube video demonstrates and WND reports, "The crowd roared with support."

Well done, Roy Costner IV.

Related 
Atheists Try to Stop Prayers Before Football Games
Pentagon May Court-Martial Soldiers Who Share the Gospel 
Cal Thomas v. Star Parker: Should Ben Carson Apologize to Obama for Prayer Breakfast Remarks? 
Survey: Pervasive Anti-Religious Hostility in U.S. Irrefutable



Monday, June 3, 2013

Making Waves: Georgia Tech to Offer Master's in Computer Science, Online, One-Fourth the Cost

By Nancy Pearcey • June 3, 2013, 02:54 PM

Andy Kessler at the Wall Street Journal highlights a major move toward online education:

[Georgia Tech] is making major waves in business and higher education with its May 14 announcement that the college will offer the first online master's degree in computer science -- and that the degree can be had for a quarter of the cost of a typical on-campus degree.

"Many other universities are experimenting with open online courses, or MOOCs, but Georgia Tech's move raises the bar significantly by offering full credit in a graduate program," Kessler writes.

"Sadly," Kessler continues, this experiment is "not without controversy."



Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Mandated Curriculum: "Everything I Love About Teaching Is Extinct"

By Rick Pearcey • May 28, 2013, 10:04 AM



Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Adios, CSCOPE: Texas Abolishes Pre-Fabricated Leftist Lesson Plans

By Rick Pearcey • May 21, 2013, 12:16 PM

Eric Owens reports at the Daily Caller:

The Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative -- the entity that administers CSCOPE -- announced Monday that it has agreed to cease production of lesson plans for its much-criticized online curriculum system.

Beginning Aug. 31, 2013, school districts in the Lone Star State will no longer be permitted to use any existing CSCOPE lesson plans. CSCOPE itself will be far from dead, however, and other features of curriculum system will continue unchanged. . . .

Critics had persistently protested that the curriculum is riddled with cultural relativism and downright leftist assumptions, particularly in history and social studies.

They pointed to lesson plans informing kids in the state’s public schools that Islam and communism are awesome.
. . . Students also learned that the Boston Tea Party was a terrorist attack, that Christianity is a cult and that a Malthusian population catastrophe is about to overtake the planet.

In another incident, a teacher in Lumberton using a CSCOPE lesson plan allowed three female students to dress up in full-length Islamic burqas and then instructed the entire class that Muslim terrorists are actually freedom fighters.

"Danelle Ivey, a former teacher and now a Texas school board watchdog, called Monday’s announcement a 'very interesting turn of events,' but noted that CSCOPE is by no means going to disappear," Owens reports. 

"The big, obvious question, Ivey told The Daily Caller, is what happens after Aug. 31. She is optimistic that teachers will quickly learn to manage without prefabricated lesson plans," according to Owens.

Writing a lesson plan is a core competency of being a teacher; it’s not rocket science,” Ivey is quoted as saying. "It wasn’t a burden to be creative or to enrich lessons without the internet. It’s got to be a walk in the park today."

Comment: No properly self-respecting, curious professional teacher, in Texas or in any other state, will allow him or herself to rely on pre-fabricated lesson plans devised by some kind of centralized authority. This smacks of a blob-like, beehive approach to education that disrespects the God-given individuality and creativity of both students and teachers. The pursuit of excellence in education occurs on a higher, more humane plane.

It is crucial to acknowledge that human beings, created in the image of God, are called to think for themselves, to ask questions, and to examine facts and evidence carefully, and then follow that evidence wherever it might lead. Schools, therefore, whether public or private, ought to set people free on the basis of objective, knowable truth, not subject them to any kind of indoctrination, whether political, scientific, or theological (including especially those based on private, non-verifiable "revelations" or supposed "visions from God").

Related
Public Schools Turning Teens Into Relativists 
Texas High School Student Suspended for Saying Homosexuality Is Wrong 



Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Homeschoolers Told: Go Back to Persecution

By Rick Pearcey • May 15, 2013, 09:44 AM

Bob Unruh reports at WND:

An appeal is planned for a family of homeschoolers the Obama administration wants to deport to their home country of Germany to face persecution from education officials there who seek fines and jail for such individuals.

The word comes . . . from officials with the Home School Legal Defense Association [HSLDA], who have been arguing on behalf of the Romeike family since they fled Germany in 2008 and were granted asylum in the U.S. in 2010 by Immigration Judge Lawrence O. Burman.

According to WND, "The Obama administration was unhappy with that decision and appealed, and the grant was rescinded by the Board of Immigration Appeals in 2012.

"A panel from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently heard arguments on the dispute, and ruled today that the asylum request should be denied."

"We believe the Sixth Circuit is wrong, and we will appeal their decision," WND quotes HSLDA Founder and Chairman Michael Farris as saying. "America has room for this family, and we will do everything we can to help them."

"The court said that the Romeikes had not made a sufficient case, and that the United States has not opened its doors to every victim of unfair treatment," according to WND.

"While the judges admitted the U.S. Constitution recognizes the rights of parents to direct the education and upbringing of their children," WND reports, "they refused to concede that the harsh treatment of religiously and philosophically motivated homeschoolers in Germany, including fines, jail and the loss of custody of their children, amounts to persecution within the laws on asylum."

Related
Houston Baptist U in Top 10 "Best Colleges for Homeschool Graduates"



Monday, May 6, 2013

Columbus Bishop Risks Jail Defending Catholic School That Fired Homosexual Teacher

By Rick Pearcey • May 6, 2013, 12:47 PM

Kirsten Andersen reports at LifeSiteNews.com:

Columbus Bishop Frederick Campbell has weighed in publicly on the firing of a lesbian teacher from a diocesan high school, telling The Columbus Dispatch that Catholic schools have a "fundamental responsibility" to make sure their teachers uphold the teachings of the faith.

Gym instructor Carla Hale was fired from Bishop Watterson High School last month after an anonymous parent wrote to the Diocese of Columbus to complain that in an obituary for Hale’s mother, Hale was listed as a surviving family member together with her longtime lesbian partner, Julie.

Hale signed a morality clause as part of her contract, affirming that "Catholic school personnel are expected to be examples of moral behavior and professionalism," and acknowledging her employment could be terminated for "immorality" or "serious unethical conduct." Because the Roman Catholic Church holds homosexual behavior to be gravely immoral, the Diocese of Columbus found her to be in violation of her contract, and fired her.

"Hale wants her job back and has filed a grievance with the teachers union, along with a formal complaint with the Columbus Community Relations Commission accusing the school of violating Columbus’s anti-discrimination ordinance," LifeSiteNews reports.

"City law deems it is a misdemeanor for an employer to discriminate against an employee based on sexual preference, or to have policies which do so," and "there is no exemption for religious organizations or other employers who object to homosexuality on religious grounds," according to LifeSiteNews. "A guilty verdict carries penalties of up to 180 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. The Community Relations Commission will evaluate Hale’s claim and decide whether to pass it on to the city prosecutor’s office."

Related
Son of Lesbian in Paris: Meet the "Gay" Police State 
Memo to Conservatives: Accepting Homosex "Marriage" Opens Door to "Unlimited Statism" 
Imposing Extremism: School Kids to Drink "Gay" Power Kool-Aid



Saturday, April 20, 2013

Firebomb Terrorist Who Targeted My Dad Now a Professor

By Rick Pearcey • April 20, 2013, 10:41 AM

In a "Tale of Two Terrorists," John M. Murtagh recalls at the NYPost:

Forty-three years ago last month, Kathy Boudin, now a professor at Columbia but then a member of the Weather Underground, escaped an explosion at a bomb factory operated in a townhouse in Greenwich Village. The story is familiar to people of a certain age.

Three weeks earlier, Boudin’s Weathermen had firebombed a private home in Upper Manhattan with Molotov cocktails. Their target was my father, a New York state Supreme Court justice. The rest of the family, was presumably, an afterthought. I was 9 at the time, only a year older than the youngest victim in Boston.

One of Boudin’s colleagues, Cathy Wilkerson, related in her memoir that the Weathermen were disappointed with the minimal effects of the bombs at my home. They decided to use dynamite the next time and bought a large quantity along with fuses, metal pipes and, yes, nails. The group designated as its next target a dance at an Officer’s Club at Fort Dix, NJ.

"Despite the misgivings of some, it is reported that [now Columbia professor] Kathy Boudin urged the use of 'anti-personnel bombs,'" Murtagh writes. ”In other words, she wanted to kill people not just damage property. Before they could act, her fellows were killed in the townhouse explosion. The townhouse itself collapsed; Boudin fled."

Murtagh recounts that Boudin "reappeared over a decade later driving the getaway car for the rag tag mix of Weathermen and Black Panthers who held up a Rockland County bank in 1981, murdering three in the process."

According to Murtagh, "survivors of the ambush along the New York State Thruway recount how Boudin emerged from the driver’s door, arms raised in surrender, asking the police to lower their guns. When they did, her accomplices burst from the back of the van guns blazing."

Some of today's readers may not be of an age to remember this history. No worries, for "Robert Redford is kindly about to release a movie recounting the Rockland robbery (albeit relocated to Michigan). By all accounts, the film lionizes the Weather Underground terrorists, Boudin and her accomplices," Murtagh writes.

"Other than the passage of time," Murtagh notes, "one can find no real distinction between the cowardly actions of last Monday’s Boston murderer and the terror carried out by Boudin and her accomplices. Yet today we live in a country where our leading educational institutions see fit to trust our children’s education to murderers and Hollywood sees fit to celebrate terrorists."

A certain scrubbing of a certain history may be in order, however. For example, Murtagh directs us to the website of Columbia’s School of Social Work, which "sums up Boudin’s past thus: 'Dr. Kathy Boudin has been an educator and counselor with experience in program development since 1964, working within communities with limited resources to solve social problems.'"

Murtagh concludes: Perhaps "Monday’s bomber can explain that, like Boudin, he was merely working within the community to solve social problems."

Related
Extremist Prof Arrested After Profane Tirade at Pro-Life Students 
Update: Florida Atlantic University Apologizes for Jesus Stomping 
Houston Baptist U in Top 10 "Best Colleges for Homeschool Graduates"



Friday, April 19, 2013

Professors: Pro-Life Students “Appear to Have a Lot in Common With Those Who Supported Lynching��?

By Rick Pearcey • April 19, 2013, 04:18 PM

Ben Johnson reports at LifeSiteNews.com:

Idealistic young men and women at the University at Buffalo may have dedicated their lives to protecting the unborn, but according to some of their professors, they are similar to Americans "who supported lynching."

Six history professors swiftly condemned the campus chapter of Students For Life after a university-approved display stirred controversy.

The six professors are:

* Susan Cahn, Professor of History
* Carole Emberton, Assistant Professor of History;
* Theresa Runstedtler, Assistant Professor of American Studies;
* Lakisha Simmons, Assistant Professor of Global Gender Studies;
* Victoria Wolcott, Professor of History; and
* Jason Young, Associate Professor of History

"As a student in the history department and president of the pro-life club on campus, not only am I ashamed and appalled that my professors twisted our message to suit their point of view, but I am offended due to their false characterization of our argument," Students for Life chapter President Christian Andzel is quoted as responding. "We were citing the history of oppression and voicelessness of the victims who deserved human rights and justice."

"This is not the kind of example professors from a public university, funded with our tax money, should be setting for our students,” Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins is quoted as saying.

"We stand with UB Students for Life," Hawkins continued, "for courageously fighting to bring the truth of abortion to a liberal campus, despite attempts to shout them down, cover the display, and personally attack group leaders like President Christian Andzel."

Related  
Why Pro-Abortion Is Anti-Science
Extremist Prof Arrested After Profane Tirade at Pro-Life Students 
Professors Admit Discrimination Against Conservatives 



Saturday, April 13, 2013

Oregon Panel OKs Bill Requiring Daily Pledge of Allegiance in Schools

By Rick Pearcey • April 13, 2013, 03:02 PM

AP reports:

A legislative committee voted unanimously Friday for a bill requiring the Pledge of Allegiance to be recited daily in Oregon public classrooms.

Under state law, schools must give students the opportunity to say the Pledge of Allegiance at least once a week. The bill passed by the House Education Committee would require schools to do so daily, and to have an employee or student lead the recital.

Students can't be compelled to say the pledge, and the bill wouldn't change that.

"Supporters say the pledge is an important part of civic education. Critics say requiring time each day for the pledge would further ostracize students who don't participate because of religious or other reasons," according to AP.

AP is also reporting that "two words in the pledge have sparked controversy: 'under God.'"

According to AP, "Dissenters say they are uncomfortable reciting the Pledge of Allegiance for religious and other reasons. For example, members of the Jehovah's Witnesses denomination typically do not participate in saying the pledge."

Setting aside a moment to recite the Pledge is a step in the right direction.

Another step in the right direction would be to allow a reading from the Declaration of Independence, which states, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Every student, teacher, and staff member would benefit from a reminder of what truly is the center of gravity for human rights, human dignity, and human freedom.

Related
Federal Judge Declares Most Americans Bunch of Bigots 
Extremist Barack Obama: Put Nation's 4-Year-Olds in "Public Preschools"



Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Public School Boots Cub Scouts

By Rick Pearcey • April 2, 2013, 02:12 PM

Todd Starnes reports at Fox News:

A federal civil rights complaint has been filed against the Salt Lake City School Board after a principal booted a Cub Scout pack from an elementary school.

About 30 eight to 11 year-olds were told they could no longer meet at Mountain View Elementary School because the Boy Scout’s ban on gay members in leaders conflicted with the school district’s anti-bias policy.

The ban drew the ire of Michael Clara, a school board member and lifetime Boy Scout. Clara filed the federal complaint on behalf of two Latino parents.

"It is an assault on the founding principles of our country for school officials to attempt to exclude a voice no less legitimate than its own from public school participation," Clara is quoted as telling Fox News.

In fact, the pro-family voice of the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts is more legitimate than that of a pro-homosexual school board, for the Scouts ban on homosexuals stands in the mainstream of the family, married life, and the norms of freedom, which are ultimately rooted in the "created equal" of the Creator (see Declaration of Independence) and not in the social constructs of secularized academics, alienated politicians, or an estranged federal state. 

In contrast, the homosexualist movement stands outside of that enduring mainstream and therefore, by definition, occupies the extreme -- against family, against marriage, and even against the human body. It is an ideology that harms.

"A marketplace of ideas devoid of competitive viewpoints engenders an insidious society of conformity, contrary to the fundamental precepts of our Constitution," Clara is also quoted as saying. "It’s unfortunate this principal has the backing of the district to implement their own form of discrimination and racism."

By the way, Clara "describes himself as a Christian conservative Republican who supports gay rights," according to Fox News. It should be noted that a belief in "gay rights" faces a huge challenge intellectually insofar as it operates on the basis of a relativistic social construct, which undercuts the very concept of morality and of rights and offers no sound basis for "unalienable rights."

The slogan "homosexual rights" is actually an assertion of raw power, organized anarchy, and it possesses all the authenticity of a $3 bill. Anything you can buy with this counterfeit will be of no value. Fortunately for human freedom, all the yelling, screaming, hating, and name-calling in the world -- as well as removing from schools -- cannot change this fact.

Meanwhile, the name of the principal of Mountain View Elementary School is James Martin. He can be contacted by email at james.martin@slcschools.org, according the school's public website.

These are your schools, parents. These are your schools, taxpayers. The principals work for you, the school board works for you. You pay their salaries. Ultimately, in community with the God who liberates, you are the boss and you call the shots. It's time for Wisdom to rise up. It's time for Wisdom to rise up.

Related
The Revolt of Intelligence Against "Marriage Equality"
Son of Lesbian in Paris: Meet the "Gay" Police State
Memo to Conservatives: Accepting Homosex "Marriage" Opens Door to "Unlimited Statism"
Rosie O'Donnell's Oppressive Coat



Saturday, March 30, 2013

Conservatives, Christians, Fox News Bashed at Annual Taxpayer-Sponsored LGBT Youth Event

By Rick Pearcey • March 30, 2013, 07:23 PM

Kristine Marsh writes at CNSNews.com:

An Iowa anti-bullying conference is planning to teach students and adults how "to fight back against propaganda from the extreme right wing, from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh to Bob Vander Plaats and Jan Mickelson."

The event is being put on by Iowa Safe Schools, a gay advocacy group affiliated with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission. This is its eighth annual Iowa Governor's Conference on LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning) Youth, and taxpayers and students are sponsoring it, at least in part.

The conference, that takes place April 3, will feature anti-conservative and anti-Christian workshops.

"A documentary entitled For the Bible Tells Me So will be shown, along with a discussion afterwards," CNSNews reports. "The event description asks, 'Is the Bible an excuse to hate?' Another event describes how religion is a 'form of oppression' alongside racism, sexism, and homophobia."

This extreme homosexualist approach smacks of rank propaganda that discriminates against the Creator and his liberating norms for marriage, human sexuality, and unalienable rights (as opposed to pretend rights socially constructed in San Fransciso thought ghettos).

Free minds, of course, revolt and refuse to submit to organized bullying and to organized hatreds, especially when those hatreds try to hide their intent behind slogans such as "safe schools" and other deceptions designed not to inform but to conquer. 

Stand up, Iowa. Stand up to your oppressors. In love and in truth, yes, but stand. Hate must be resisted, and lies knocked down by truth. Live free. Live free.  

Related
Son of Lesbian in Paris: Meet the "Gay" Police State 
Nordstrum Decides to Stomp on Marriage
Rosie O'Donnell's Oppressive Coat



Saturday, March 23, 2013

Update: Florida Atlantic University Apologizes for Jesus Stomping

By Rick Pearcey • March 23, 2013, 04:01 PM

Eric Owens writes at The Daily Caller:

The story about the Florida Atlantic University [FAU] student who says he ended up suspended because he refused to stomp on a piece of paper bearing the word “JESUS” has really taken off nationally. . . .

Junior Ryan Rotela, a devout Mormon, says he was booted from class after he told an FAU school official that the Jesus-stomping assignment made him uncomfortable.

An FAU official initially defended the suspension, telling local CBS affiliate WPEC that the Jesus-stomping was part of a classroom exercise from a textbook, Intercultural Communication: A Contextual Approach, 5th Edition.

On Friday, reports Todd Starnes of Fox News, FAU issued an apology for [Deandre] Poole’s assignment. The public, taxpayer-funded school said it won’t be using the assignment again.

"We sincerely apologize for any offense this has caused,” the apology says, according to The Daily Caller. "Florida Atlantic University respects all religions and welcomes people of all faiths, backgrounds and beliefs."

Related
Democrat Official Makes Students "Stomp on Jesus" ... "Secular Disciples of 'Diversity' and 'Tolerance'" 
Professors Admit Discrimination Against Conservatives



Thursday, March 7, 2013

Nancy Pearcey Offering Courses in Worldview Apologetics at Francis Schaeffer Center

By Rick Pearcey • March 7, 2013, 08:49 AM

Join best-selling author and professor Nancy Pearcey for a "full year (two semesters) of intensive study in worldview apologetics to ground students in the knowledge and skills needed to think critically about secular worldviews and apply a liberating Christian perspective in their studies, their professions, and across the whole of life," announces the Francis Schaeffer Center for Worldview and Culture at Houston Baptist University.

Out of the Box, Into the World: In the Fall 2013, students can take "Worldview Apologetics: 'Testing Everything' with C.S. Lewis & Francis Schaeffer."

Hello Campus, Good-Bye God: In the Spring 2014, students can take "Worldview Apologetics: Surviving and Thriving at the University."

For contact information and course descriptions, read the Francis Schaeffer Center announcement here.



Friday, February 22, 2013

Homeschoolers Barred From H.S. Sports but Illegal Immigrant Peers Play On

By Rick Pearcey • February 22, 2013, 09:02 PM

Benjamin Chance writes at Breitbart.com:

Is it "fair" that illegal immigrants and foreign exchange students are allowed to play high school football on Friday nights and to participate in extra curricular activities at public schools, while many of their peers, who are legal US citizens but who happen to be homeschooled, are being denied "equal" access to the same opportunities in their local communities?

In Virginia last week, seven Democrats and a lone Republican, perhaps unaware or unmoved by such a discrepancy, made the point moot and rejected the so called "Tebow Bill" that sought to "level the playing field."

Related
Obamacare Mentality vs. Homeschool Freedom 
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Sexual Assaults Fell 90% After Colorado Springs University Legalized Campus Guns

By Rick Pearcey • February 22, 2013, 08:36 PM

Daniel Greenfield writes at Frontpagemag.com:

Colorado Springs University legalized the right to carry concealed firearms on campus in 2003. Since then, according to Students for Concealed Carry, the number of forcible and non-forcible sexual assaults dropped sharply, falling 90 percent from a high in 2002 to a new low in 2008.

While Colorado Democrat Joe Salazar suggested that women could not be trusted to carry guns on campus because they might not know when they’re being raped, a young woman who was raped on campus because she was not allowed to carry a firearm, despite having a permit, has said otherwise.

Greenfield concludes: "They say that an armed society is a polite society. It may also be a rape-free society so long as the right to bear arms isn’t limited to just cops and criminals."

Related
Star Parker: Blacks Who Back Gun Control Need to Study History of Slavery and Jim Crow 
Texas Town Lets Teachers Carry Guns



Thursday, February 21, 2013

Campus Rape Victim: "I Was in a Safe Zone and My Attacker Didn't Care"

By Rick Pearcey • February 21, 2013, 03:16 PM

Joe Schoffstall writes at CNSNews.com:

Recently, Revealing Politics released a video of Colorado Rep. Joe Salazar arguing that college women don't need guns to prevent rape because they can use whistles, "safe zones," and call boxes instead. His theory behind this was that just because women feel they're going to be raped, doesn't mean it's actually going to happen.

On Wednesday, NRA News Radio Host Cam Edwards interviewed Amanda Collins, a woman who was raped at the University of Nevada at gun point in a gun free zone. The brave woman responds to the comments made by Rep. Joe Salazar.

During the radio interview, Collins warned about a "false sense of security." She said the University of Nevada, Reno, "didn't have any call boxes the night that I was attacked. They afterwards they installed them. But I can tell you that a call box above my head while I was straddled on the parking garage floor being brutally raped wouldn't have helped me one bit. The safe zones? Well I was in a safe zone and my attacker didn't care."

Listen to the interview here.

Related 
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College Lets Transgender Man Expose Himself to Young Girls 
College Prof Compares Cross to Swastika



Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Massachusetts Forces Schools to Let "Transgender" Boys Use Girls' Restrooms, Lockers

By Rick Pearcey • February 20, 2013, 07:58 AM

Kirsten Andersen reports at LifeSiteNews.com:

Massachusetts Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester has issued orders to the state’s K-12 public schools requiring them to permit "transgender" boys and girls to use the opposite sex’s locker rooms, bathrooms, and changing facilities as long as they claim to identify with that gender.

Many elementary schools in smaller Massachusetts towns include children from kindergarten through eighth grade, making it possible for boys as old as 14 to share toilet facilities with girls as young as five.

"Under Chester's leadership, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) released an 11-page document on Friday outlining this and other new guidelines giving 'transgender' students special status and privileges in Massachusetts schools," reports LifeSiteNews.

"The policy does not require a doctor’s note or even parental permission for a child to switch sexes in the eyes of Massachusetts schools," LifeSiteNews also reports. "Only the student’s word is needed: If a boy says he’s a girl, as far as the schools are concerned, he’s a girl."

Related
Don't Worry, Ladies, It Was a Transgender Spy Cam 
Homosexualism: "We Will Teach Your Kids the New Norm" 
French Protests: Marriage = One Man + One Woman



Friday, January 18, 2013

Lawmaker Denounces Federal Program Promoting Islamic Culture

By Rick Pearcey • January 18, 2013, 08:52 AM

Todd Starnes reports at Fox News:

A North Carolina congressman is denouncing the use of federal dollars to “promote the rich cultural heritage of Islamic civilizations.”

Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) told Fox News that he was appalled by the hundreds of thousands of dollars used to fund the program through a National Endowment for the Humanities grant -- calling it “wasting taxpayer money.”

Jones was referring to the “Bridging Cultures Bookshelf: Muslim Journeys” program. The NEH program put dozens of books promoting the Islamic culture in more than 800 libraries in all 50 states. The program is funded by a $1.8 million grant. . . .

Craven Community College, in Jones’ district, was one of the institutions to receive the NEH grant.

Jerry Schill, chairman of the local Craven-Pamlico Christian Coalition, said, “In light of the government’s role in keeping God out of the public square and the obstacles that Christians face when it comes to prayer and the ability to publicly proclaim our faith, it just seems more than odd that the federal government will provide a package of ‘Muslim Journeys’ to a number of colleges nationwide.” 

Related
Obama: Islam Has Shaped the USA
Top Muslim Calls for U.N. to End Free Speech
Middle East: "Where Hitler Failed, We Must Succeed" 



Monday, January 14, 2013

Spying on School Kids

By Rick Pearcey • January 14, 2013, 12:29 PM

From the Washington Times:

School districts in Texas are using tracking chips to spy on students. That’s just fine with a federal judge who ruled Tuesday against Andrea Hernandez, a 15-year-old high school sophomore in San Antonio.

With the help of the Rutherford Institute, Miss Hernandez and her father filed a lawsuit arguing the creepy “student locator project” violated her constitutional rights.

"Like a growing number of institutions around the country, Northside Independent School District forces students to wear photo identification cards around their necks at all times," notes the Times. "Cameras also watch the every move of pupils as they roam the halls and use the playgrounds."

There's more. "The high school Miss Hernandez attends took the logical next step by requiring students to carry 'Smart IDs' with radio frequency identification chips (RFID) that enable administrators to pinpoint each child’s whereabouts in real time," the Times continues.

What's at stake? The Times reports that, "according to court documents, school officials implemented the program 'to further increase the safety of its students and hopefully increase State funding.'" 

Safety? "Having school administrators monitor students at all hours won’t make them any safer,"  the Times counters. "In fact, it was a school board member who took the lives of 38 elementary students in Bath Township, Mich. in a horrific mass murder 86 years ago."

The Times suggests a truer motivation: "That state and federal officials love to blow taxpayer cash on gimmicks pushed by lobbyists regardless of whether they enhance learning. In this case, the school district hoped to pocket $1.7 million in state funding by embracing Big Brother."

It's an intriguing phenomenon: The increasingly secularized public school system has no room for the Creator -- who happens to be the source of unalienable human rights (see the Declaration) -- but welcomes with open arms the intimate impositions of Big Brother.

This steamrolling intimacy is an attack on the individual and the uniqueness and freedom of the person. Andrea Hernandez and family are humans and therefore are right to resist.

They are endowed by a knowable and verifiable Creator "with certain unalienable Rights," and among these rights are "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

In contrast, when Big Brother spies on you, no one is safe -- most of all, from Big Brother. But when the individual is the apple of the Creator's eye, all are set free. 

In a broken world, this will not lead to perfection. But it will lead away from the "safety" of spying and micro-control wherein schools resemble education camps that honor submission over minds that are free. 

Maybe this is what, in the end, really concerns Big Brother and his demanding disciples: The person properly in revolt exposes the idolatry and mental barbed wire of Big Brother, and that terrifies him.

The neighbors might see. They might remember who they are. That could ruin everything.

Related
Public Schools Turning Teens Into Relativists 
Study: Public Schools Teachers Not Underpaid



Monday, December 24, 2012

Harvard Business Review: Read Poetry to Become Better Business Leader

By Nancy Pearcey • December 24, 2012, 07:46 AM

John Coleman explains:

Reading and writing poetry . . . develops creativity. [Poet] Dana Gioia says, "As [I rose] in business . . . I felt I had an enormous advantage over my colleagues because I had a background in imagination, in language and in literature."

Noting that the Greek root for poetry means "maker," Dana emphasizes that senior executives need not just quantitative skills but "qualitative and creative" skills and "creative judgment," and feels reading and writing poetry is a route to developing those capabilities.

Indeed, poetry may be an even better tool for developing creativity than conventional fiction.

Clare Morgan, in her book What Poetry Brings to Business, cites a study showing that poems caused readers to generate nearly twice as many alternative meanings as "stories," and poetry readers further developed greater "self-monitoring" strategies that enhanced the efficacy of their thinking processes.

These creative capabilities can help executives keep their organizations entrepreneurial, draw imaginative solutions, and navigate disruptive environments where data alone are insufficient to make progress.

When I was in college, English majors could take poetry, drama, or novels
-- but my advisor said the smartest students always came out of the poetry course. The intensity of interpretation that poetry requires seems to train the brain . . . So of course, I signed up! It turned out to be my favorite course in college.



Friday, December 21, 2012

Press Release: Nancy and Richard Pearcey to Lead Francis Schaeffer Center for Worldview and Culture at HBU

By Rick Pearcey • December 21, 2012, 03:10 PM

The following press announcement is available for immediate release:

Nancy Pearcey & Richard Pearcey to Lead
Francis Schaeffer Center
for Worldview and Culture at HBU

Dec. 21, 2012, Houston, Texas -– Best-selling author Nancy Pearcey and writer-editor J. Richard Pearcey have teamed up to create the Francis Schaeffer Center for Worldview and Culture on the campus of Houston Baptist University.

The purpose of the Francis Schaeffer Center is to “promote foundational research and out-of-the-box creative thinking based on historic Christianity as a total way of life informed by verifiable truth concerning God, humanity, and the cosmos,” according to the FSC mission statement.

Nancy Pearcey serves as Director of the Francis Schaeffer Center. Formerly an agnostic, Nancy is Professor and Scholar in Residence at HBU. She is the author of seminal works such as Total Truth, The Soul of Science, and Saving Leonardo, and also serves as editor at large of The Pearcey Report.  Nancy was heralded in The Economist as "America's pre-eminent evangelical Protestant female intellectual." 

Courses created by FSC will give students a unique opportunity to work through Nancy's award-winning books and other foundational resources on worldview and cultural engagement.  "Our goal at FSC is to equip students in every major to be critical and creative thinkers," Pearcey said. "Under the visionary leadership of President Robert Sloan, Houston Baptist University is moving forward strategically to implement a Christian worldview approach more intentionally and comprehensively across all the disciplines."  

The Center is named for noted author Francis A. Schaeffer, whose work with wife Edith at L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland won international respect for giving an “honest answer to honest questions.” Time magazine hailed the Schaeffers' work as a “Mission to Intellectuals.” 

J. Richard Pearcey serves as Associate Director of the Center. Richard is Scholar for Worldview Studies at HBU, as well as editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report. He is formerly managing editor of the Capitol Hill newspaper Human Events and associate editor of the “Evans-Novak Political Report.”

“If the Christian worldview is true to reality, and we think a rational case can be made that it is, it can be the key to a renaissance of humanity, freedom, and creativity,” Richard said. “Nancy and I met at L’Abri in Switzerland, so we are grateful for the opportunity to say ‘thank you’ to the Schaeffers and their work by inspiring students and others -- teachers, activists, professionals -- to apply Christian thought forms across the whole of life, from art to science to business and politics."  

HBU Provost John Mark Reynolds said, "When I was a young adult, the writings and films of Francis Schaeffer modeled a way of doing Christian apologetics that had an important impact on my life. It is my honor to see HBU set up a study center dedicated to the Schaeffer approach to worldview studies. There is no better time for Christians to impact the culture, few better models than Schaeffer for evangelicals, and no better team than Nancy and Richard Pearcey to set up the Center."

According to the FSC mission statement, "Since its founding, Houston Baptist University has built a rich heritage of Christian higher education.
. . . The Francis Schaeffer Center for Worldview and Culture will give focus to HBU's goal of equipping students and faculty with a Biblical worldview for application to their thinking and their lives.  

“FSC will equip HBU students, faculty, staff, campus organizations, stakeholders, and outside partners to apply the liberating principles of a Biblical worldview in the classroom, across the campus, and around the world.”

To arrange an interview with the Pearceys, please email Nancy at npearcey@hbu.edu or Richard at Pearcey@thepearceyreport.com

If you are interested in learning how to direct support to the Francis Schaeffer Center for Worldview and Culture, please contact the Pearceys or Charles Bacarisse (Vice President for Advancement at Houston Baptist University at 281-649-3428; email cbacarisse@hbu.edu), or visit this HBU website 

###


Texas Town Lets Teachers Carry Guns

By Rick Pearcey • December 21, 2012, 07:26 AM

Heather Sells reports at CBN News:

In tiny Wichita Falls, Texas, the Harrold Independent School District allows teachers with concealed handgun licenses to carry guns in the classroom.

The policy dates back to 2007. Harrold ISD Superintendent David Thweatt said he believes it has and will prevent a school shooting.

"My goal is that if someone comes in and tries to hurt my little ones that they are killed," Thweatt said.

One student said, "I like it because it kind of makes me feel safer because it's Harrold -- we don't have a police station here."



Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Breaking: Nancy Pearcey & Richard Pearcey to Lead Schaeffer Center at HBU

By Rick Pearcey • December 19, 2012, 02:55 PM

Nancy and I can now gladly, with thanks, announce today the formation of the Francis Schaeffer Center for Worldview and Culture, located on the campus of Houston Baptist University

This is a developing story. More information will follow.



Saturday, December 15, 2012

It's Official: J. Richard Pearcey Scholar for Worldview Studies

By Rick Pearcey • December 15, 2012, 04:01 PM

At Houston Baptist University. Updated website, etc., to follow.

I'm very honored to be able to accept this academic appointment!

Here's my current "About" page at The Pearcey Report. This page, too, will be updated.



Friday, December 14, 2012

Ending Regressive Public Education

By Rick Pearcey • December 14, 2012, 09:15 AM

Daren Jonescu writes at American Thinker:

If Barack and Michelle Obama feel comfortable allowing Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn to babysit their children, that is their problem. The question is, would you allow them to babysit yours?

Let's take that a step farther: Would you let them raise your children?

Would you give them exclusive supervision over the majority of your children's daylight hours up to age eighteen, primary control of your children's academic curriculum and teaching methodology, and authority to arrange the broad social and moral framework within which your children will be educated?

No? Then why do you accept modern public education?

Furthermore, why, after having delivered generations of children into this Marx/Dewey/Marcuse/Ayers educational program, is anyone perplexed at people's inability to respect individual freedom, understand property rights, or hold themselves to standards of character and reasoning higher than that of a mugger?

Related
Public Schools Turning Teens Into Relativists
Obama on Rev. Wright's Church: "Best education that I ever had"



Friday, November 30, 2012

Who'll Win: Islamists or Sexy West?

By Rick Pearcey • November 30, 2012, 11:31 AM

Let's see, thinking in the longterm, the Western world wants sex, sex, sex, brought to you by respected universities of diversity, such as Harvard.

Meanwhile, Muslims are willing to die to take over the Western world. And they think Allah is on their side.

While Harvard students are just happy to be side by side.

Who could possibly come out the victor in that struggle?



Friday, November 9, 2012

10 Falsehoods Believed Today by Voters of Tomorrow

By Rick Pearcey • November 9, 2012, 09:09 AM

The continued radical indoctrination of kids will mean "Goodbye to the Home of the Free and the Land of the Brave," writes Gary Aminoff at American Thinker.



Monday, November 5, 2012

Texas High School Features Obama Getting Punched

By Rick Pearcey • November 5, 2012, 09:05 PM

Oh, it was Romney getting assaulted. Clearly, not a news story. 

Besides, Obama has already said voting was the "best way" to get revenge.

Related
Obama Voters Continue Threats to Riot, Assassinate Romney 



Saturday, November 3, 2012

College Claims "Absolute" Right to Protect the Unborn

By Rick Pearcey • November 3, 2012, 10:20 AM

Charlie Butts reports at OneNewsNow:

Dallas' Criswell College has filed suit against the ObamaCare HHS mandate to provide free coverage in insurance exchanges for abortion-inducing drugs.

"We're currently renegotiating new health insurance, which is something we do on an annual basis here at Criswell," says Jerry Johnson, president of Criswell College.

"This new mandate is going to require us to violate our religious beliefs, because it would force us to fund something that's contrary to the biblical values we stand for, particularly the sanctity of innocent human life."

Obamacare is in fact on the wrong side of the Constitution, the Declaration, the facts of science, humane ethical norms, and the verifiable information we have from the Creator.

In addition, it is impossible to "love thy neighbor" and care for "the least of these" and at the same time embrace a philosophy of governance that allows one class of persons to oppress, up to the point of death, another class of persons.

And stewardship in community with God and man requires that people of conscience are not forced to fund barbarism with a secular, liberal face.

Bravo, Criswell College, for refusing to bend the knee to inhumanity posing as liberation.

Related
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Public Schools Turning Teens Into Relativists
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Friday, November 2, 2012

College Lets Transgender Man Expose Himself to Young Girls

By Rick Pearcey • November 2, 2012, 06:33 PM

Todd Starnes reports at Fox News:

A Washington college said their non-discrimination policy prevents them from stopping a transgender man from exposing himself to young girls inside a women’s locker room, according to a group of concerned parents.

“Little girls should not be exposed to naked men, period,” said David Hacker, senior legal counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom. A group of concerned parents contacted the legal firm for help.

Hacker said a 45-year-old male student, who dresses as a woman and goes by the name Colleen Francis, undressed and exposed his genitals on several occasions inside the women's locker room at Evergreen State College.

Is Evergreen State College, and its "non-discrimination policy," so alienated from the rules for freedom and human dignity (see, for example, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution) that it cannot tell the difference between diversity and perversity?

Let me offer a free-thinker's thought for campus life: Any "diversity" that disrespects the unalienable and Creator-endowed difference (authentic diversity!) between male and female is not a strength, it's a weakness. And it's a weakness that puts people at risk.

And by the way, sexual disorientation is not an unalienable right, even if it's "policy." And by the way, a 45-year-old male who hasn't figured out he's a man needs help, not an open door to the girls' dressing room. 

It may be that Evergreen State College needs a course in Commonsense 101.

And it may be that, if Evergreen State College really cannot tell the difference between nondiscrimination and nonsense -- between moral right and moral wrong and how these liberating norms apply to the diversity of male and female opposites (viva la difference!) -- then maybe it has no business being in the education business. 

In such a case, Evergreen may be harming, not educating. And ever-gullible, not ever-good.

What is study at Evergreen State all about these days? Education? Or is something else on the agenda?

Related
Homosexualism: "We Will Teach Your Kids the New Norm"
Time to Revolt: Duke Gay" Rape Case Elicits Silence



Saturday, October 27, 2012

Obama's HHS "Grooming" Your Children for Sex

By Rick Pearcey • October 27, 2012, 09:37 AM

Attorney and columnist Matt Barber writes:

My dear friend and colleague Dr. Judith Reisman, a visiting law professor at Liberty University School of Law, recently guest lectured during “Sexual Behavior and the Law,” a course I teach. Dr. Reisman’s lecture was filmed by CSPAN and will be airing soon.

In past years, Dr. Reisman has served as scientific consultant to four U.S. Department of Justice administrations, the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). She is a world renowned expert on the discredited research of bug doctor turned “sexologist,” Alfred Kinsey.

Kinsey, though married to a woman who took part in his many filmed “scientific” orgies, was a promiscuous homosexual and sadomasochist. He managed to completely upend and twist the world’s perception of human sexuality in the 1950s and ’60s with his world famous “Kinsey Reports.”

Even today, most are completely unaware that during his tenure at Indiana University, Kinsey facilitated, with stopwatches and ledgers, the systematic sexual abuse of hundreds, if not thousands, of children and infants -- all in the name of science.

Among other things, Kinsey asserted that children are "sexual from birth." He further concluded, based upon experiments he directed and documented in his infamous Table 34, that adult-child sex is harmless, even beneficial, and described child “orgasm” as “culminating in extreme trembling, collapse, loss of color, and sometimes fainting. . . ." Many children suffered “excruciating pain,” he observed, “and [would] scream if movement [was] continued.” Some “[would] fight away from the [adult] partner and may make violent attempts to avoid climax, although they derive[d] definite pleasure from the situation.”

Yeah. Sounds like it.

It’s little wonder that Dr. Reisman identifies Kinsey as a “sexual psychopath.” These children were as young as 2 months old.

Disturbing though that may be, what’s equally disturbing is that nearly all of today’s liberal “comprehensive sex education” curricula -- such as that pushed by groups like the National Education Association (NEA), Planned Parenthood and the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Education Network (GLSEN) -- is derived entirely from the criminally fraudulent research of Alfred Kinsey.

But even more troubling is a recent discovery by Dr. Reisman. She found that the Obama administration, which fully embraces the debunked Kinsey sex-education model, has begun pushing a curriculum that, in many ways, eerily mirrors the “FBI Molester Grooming Paradigm.”

In short, she found that both Obama’s HHS and many public sex-education programs are doing to children, constructively, what pedophiles do to “groom” them for sex. . . .

Related
HHS: "Children Are Sexual Beings -- Even Infants"
Obama "Safe Schools" Chief Recommends XXX Child Porn for Classroom Reading



Saturday, September 29, 2012

From Prank to Prom: Bullied Teen Saved by Kindness of Town

By Rick Pearcey • September 29, 2012, 04:30 PM

The UK Daily Mail reports:

A Michigan sophomore beamed last night as she faced the bullies who voted her to the homecoming court as a sick joke.

After initially planning to skip the celebrations, Whitney Kropp, 16, bravely walked out onto the field during Ogemaw Heights High School's homecoming football game to accept the honour, and more than 1,000 people showed up to support her.

"The kids that are bullying you, do not let them bring you down. Stand up for what you believe in and go with your heart and go with your gut," Whitney said, shortly after the halftime celebration.



Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Imposing Extremism: School Kids to Drink "Gay" Power Kool-Aid

By Rick Pearcey • September 26, 2012, 09:23 AM

Scott Lively writes at WND:

LGBT History Month is not yet universally adopted by public schools. Nevertheless, throughout October tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of innocent school children will be subjected to the most despicable brainwashing ever conducted in American classrooms. They will be taught, through carefully constructed lesson plans, to view homosexuals as a superior class of human beings whose influence on society has been wholly benign, but whose contributions to society have been limited due to irrational prejudice and bigotry. They will learn the importance of protecting homosexuals from societal “homophobia,” perhaps even emanating from their own parents, and that homosexuality is a perfectly normal and healthy (and unchangeable) form of sexual identity. In other words, they will be indoctrinated in provably false and thoroughly biased pro-”gay” propaganda.

After documenting the unsavory origins and twisted direction of "gay" power extremism, Lively concludes:

The “gay rights” movement is not benign. Its history is a poisoned stream whose headwaters begin in the swamp of Sadean perversion and whose direction was set by the same people who created the Nazi Party. In America its course has run mostly through underground sewers until the past few decades when control of the movement fell into the hands of modern marketing experts who have hidden the truth under a white-washed facade of their own shrewd design. And it is this sugar-sweetened poison that is about to be spoon-fed to America’s public school students. It is a “gay” Kool-Aid of dangerous lies and it is to our great shame that this once-Christian nation will allow these innocent children to consume it without so much as a whimper of protest.

Related
Male Homosexual "Partners" Face Child Porn Charges
"Gay" Totalitarianism
Pro-Same-Sex "Marriage" Lesbian: "Institution of Marriage Should Not Exist"
Coulter on "Faggot" Easy to Defend



Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Churches Open Doors to Kids During Chicago Teachers Strike

By Rick Pearcey • September 12, 2012, 09:48 AM

CBN News reports:

In the wake of the teacher's strike in Chicago, churches across the metropolis are stepping up to help the city's children.

Many are opening their doors to help feed kids who would normally eat their meals at school.



Monday, September 3, 2012

The "Gay" Anti-Science

By Rick Pearcey • September 3, 2012, 06:33 AM

Attorney and columnist Matt Barber writes:

Woe to any scientist with an interest in objectively researching and reporting on “LGBT”-related issues. If your findings fail the left’s socio-political “butterflies-and-rainbows” litmus test, the “progressive” establishment will try to destroy you -- guaranteed. Thus, on these matters, honest scientific inquiry will require courage.

Kansas State University, July 2010: Family Studies professor Dr. Walter Schumm releases the most comprehensive study to date on the effects of homosexual “parenting.” Published in the Journal of Biosocial Science, the study determined, among other things:

Children raised in “gay” households are up to 12 times more likely to self-identify as “gay”;

Of those in their 20s -- presumably after they’d been able to work out any adolescent confusion or experimentation -- 58% of the children of lesbians called themselves “gay,” and 33% of the children of “gay” men called themselves “gay.” (Contrast these rates with current studies indicating that around 3% of the general population is homosexual.)

Just before the research was released, AOL News reported, “Schumm says it shouldn’t have taken until 2010 to do the meta-analysis. Too often his colleagues impose ‘liberal or progressive political interpretations’ on their studies, which inhibit further inquiry. ‘It’s kind of sad,’” he said.

Sad, yes, but it’s also by design. “I just want to know the truth about something,” he confessed. Unfortunately, there are many with an extreme socio-political agenda who depend entirely upon suppressing the truth.

“As if expecting a political backlash himself,” reported AOL, “Schumm concludes his study with a quote from philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. ‘All truth passes through three stages: First it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.’”

Indeed, left-wing backlash was both swift and fierce. Schumm was instantly decried as a “quack,” a “conservative plant” and a“fraud.” Over the past two years, both Schumm and his study have passed through all three of Schopenhauer’s fiery stages, only to emerge unsinged.

But the damage to honest inquiry was already done. The message to anyone else who might conduct such a study was clear: If you dare release research on homosexuality and we don’t like your findings, we’re coming for you.

Not everyone got the message.

University of Texas-Austin, June 2012: Dr. Mark Regnerus leads a team of researchers on another peer-reviewed homosexual “parenting” study labeled: "How different are the adult children of parents who have same-sex relations? Findings from the New Family Structures Study."

The study was published in the journal Social Science Research. Its website FAQ page summarizes the findings: “The data show rather clearly that children raised by gay or lesbian parents on average are at a significant disadvantage when compared to children raised by the intact family of their married, biological mother and father.”

Focus on the Family’s Citizenlink distills the research: “According to [Regnerus'] findings, children raised by homosexual parents are more likely than those raised by married heterosexual parents to suffer from poor impulse control, depression and suicidal thoughts, require mental health therapy; identify themselves as homosexual; choose cohabitation; be unfaithful to partners; contract sexually transmitted diseases; be sexually molested; have lower income levels; drink to get drunk; and smoke tobacco and marijuana.”

Again, you could’ve set your watch to the liberal response. They went ballistic.

Notorious homosexual activist Scott Rosenweig (aka, Scott Rose. Warning: link to Rosenweig’s extremist history is profane and offensive) filed a formal complaint, demanding that the University of Texas both investigate and, ultimately, fire Dr. Regnerus for his findings.

A gaggle of homosexualist academics and liberal activists pounced, bewailing the study as “homophobic” and “methodologically flawed.” Darren E. Sherkat, a professor of sociology at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, conducted an “audit” of the already peer-reviewed study and arrived at the unassailable, scholarly and poignantly worded conclusion: “It’s bulls--t.”

Except that it wasn’t.

On Wednesday, the University of Texas -- no bastion of conservatism -- released a highly anticipated report on its findings,  summarily dismissing Rosenweig, Sherkat, and the dozens of “progressive” critics who couldn’t stomach the study’s game-changing implications. This painstaking inquiry was spearheaded by an independent consultant who formerly ran the Office of Research Integrity at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Noted UT-Austin: “As with much university research, Regnerus’ New Family Structures Study touches on a controversial and highly personal issue that is currently being debated by society at large. The university expects the scholarly community will continue to evaluate and report on the findings of the Regnerus article and supports such discussion.”

Still, observed the report, the research was properly conducted and “no formal investigation is warranted into the allegations of scientific misconduct lodged against associate professor Mark Regnerus.”

Experience of the millennia, indeed child-like common sense, frequently informs reality. Children are best served -- vastly so -- when raised by a mother and father.

Although there are sometimes unavoidable circumstances that short-circuit the mom-dad gold standard (single parenthood, etc.), this undeniable truth, to borrow from Schopenhauer, has, heretofore, been “accepted as being self-evident.”

So why on earth would we intentionally and selfishly sabotage it?

While we don’t necessarily need studies to reaffirm that which is so obvious, it is helpful to find a fast-growing body of research available to refute the “new-normal-modern-family” propaganda that sits tendentiously atop today’s moral-relativist house of cards.

Still, those who seek to deconstruct legitimate marriage and the natural family will always endeavor to suppress honest inquiry. They must.

Even so, whether liberal or conservative, “gay” or straight, the scientific community should be allowed to pursue truth in an environment that holds objective scientific inquiry sacrosanct. They should be free to follow the evidence wheresoever it may lead, even when such ends prove unfashionable.

But alas, the lie shall forevermore seek to imprison truth. So it was in a world once flat; and so it remains in a world with throwaway parents.

But take heart. In the end, truth does prevail. For it is the promise of Truth Himself: “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:30-32)

Matt Barber serves as vice president of Liberty Counsel Action.

Related
Rosie O'Donnell's Oppressive Coat
Growing Up With Two Moms: The Untold Children's View
Pro-Same-Sex "Marriage" Lesbian: "Institution of Marriage Should Not Exist"
What I Saw at Chick-Fil-A Today



Saturday, August 18, 2012

Obamacare Mentality vs. Homeschool Freedom

By Rick Pearcey • August 18, 2012, 12:43 PM

Matthew Hennessey writes at First Things:

“It’s a free country” may not continue to resonate with Americans for much longer . . . . 

As Obamacare’s individual mandate was predicated on the notion that costs incurred by an individual but borne by society necessitate government intervention, politicians in this country could easily be convinced -- by, say, teachers unions -- that homeschoolers are no different than the uninsured in the costs they impose on the rest of us.

Doesn’t society suffer if kids aren’t being properly socialized? Don’t institutions suffer if children aren’t being properly educated into citizenship? . . .

The progressive critics of homeschooling are less interested in promoting tolerance than they are in promoting compliance. It’s the freedom that bothers them, not what kids learn or how well they learn it. . . .

If the state appoints itself to guard against indoctrination by parents, who is to protect children from indoctrination by the state?

Hennessey concludes: "A government that can force you to buy health insurance can surely force children into the public school system. When that happens, will we still be a free country?"

Related
Obamacare Mandate: Sterilize 15-Year-Old Girls for Free -- Without Parental Consent

Virginia AG: If Obama Mandate Stands, Gov't "Can Order You to Do Anything"
Obamacare: Antithetical to the Declaration



Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Public Schools Turning Teens Into Relativists

By Nancy Pearcey • August 7, 2012, 04:01 PM

A high school philosophy teacher opens an ethics class by displaying an unsettling photo of Bibi Aisha, an "Afghani teenager who was forced into an abusive marriage with a Taliban ��?ghter, who abused her and kept her with his animals. When she attempted to flee, her family caught her, hacked off her nose and ears, and left her for dead in the mountains."

To teacher Stephen Anderson, this seemed like an obvious attention-getter, an easy case to jump-start moral reasoning.

But instead, he writes, the students "spoke timorously, afraid to make any moral judgment at all. They were unwilling to criticize any situation originating in a different culture."

Anderson recalls that students said, "Well, we might not like it, but maybe over there it's okay."

One said, "I don’t feel anything at all; I see lots of this kind of stuff."

And "with no consciousness of self-contradiction," observes Anderson, another said, "It's just wrong to judge other cultures."

Read the rest of the article for an insightful critique of "moral education" in public schools.

Related
Professors Admit Discrimination Against Conservatives
Texas High School Student Suspended for Saying Homosexuality Is Wrong
Evangelical Belmont University Approves Homosexual Student Group
Update: Exposing Wheaton College's Embrace of William Ayers, "Social Justice"

Hat Tip: Denyse O'Leary



Monday, August 6, 2012

Wheaton College Wants Relief From Obamacare Abortion Drugs

By Rick Pearcey • August 6, 2012, 12:56 PM

Bob Kellogg reports at OneNewsNow:

A Christian college is seeking emergency relief to halt the Health and Human Services mandate requiring the school to cover the cost of abortion-inducing drugs in its health plan.

On January 1, Wheaton College will have to begin offering abortifacients as part of the employee health insurance. Since abortion is against the school's religious beliefs, Kyle Duncan of The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty reports that officials are asking the court for a preliminary injunction.

"We've asked for an expedited hearing in that case in early September, and we are waiting to hear word from the court on how it's going to proceed," Duncan details.

Wheaton College should not, of course, be forced by the federal government to fund any kind of inhumanity, including abortion inhumanity.

The mainstream humane position, freedom position, Christian position, factual position, and American position all stand squarely and centrally on the side of life. Even the life of "the least of these" who are not politically connected or ideologically useful.

Instead, we are witnessing a force-fed extremism that alienates human beings from our enduring calling to live in liberating community with God and man.

Federal authoritarianism -- whether sought by Obama or enabled by Republicans -- is rightfully exposed, rejected, and replaced for the gross inhumanity for which it stands.

Rather than the federal government seeking to impose the private values of inhumane and secularized elites, the American people ought to impose upon the federal government norms and practices consistent with the Constitution, the Declaration, and the Creator who is the center of gravity of human freedom.



Friday, August 3, 2012

Professors Admit Discrimination Against Conservatives

By Rick Pearcey • August 3, 2012, 10:49 AM

Emily Esfahani Smith reports at the Washington Times

It’s not every day that left-leaning academics admit that they would discriminate against a minority.

But that was what they did in a peer-reviewed study of political diversity in the field of social psychology, which will be published in the September edition of the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science.

Psychologists Yoel Inbar and Joris Lammers, based at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, surveyed a roughly representative sample of academics and scholars in social psychology and found that “In decisions ranging from paper reviews to hiring, many social and personality psychologists admit that they would discriminate against openly conservative colleagues.”



Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Houston Baptist U in Top 10 "Best Colleges for Homeschool Graduates"

By Rick Pearcey • July 4, 2012, 09:25 AM

Why is HBU among the top 10? Because it's a "School with Vision and Intellectual Horsepower," according to thebestschools.org. Here's more:

Previously unknown beyond Texas, Houston Baptist University has vaulted onto the map with its “10 Pillars” initiative, which includes such homeschool-friendly goals as Build on the Classics, Bring Athens and Jerusalem Together [integrate philosophy and Christianity], Increase Cultural Impact, Expand on the Creative Arts, Create a Strong Global Focus, and more.

To fill out this goal, HBU has had a major hiring surge, taking on acclaimed Christian scholars John Mark Reynolds, Michael Licona, Nancy Pearcey, Bruce Gordon, Richard Martinez, Louis Markos, Mary Joe Sharp, and Holly Ordway. Also added is the department of apologetics, to work in tandem with the philosophy department.

The ambitious 10 Pillars program is the brainchild of its president Robert Sloan. Formerly the president of Baylor University, Sloan attempted a similar 10 Pillars program years earlier at Baylor, only to find that when he began shaking things up, the establishment was too far removed from its Baptist roots, too entrenched in evolutionary science, and too intolerant of the various applications of apologetics to endure the Christian vision.



Thursday, June 14, 2012

Living the Nightmare of a Conservative on a College Campus

By Rick Pearcey • June 14, 2012, 11:30 AM

From Emily Reilly at Investor's Businesss Daily:

You've heard the stories, and maybe you know someone who has dipped his or her toes into the cesspool of campus liberalism. But you don't believe that campuses are as liberal as they say.

Well, you can believe the hype. They are.

The campus atmosphere, professors and many students are just as liberal, tree-hugging and socialism-loving as a conservative might imagine.

How do I know? I have lived the nightmare for three years at Furman University in Greenville, S.C.



Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Petition Launched Against NYC School Officials for Banning "God Bless the USA"

By Rick Pearcey • June 13, 2012, 11:45 AM

Kathleen Gilbert reports at LifeSiteNews:

A conservative legal group is demanding that a New York City school officials and Mayor Michael Bloomberg reverse a decision banning “God Bless the USA” at a kindergarten graduation ceremony, because they deemed it potentially offensive to other cultures.



Friday, June 8, 2012

The Bell Tolls for Government Unions

By Rick Pearcey • June 8, 2012, 11:07 AM

Pat Buchanan writes:

Ronald Reagan’s firing of the striking air traffic controllers, whose union had been among the few to endorse him, marked him as a leader willing to act against a powerful union if the public interest commands it.

Gov. Scott Walker is now in that tradition. He has just routed a recall campaign that began with state senators disgracefully fleeing to Illinois rather than provide a quorum, and mobs occupying his capitol.



Thursday, May 17, 2012

Heresy in the Black Studies Tabernacle

By Rick Pearcey • May 17, 2012, 09:59 AM

Bruce Bawer writes at Frontpage.com:

There's the academy, and then there's the real world.

The Chronicle of Higher Education, which is the academy's weekly newspaper of record, has long seemed interested in keeping, if not one foot in the real world, then at least a toe or two in the real world, publishing articles that are written in lively, non-academic prose and even, from time to time, in the name of intellectual diversity, running pieces that take a less than entirely reverential view of higher education's left-wing orthodoxies.

It's a delicate balance -- how much heresy can you allow into the tabernacle without outraging the faithful?

Answer? "Any hint of dissent is verboten."  



Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Rising Black Social Pathology

By Rick Pearcey • February 14, 2012, 08:55 AM

Walter Williams writes:

The Philadelphia Inquirer's big story Feb. 4 was about how a budget crunch at the Philadelphia School District had caused the district to lay off 91 school police officers. Over the years, there's been no discussion of what has happened to our youth that makes a school police force necessary in the first place.

The Inquirer's series "Assault on Learning" (March 2011) reported that in the 2010 school year, "690 teachers were assaulted; in the last five years, 4,000 were." The newspaper reported that in Philadelphia's 268 schools, "on an average day 25 students, teachers, or other staff members were beaten, robbed, sexually assaulted, or victims of other violent crimes. That doesn't even include thousands more who are extorted, threatened, or bullied in a school year."



Friday, November 4, 2011

Gov't Intrusion? Rattlesnakes Slither Into College Building

By Rick Pearcey • November 4, 2011, 08:13 AM

No, this is not a news report about government control of education.



Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Study: Public School Teachers Not Underpaid

By Rick Pearcey • November 2, 2011, 08:30 AM

Lauren Chooljian reports at The Daily Caller:

Despite Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s consistent calls for increased teacher salaries, a new study says that most public school teachers aren’t actually being underpaid.

The new research from The Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute suggests a majority of public school teachers are making more than they likely would in the private sector.



Thursday, October 27, 2011

Crosses at Catholic University Offensive, Say Muslims

By Rick Pearcey • October 27, 2011, 05:18 PM

And so are all those Western bodies with heads still attached. Meanwhile, at FoxNation, this:

The Washington, D.C. Office of Human Rights confirmed that it is investigating allegations that Catholic University violated the human rights of Muslim students by not allowing them to form a Muslim student group and by not providing them rooms without Christian symbols for their daily prayers.

The investigation alleges that Muslim students “must perform their prayers surrounded by symbols of Catholicism -- e.g., a wooden crucifix, paintings of Jesus, pictures of priests and theologians which many Muslim students find inappropriate.”



Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Rivendell Sanctuary Featured in Media Profile

By Rick Pearcey • October 25, 2011, 11:43 AM

Rivendell Sanctuary, where Nancy and I are on the faculty, is featured in an overview article titled "Christian Have College Choices," published at OneNewsNow.

OneNewsNow is a division of the American Family Association. 

Update
Pearceys Resign From Rivendell Sanctuary



Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Messiah College Gives Pro-Riots Leftist Piven a Forum, Then Cancels Conservative Speaker

By Rick Pearcey • October 18, 2011, 09:36 AM

If parents and financial supporters of Messiah College get wind of this, there may be Heaven to pay:

On the surface it may seem odd that a self-professed Christian school would be hostile to the presentation of conservative ideas, but that’s nothing unusual for Messiah.

Students and alum tell us that teachers there preach “social justice” (read: socialism) as though it were gospel, which is why when the president of the College Republicans told us on Saturday evening that [Prof. James] LaGrand wanted their forum canceled, we believed him. 



Thursday, October 13, 2011

Why I Am Not a Christian

By Rick Pearcey • October 13, 2011, 12:42 PM

Tomorrow in our Theology class at Rivendell Sanctuary we shall have a Socratic circle that discusses "Why I Am Not a Christian," a lecture by famed atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell.

In stark contrast to the cults of politics, "faith," and "settled science" so evident on today's campus, in Hollywood, around politics, and in the formerly mainstream media, free-thinkers who embrace the Judeo-Christian worldview because it is empirically verifiable, logically consistent, answers the basic philosophic questions, and is existentially viable relish the opportunity to test various truth-claims in the marketplace of ideas.

Some may prefer to cling to their false ideolgies, inhumane politics, materialistic economics, and family-destroying social agendas. Others would rather seek truth. And then on the basis of what is discovered, help build a better world. 

And so tomorrow we shall ask ourselves and Bertrand Russell a few honest questions. It's called the free exhange of ideas. You may recall that, once upon a time in America, a lot of colleges did that.

Update
Pearceys Resign From Rivendell Sanctuary



Wednesday, October 12, 2011

School Apologizes After Student Suspended for Saying Homosexuality Is Wrong

By Rick Pearcey • October 12, 2011, 08:36 AM

Kathleen Gilbert reports at LifeSiteNews:

The Texas school where a teen was punished for saying homosexuality was wrong has apologized and stated the boy “has the right to express an opinion in a manner consistent with law and policy.”

The Fort Worth Independent School District has issued a letter fully vindicating high school freshman Dakota Ary, who was given in-school suspension for telling another student that he believes homosexuality is wrong because of his Christian faith.

The school should also apologize for hatefully discriminating against the Creator and his verifiable norms for human sexuality and healthy families.

Bravo to student Dakota Ary and Liberty Council for standing up to the homosexual propaganda machine. 



Saturday, October 1, 2011

Former Minnesota Governor Visits Our Rivendell Class

By Rick Pearcey • October 1, 2011, 11:48 AM

Former Minnesota governor Al Quie visited our class at Rivendell Sanctuary last Wednesday, September 20. His granddaughter Savannah Quie is one of our students. 

Mr. Quie held office from 1979 to 1983, and when Savannah introduced him to the class, she was beaming as she described him as a man of great integrity.

He told us that he bought several copies of Nancy's book Total Truth and gave it to members of his family.

We were also joined in class Thursday and Friday by Katrina and Michelle Brittain, who are respectively the sister and mother of Justin Brittain.

Several of us enjoyed discussion over lunch with Katrina and Mrs. Brittain, and last night they jumped right in to a refreshing time of volleyball in the gym.

Whether from local Minneapolis environs (Al Quie) or flying in from the Southwest (Katrina and Michelle Brittain, New Mexico), Nancy and I think it's terrific that family members of our students take such an interest in their education, which occurs on so many levels, at Rivendell Sanctuary. 

Update
Pearceys Resign From Rivendell Sanctuary



Tuesday, September 27, 2011

"See You at the Pole" Event . . . Tomorrow

By Rick Pearcey • September 27, 2011, 08:36 AM

AP reports:

The annual "See You at the Pole" event is scheduled for Wednesday at schools across the nation -- and while students are the main focus, one national organizer says parents should be involved. . . .

The event, which takes place every year on the fourth Wednesday in September, annually draws somewhere between one and two million students, all of them gathering around the school's flagpole to pray for the nation, for each other, and for their school.


Catholic College Cancels Pro-Abortion Speaker

By Rick Pearcey • September 27, 2011, 08:28 AM

Christine Dhanagom reports at LifeSiteNews:

A Catholic University in Pennsylvania has cancelled a scheduled appearance by prominent feminist journalist Ellen Goodman after the Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) drew attention to the conflict between Goodman’s work and Catholic Church teaching on key issues.

The Catholic watchdog group reported in a blog entry that Goodman was scheduled to speak October 12th at St. Francis University in Loretto on the topic of civility in public discourse. The lecture was part of the school’s annual Furlong Lecture Series.

The blog entry detailed the history of Goodman’s outspoken support for abortion, including opposing conscience rights for pharmacists who choose not to dispense abortifacient “emergency” birth control.



Monday, September 26, 2011

Texas High School Student Suspended for Saying Homosexuality Is Wrong

By Rick Pearcey • September 26, 2011, 08:55 AM

Kathleen Gilbert reports at LifeSiteNews:

A Christian high school student was punished by his school this week for saying he believes “being a homosexual is wrong.”

Dakota Ary, 14, says his statement was part of a one-on-one conversation about religions in Germany with a friend sitting behind him during a language class, according to a local Fox News report.

“I guess [the teacher] heard me. He started yelling,” said Ary. “He told me he was going to write me an infraction and send me to the office.”



Saturday, September 24, 2011

The Centre for Unintelligent Design

By Rick Pearcey • September 24, 2011, 05:14 PM

In case you didn't know, there now exists something called The Centre for Unintelligent Design.

Apparently, some 88 seconds ago, or several thousands of seconds ago, or millions or billions of seconds ago, the Centre for Unintelligent Design did not exist. And then, on the 89th second (or other such temporal numerical value), some aspect of time, space, and matter burped, and Lo & Behold, into being came the Centre for Unintelligent Design.

This contingent universe being what it is (or is not), you had better read all about this newish (or is it oldish, or do the words "new" or "old" -- without or without "ish" -- have meaning in a contingent universe?) website as soon as possible.

With each click of the tick-tock the Centre for Unintelligent Design may well uncreate itself back into the meaningless self-caused (or non-self-caused) nonexistence from which it emerged, lived, breathed, and for a while expressed its arbitrary being in a universe that couldn't care less.

One last thing: Did the website for The Centre of Unintelligent Design have a website designer? Just wondering.

Meanwhile, that's it folks. Now go watch some soccer.



Thursday, September 22, 2011

ACLU Bullying Schools Into Allowing Porn Access on Computers?

By Rick Pearcey • September 22, 2011, 09:51 AM

David Cortman of the Alliance Defense Fund writes:

At different locales around the country, in places as diverse as Detroit, Mich., Lawrenceville, Ga., and Camdenton, Mo., the ACLU is sending letters and filing lawsuits seeking to disallow government school usage of certain Internet filters.

They claim their campaign is designed to end the blocking of “lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender” activist group sites, but in reality it will allow school children to access to pornographic websites.

It's a straightforward principle, Moms and Dads: Don't allow ACLU bullies and their minions to impose inside schools what you would not allow outside of them. 

This is your country, is it not? You -- and not the state -- are the proper God-given stewards of the education of your children are you not?

Therefore: Resist, fight, protect, and overcome. 

Kick these well-heeled merchants of slime out. Get them out of the lives of your kids and keep their dirty paws off our laws. Reclaim your future, your children's future, and your country's future.

Let's make schools safe places for kids. Safe places for learning. And an uncomfortable place to be if you are a kid-targeting ACLU bully.



Thursday, September 15, 2011

Preventing "Bullying" or Pushing Porn?

By Rick Pearcey • September 15, 2011, 08:28 AM

"The Alliance Defense Fund is helping defend a Missouri school district in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and several homosexual activist groups against the district's use of Internet filters," reports Bob Kellogg at OneNewsNow.

"The ACLU and Yale Law School are pushing the 'Don't Filter Me!' campaign to give public school students access to Internet porn," Kellogg continues.

"They claim that because the filters block students from accessing sexually explicit material, including sites operated by homosexual activist groups, they are concerned about censorship and bullying. But David Cortman of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) thinks the groups have a different agenda."

According to Cortman, "It's simply reprehensible that the ACLU and Yale Law School are more concerned about faring their own agenda that exposes children to harm than they are about protecting those children. . . . Certainly, removing porn filters does nothing to end bullying."

In fact, if you want to end bullying in schools, a terrific place to start is by ousting power-hungry homosexualist bullies and power-hungry ACLU bullies, who are the biggest bullies on the block and who are on an unending absolutist crusade to impose their private "values" and perverted practices, under the camouflage of "rights," upon everyone in the land.



Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Update: Exposing Wheaton College's Embrace of William Ayers, "Social Justice"

By Rick Pearcey • September 14, 2011, 08:55 AM

Julie Roys writes:

Eighteen-months after my report exposing Wheaton College’s promotion of social justice in its Education Department, the college has revised the department’s conceptual framework. New Wheaton College President Philip Ryken also has removed the college’s official response to my report that had been posted to Wheaton’s website.

As you may recall, my piece revealed that Wheaton’s earlier conceptual framework relied heavily on far Left radicals like Bill Ayers, Paulo Freire, and Richard Rorty. It also included excerpts from my interview with the chair of Wheaton’s Education Department where she refers to Ayers as “enlightening” and claims Marxism is “not necessarily” unbiblical. The report aired in February 2010 on the former Sandy Rios Show on the Salem Broadcasting Network. 



Friday, September 9, 2011

College Threatens to Nix 9/11 Event as Too American

By Rick Pearcey • September 9, 2011, 08:05 AM

"If you thought that something as innocuous as putting up 3,000 American flags on school grounds to pay tribute to those murdered on September 11 couldn’t be controversial, you haven’t been to Marietta College," writes Jason Mattera at Human Events



Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Unsafe: The Extremist Agenda Behind "Gay" Anti-Bullying Campaigns in Your School

By Rick Pearcey • September 7, 2011, 09:18 AM

Are schools now "safe" for homosexualism safe for your kids? Perhaps not.

Consider the following in a report at LifeSiteNews.com:

“We want educators to teach future generations of children to accept queer sexuality. In fact, our very future depends on it. Recruiting children? You bet we are.” 

It seems that guys in cars and raincoats not longer have to offer candy to children to entice them to enter in. Why bother with all of that when you can offer a "safe" "education"?



Monday, August 8, 2011

Professor: 4 Reasons to Keep Your Kids Home From College

By Rick Pearcey • August 8, 2011, 08:00 AM

Why? For spiritual, moral, intellectual, and financial reasons -- so counsels UNC Professor of Criminology Mike Adams.

Or parents could consider a place called Rivendell Sanctuary.

Update
Pearceys Resign From Rivendell Sanctuary



Friday, August 5, 2011

Study "Total Truth" at Rivendell Sanctuary

By Rick Pearcey • August 5, 2011, 07:50 AM

Rivendell Sanctuary has just ordered a shipment of Nancy's great book (if I may say so!) Total Truth: Liberating Christianity From Its Cultural Captivity for our semester of Socratic-style studies on critical thinking, theology, and philosophy, beginning August 18.

We offer many additional readings as well, but it's terrific to be able to make the kind of content available in foundational works such as Total Truth to students brave enough to think for themselves and to walk wisely in this world.

Here's the press release (noticed also at Breitbart.com) announcing our decision to join the faculty of Rivendell.

Update
Pearceys Resign From Rivendell Sanctuary



Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Taxpayer Money Will Help Homosexualist Organizers Establish "Safe Spaces" in Public Schools

By Rick Pearcey • July 27, 2011, 08:57 AM

"A homosexual advocacy group is getting taxpayer money to increase the percentage of schools that set up 'safe spaces' for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth," reports CNSNews.com.

This means radicals on a mission from San Francisco will be using your money to target your children or grandchildren for indoctrination into a factually and ethically challenged "life" that discriminates against the Creator and his liberating norms for family life and human sexuality. 

This is not about "equality." That's a buzz-word employed by marketers and deviance-pimps to push their position. You're supposed the hear it and stop thinking and caring -- immediately, if not sooner.

Instead, this is about eviscerating American exceptionalism as a nation of limited government so that human liberty in community with the Creator, who is the source of unalienable human rights, can find expression in all walks of life.

You can read about it in a little thing called the Declaration of Independence. Still legal in some states and some schools.

Do you love your neighbor? Do you care about education? Should schools be a "safe space" for the advance of American exceptionalism and constitutional government? Then defund the propagandists and get them of our schools and away from our kids.



Monday, July 18, 2011

Science Books Don't Meet Texas Standards

By Rick Pearcey • July 18, 2011, 09:03 AM

Fear of Critical Thinking? "A study from the Discovery Institute shows that a leading textbook publisher is failing to comply with the new science standards in Texas," reports Bob Kellogg at OneNewsNow.



Monday, July 4, 2011

The Pearceys Now in Metro Minneapolis

By Rick Pearcey • July 4, 2011, 11:15 AM

Nancy and I have joined the faculty of Rivendell Sanctuary, a "new kind of college" based in Bloomington, MN, and now are now on scene to prepare for August classes.

Nancy and Michael have already been here since mid-June. I drove up from the D.C. area last Saturday after taking a couple of weeks to tie up remodeling loose-ends (to prepare our home for renting) and completing transition requirements so our property management company can handle things in Northern Virginia.  

We loved updating our home and are now thrilled to be here in sunny Minnesota. Please drop by and see us at Rivdendell Sanctuary!

Update
Pearceys Resign From Rivendell Sanctuary



Thursday, May 26, 2011

Nancy Pearcey Keynoting Homeschool Conference in Winston-Salem, NC

By Rick Pearcey • May 26, 2011, 09:40 PM

Nancy is speaking Friday, May 27, at the 27th annual North Carolinians for Home Education conference at the Benton Convention Center in Winston-Salem. More than 7,000 people are expected to attend this conference.

At 9:00 a.m. Nancy is scheduled to speak on "Equipping Homeschoolers to Recognize, Resist, and Overcome Secular Worldviews."

At 2:00 p.m. she will speak on "Teaching Christian Worldview Across the Curriculum."

And at 3:30 p.m. Nancy will discuss "Responding Creatively to the Challenge of Feminism."

Here is a schedule of the conference. For more information about North Carolinians for Home Education, please visit their website.



Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Obama Administration to Honor "Green" Schools That Teach "Environmental Literacy"

By Rick Pearcey • May 17, 2011, 10:32 AM

CNSNews.com reports: "Next year on Earth Day, the Obama administration plans to announce which U.S. schools have been selected as 'Green Ribbon Schools,' a designation that will 'honor' schools for 'creating healthy and sustainable learning environments' and for 'teaching environmental literacy'."



Thursday, May 5, 2011

Texas Teacher Suspended Over Bin Laden Comment to Student

By Rick Pearcey • May 5, 2011, 07:23 AM

"A Southeast Texas teacher has been put on leave pending an investigation into an allegation that he made a racially insensitive comment to a Muslim student referencing the death of Osama bin Laden." More at The Blaze.



Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Homosexual Cadet Ineligible

By Rick Pearcey • May 4, 2011, 06:55 AM

OneNewsNow reports:

A conservative military watchdog says the United States Military Academy was right to deny a former cadet readmission to the school because she is a homosexual.

Katherine Miller left West Point in August, halfway through her stint at the Academy, saying she could no longer lie about her sexuality. So when she recently applied to rejoin, officials at the U.S. Military Academy rejected her application.

They explained that the repeal of the policy that bars homosexuals from legal military service, which was accomplished by the 111th lame-duck Congress, has not yet gone into effect -- and will not do so until 60 days after the president and senior defense advisers certify that it will not hurt the troops' ability to fight.



Friday, April 29, 2011

Nancy Pearcey Book-Signing and Speaking in Manassas, Va.

By Rick Pearcey • April 29, 2011, 03:46 PM

Nancy Pearcey is speaking tomorrow, Saturday, April 30, at an educational conference in Manassas, Va.

Here is a schedule of the event, which is organized by Classical Conversations and will be held at Manassas Baptist Church (Sudley Road).

Nancy is scheduled to speak at 10:15 am and at 1:45 pm. You can also join her for a book-signing at 5:00 pm -- so be sure to bring copies of Saving Leonardo and her other books, as well.

This review of Nancy's book Total Truth appears on the Classical Conversations website. And here is an interview with Nancy.

For more information, download a flyer here. To pre-register, please go here.



Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Tennessee Considers Banning Teaching Homosexuality in Schools

By Rick Pearcey • April 27, 2011, 07:04 AM

"Public school teachers in Tennessee could lose their tenure or their jobs for discussing homosexuality with their students under a new bill," reports Fox News

This bill appears to be a good start. Of course teachers should not impose upon students false and pretended social norms that so deeply violate our humanity, our bodies, our male-female diversity, and our life in community with the Creator (see the Declaration of Independence).

On the other hand, of course teachers ought to be able to discuss homosexuality. Living in community with one's neighbor is greatly helped by factually and ethically cautioning others against behaviors and choices that invite personal, social, and civil breakdown.

The way of America is that of the reality-oriented Creator, not of la-la-land San Francisco. Bravo to Tennessee for even considering encouraging teachers to help liberate students from homosexualist oppression.

Male and female created in the image of God. Viva la difference!


Obama and Harvard: Is Donald Trump Right?

By Rick Pearcey • April 27, 2011, 06:35 AM
Author and columnist Jack Cashill writes

The irrepressible Donald Trump has raised still another question the major media have dared not to ask: Did Barack Obama qualify for Columbia and Harvard on his own accomplishments?

"How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard?" asked Trump of the Associated Press. "I'm thinking about it, I'm certainly looking into it. Let him show his records."

Trump asks a very good question for which the anti-journalists of the major media have no good answer. So allow me to fill in the gaps.



Thursday, March 24, 2011

Bachmann, Pearcey, and Iowa's Homeschool Vote

By Rick Pearcey • March 24, 2011, 12:44 PM

David Freddoso writes at Beltway Examiner:

Today's Wall Street Journal examines the "Iowa homeschoolers vote" noting that Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul and Herman Cain attended the annual lobby day for the Network of Iowa Christian Home Educators yesterday.

Speaking of homeschooling, we The Pearceys have homeschooled our sons.

And Nancy in May has the honor of keynoting a North Carolina homeschooling conference expecting some 9,000 in attendence at the Benton Convention Center in Winston-Salem.

Nancy's new book, Saving Leonardo, was taught to homeschoolers prior to publication. Saving Leonardo issues a challenge to liberate culture from its secular captivity.

We've seen that secular captivity at work in education and politics today, and it is not pretty. 

So when potential candidates for U.S. President court the homeschool vote in places like Iowa, this is a highly positive sign indeed -- for our culture, our politics, our education, and our children.

For understanding that "Homeschoolers can make a difference," "Well done!" to the Iowa Network of Christian Home Educators. Here's their website.



Saturday, March 19, 2011

Rivendell Sanctuary: Study Abroad in Italy -- Photo Gallery

By Rick Pearcey • March 19, 2011, 12:02 PM

Students who join us at Rivendell Sanctuary will experience learning abroad in Florence, Rome, and Venice. For photos and details, go here.

Update
Pearceys Resign From Rivendell Sanctuary



Thursday, March 17, 2011

Fla. Governor to Sign Bill That Nixes Teacher Tenure

By Rick Pearcey • March 17, 2011, 09:37 AM

"Florida public school teachers would lose job security but could make more money if their students do well on standardized tests under a trailblazing bill that went to Gov. Rick Scott on Wednesday after a party-line vote in the Republican-controlled state House," reports AP.



Monday, March 14, 2011

Mr. Secretary: Is Department of Education Constitutional?

By Rick Pearcey • March 14, 2011, 07:30 AM

"Arne Duncan, the U.S. secretary of education and a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University, would not say where the U.S. Constitution authorizes the federal government to be involved in primary and secondary education," reports Christopher Goins at CNSNews.com.



Friday, March 11, 2011

Evangelical Belmont University Approves Homosexual Student Group

By Rick Pearcey • March 11, 2011, 08:26 AM

"Provost Thomas Burns of Belmont University in Nashville has announced in a statement that the evangelical Christian school has given official approval to its first homosexual student organization," reports LifeSiteNews.com.

If someone bumps into Mr. Burns on campus or via email (thomas.burns@belmont.edu), you might ask: Why on earth would a putatively Christian school embrace a secular, divisive, false, and fragmenting ideology that discriminates against the Creator and the Creator's norms for human sexuality and family life?



Thursday, March 10, 2011

"Take Back Education Scholarship Fund" at Rivendell Sanctuary

By Rick Pearcey • March 10, 2011, 01:19 PM

This fund helps individuals become "students of honor" at Rivendell Sanctuary, where Nancy and I recently came aboard as faculty tutors (press release).

To learn more about the "Take Back Education Scholarship Fund," go to this website.


Idaho Votes to Phase Out Teacher Tenure

By Rick Pearcey • March 10, 2011, 06:29 AM

"The Idaho legislature has approved a bill that would phase out tenure for new teachers and limit their collective-bargaining rights, marking a victory for lawmakers seeking union reforms in state capitals across the country," reports FoxNews.com



Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Teachers Letting Science Point to Creator

By Rick Pearcey • February 22, 2011, 07:05 AM

"A Christian educator is applauding a national survey that shows more than 900 biology teachers in public high schools are teaching creationism, which is thriving in the classroom," reports OneNewsNow.

"The New York Times recently brought attention to a survey published in an issue of Science magazine that shows only 28 percent of biology teachers consistently follow the recommendation of the National Research Council to only teach evolution," reports the news outlet.

"We really encourage teachers to teach multiple theories: evolution, creationism, intelligent design," says Finn Laursen, executive director of Christian Educators Association International.

"In other words," says Laursen, "just teach the science and let higher level of thinking speak for itself. . . . We know as followers of the biblical truth that if we just study science, it will point back to the Creator. And we even know the Creator's name."

Related
Christianity Is a Science-Starter, Not a Science-Stopper 
Dawkins: Nazi Eugenics "May Not Be Bad"? 
Darwinian Meltdown Reaches England



Monday, February 21, 2011

Union Fascism

By Rick Pearcey • February 21, 2011, 08:11 AM

"On Full Display in Wisconsin," says FrontPage Magazine.



Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Orcs Beware: Pearcey Faculty Bios at Rivendell Sanctuary

By Rick Pearcey • February 16, 2011, 08:42 AM

We Ride to Rivendell: Here's the webpage.

Update
Pearceys Resign From Rivendell Sanctuary



Saturday, January 22, 2011

Great Sunday School Class in Texas!

By Rick Pearcey • January 22, 2011, 11:09 AM

They're discussing Saving Leonardo at the Providence Presbyterian Church in Sugar Land, Texas.

"In January the class begins a new discussion on Secularism and Christian Worldview with Saving Leonardo:  A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, & Meaning by Nancy Pearcey.  Copies are available from Pastor McCall," says the church website.



Friday, December 17, 2010

Astronomer Alleges Religious Discrimination at University of Kentucky

By Rick Pearcey • December 17, 2010, 08:57 AM

"An astronomer argues that his Christian faith and his peers' belief that he is an evolution skeptic kept him from getting a prestigious job as the director of a new student observatory at the University of Kentucky," AP reports.

"Martin Gaskell quickly rose to the top of a list of applicants being considered by the university's search committee," says the news service.

"One member said he was 'breathtakingly above the other applicants.' Others openly worried his Christian faith could conflict with his duties as a scientist, calling him 'something close to a creationist' and 'potentially evangelical'."

Related
Christianity Is a Science-Starter, Not a Science-Stopper



Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Vendetta: Florida School Board Gunman Blames "Wealthy"

By Rick Pearcey • December 15, 2010, 07:27 AM

Robert Stacy McCain writes at American Spectator:

A gunman who opened fire during a Florida school board meeting before apparently committing suicide left a "testament" on his Facebook page that blamed the "wealthy" for his crime.

Clay Duke, 56, pulled a pistol during a Tuesday school board meeting in Panama City, Fla., and fired several shots, according to press accounts. A security officer for the school system shot and wounded Duke, who then fatally shot himself, police told reporters.

Before pulling the gun, Duke used a can of red spray-paint to make the letter "V" inside a circle on a wall of the meeting room. This was evidently a reference to the 2006 movie V for Vendetta, in which a character uses terrorist tactics to fight an oppressive government.

Related
V Is for Volk: Unmasking the Fascism of Vendetta



Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Education Watch: Why Britain's Left Are Panicking

By Rick Pearcey • December 14, 2010, 10:17 AM

Adam Shaw writes at American Thinker: 

London's descent into anarchy over a rise in university tuition fees shows just how deeply the entire leftist enterprise relies on their takeover of the university system. . . . The passion behind the riots (which included not just students, but whole squads of angry leftists) is explained not only by the usual left-wing angst, but also by the fact that the rise in tuition strikes will radically reform the main left-wing recruitment center and training ground -- the university. (emphasis added)


Monday, October 25, 2010

Nancy Pearcey Column in WPost Challenges Secularism in Schools

By Rick Pearcey • October 25, 2010, 02:44 PM

In a column titled, "Should Secularism Be Taught in Public Schools?" Nancy rejects the "dictates of political correctness" and argues that "no 'ism' should be privileged" in the public schools.

And that includes secularism, which is "radically dehumanizing" and undercuts the "worldview that inspired the American Founders, who maintained that human rights are 'endowed' by the Creator."

Far better, she writes, if students are encouraged to think through and examine for themselves the truth-claims of the competing "isms" we face in society today. Nancy explains how to proceed: 

Every system of thought, to be taken seriously, must address the same fundamental questions: What is ultimate reality? What is human nature? What is the basis for morality? And so on. Using the neutral term worldview creates a level playing field that allows for objective contrast and comparison.

"Open debate encourages students to become genuinely critical thinkers," Nancy concludes. "Only free minds can create free societies."

For more on why and how secularism ought to be resisted, please see Nancy's new book, Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, & Meaning.

Related
Superman vs. Zombies in the Classroom
How Secular Elites Disempower "Values Voter" America 
The Adversary President: Obama vs. America



Friday, September 3, 2010

Queering Education

By Rick Pearcey • September 3, 2010, 07:33 AM

Secular Straightjacket: "The recent court rulings against students Jennifer Keeton in Georgia and Julea Ward in Michigan reveal the power amassed by the cabal of radicals in academia who have pushed the gay agenda into education," writes Mary Grabar at American Thinker.  

Related
Augusta State University: Change Your Beliefs or No Degree
Faggot Easy to Defend -- Surprising Help From Secular America
Rosie O'Donnell's Oppressive Coat



Saturday, August 21, 2010

Tea Party Fake Quits Before Getting Axed

By Rick Pearcey • August 21, 2010, 08:21 AM

From FoxNews.com:

The Oregon teacher who declared his mission to "dismantle and demolish" the Tea Party movement resigned before getting the ax, a school spokeswoman told FoxNews.com. . . .

Conestoga Middle School media lab teacher Jason Levin became national news back in April when he announced his intention to bring down the Tea Party on his "Crash the Tea Party” website and in media interviews.

The now-ex Conestoga Middle School media lab teacher said in April that he would seek to embarrass Tea Partiers by attending their rallies dressed as Adolf Hitler, carrying signs bearing racist, sexist and anti-gay epithets and acting as offensively as possible -- anything short of throwing punches.



Thursday, July 29, 2010

Laura Ingraham Interviews Jennifer Keeton Attorney on Lawsuit Against Augusta State

By Rick Pearcey • July 29, 2010, 04:22 PM

The anything-but-neutral secularist worldview incarnates itself in many ways and in many locales -- for example, in the now-known-around-the-world attempt to force graduate student Jennifer Keeton of Augusta State University to drop her Christian convictions regarding homosexuality if she hopes to complete her graduate degree in counseling.

Keeton is suing, as is her right, and here Laura Ingraham interviews Keeton's lawyer, David French, on the O'Reilly Factor.

Nancy's new book, Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, & Meaning, does a great service in illuminating the inhumanity and disintegration produced -- quite naturally, out of an inner necessity -- by secularism out in the culture.

This includes the secularized academic culture, as it seeks to impose its closed-down agenda on the likes of Jennifer Keeton, not just at Augusta State, and not just in regard to homosexuality, but wherever secularist doctrine takes root and wherever secularist dogma is expected to be obeyed. 

Related
Augusta State University: Change Your Beliefs or No Degree
Faggot Easy to Defend -- Surprising Help From Secular America
Rosie O'Donnell's Oppressive Coat



Monday, July 26, 2010

Homosexual Attacks ASU Grad Student for Her Creator-Based Stance

By Rick Pearcey • July 26, 2010, 10:04 AM

Writing at Lezgetreal, Bridgitte P. LaVictoire condemns graduate student Jennifer Keeton of Augusta State University for "lacking objectivity on homosexuality."

Meanwhile, The Daily Caller offers this quote from Alliance Defense Fund lawyer David French: "They made a cascading series of presumptions about the kind of a counselor she would be and have consequently . . . tried to force her to change her beliefs . . . . It’s symbolic of an educational system that has lost its way."

Related
Augusta State University: Change Your Beliefs or No Degree
Faggot Easy to Defend -- Surprising Help From Secular America
Rosie O'Donnell's Oppressive Coat



Thursday, July 22, 2010

In Her Own Words: Jennifer Keeton vs. Augusta State University

By Rick Pearcey • July 22, 2010, 01:50 PM

Published at Speakupmovement.org:

Today, the Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom filed a lawsuit against officials at Augusta State University on behalf of counseling student Jennifer Keeton. Jennifer’s counseling professors have told her she must change her Christian beliefs to graduate, told her that she cannot share her faith with students even outside of class, and have imposed impossibly vague speech codes on her in an effort to implement a comprehensive program of thought reform.  

You can read Jennifer’s Complaint and her Preliminary Injunction Motion to learn more.  Or, you can watch her tell her story. (Click here)


Augusta State University: Change Your Beliefs or No Degree

By Rick Pearcey • July 22, 2010, 12:37 PM

A press statement from the Alliance Defense Fund states:

Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund filed suit against Augusta State University Wednesday on behalf of a counseling student told that her Christian beliefs are unethical and incompatible with the prevailing views of the counseling profession. 

The student, Jennifer Keeton, has been told to stop sharing her beliefs with others and that she must change her beliefs in order to graduate from the counseling program.

Update: Perhaps I should add that, as a graduate of Augusta State University, this lawsuit is of particular concern to me.



Thursday, July 1, 2010

Democrat Activists Behind School Ban on Pledge of Allegiance

By Rick Pearcey • July 1, 2010, 09:33 PM

As one pro-ban Democrat put it: "Patriotism is a very personal thing for all of us, but I do not think it is in the school committee’s best interest to mandate that any of our employees recite the Pledge." More at Newsmax.



Monday, June 28, 2010

Celebrity Minister Dropped as Liberty U Seminary Dean

By Rick Pearcey • June 28, 2010, 07:24 AM

"A Baptist minister who toured the country to talk about his conversion from Islam to Christianity is no longer the dean of Liberty University's theological seminary following allegations he fabricated or embellished facts about his past, the school said Friday," according to OneNewsNow.

"The university founded by Rev. Jerry Falwell said that a board of trustees committee concluded Ergun Caner made contradictory statements. Although it didn't find evidence that he was not a Muslim who converted as a teenager, it did discover problems with dates, names and places he says he lived, a statement said," reports OneNewsNow. "Caner will remain on the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary faculty, but won't be dean when his term expires on June 30."

Comment: It is crucial to do the Lord work in the Lord's way, which among other things means truthfulness in resumes, publishing (claims to book or column "authorship," for example), PR, marketing, fundraising, etc., is vital. Anything less is hypocrisy, makes Christianity a laughingstock, reveals a cynicism at the heart of some ministries and big names, does untold harm to unsuspecting people, suggests a church captured by secularism, and takes God's name in vain.

Related
Francis Schaeffer, the Religous Right, Cultural Decline, and Aping the World
Francis Schaeffer: A Student's Appreciation of a Distinct Approach
David Limbaugh: "It's Not About Me" -- Wink, Wink



Saturday, June 26, 2010

Richard Dawkins Would Like to Start Atheist School

By Rick Pearcey • June 26, 2010, 01:48 PM

In such a school, Dawkins says he "would never want to indoctrinate children in atheism. . . . Instead, children should be taught to ask for evidence, to be sceptical, critical, open-minded. If children understand that beliefs should be substantiated with evidence, as opposed to tradition, authority, revelation or faith, they will automatically work out for themselves that they are atheists."

For someone who despises Christianity, Dawkins seems to know nothing of its emphasis on freedom of thought, critique, the demand for evidence, the appropriateness of questioning, and the call for commitment of the whole person based on evidence and rational analysis vis-a-vis the real world we know in our daily experience.

For more on the liberating epistemological perspective of the Judeo-Christian worldview, please see "Christmas Spirit in the Dirt."

Related
Atheist Goes Back to Court 
True Scandal: 78% of Americans "Believe" in the Resurrection
Obama Team Claims Right to Ban Books, Speech


Homeschoolers Alarmed by Kagan Nomination

By Rick Pearcey • June 26, 2010, 09:48 AM

"Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's press for considering international law as 'the context' for interpreting U.S. law has incited worries her appointment could pave the way for world treaties that threaten both parental rights and homeschooling in the United States, reports WorldNetDaily.



Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Oxford Debate: Climate Realism Beats Warming at Campus Showdown

By Rick Pearcey • June 1, 2010, 10:08 AM

From "Climate Alarmists on the Run" at the Washington Times:

Former Vice President Al Gore was at his peak when the film An Inconvenient Truth made its initial Hollywood splash. Faith in man-made global warming had never been more widespread, with liberal academics and media subjecting to ridicule any who dared question the "settled science." Only a fool could deny that elevated carbon-dioxide levels had melted ice caps and stranded polar bears on rapidly diminishing ice floes.

How the tables have turned in a short time. On May 20, Oxford Union, the prestigious 187-year-old English debating society, formally considered the question of whether it was more important to focus on growing the economy or solving global warming.

Climate realism won the day, 135 to 110. It's no wonder, considering how the purportedly scientific arguments advanced in support of the scaremongering conclusions have fallen apart since the Climategate scandal invited verification of the left's previously unexamined claims.



Friday, May 28, 2010

Kagan Moved Harvard Away From Requiring Students to Study Constitutional Law, Say Critics

By Rick Pearcey • May 28, 2010, 08:11 AM

Peter Winn reports at CNSNews.com:

Elena Kagan, President Barack Obama’s choice to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court, is best known for moving Harvard Law School away from the 100-year old "case-law method" of legal study.
 
But in the process, critics say, she moved the nation’s premier law school away from requiring the study of constitutional law towards the study of the laws of foreign nations and international law.



Friday, May 14, 2010

Extremism for High School Hoop Dreams Killer Nothing New

By Rick Pearcey • May 14, 2010, 07:16 AM

Extremist "Educator" Suzan Hebson Strikes Again: "The school official who nixed an Illinois girls high school basketball team trip to Arizona once supported a controversial program that required students to attend a 'freshman advisory' class where" so-called "gay upperclassmen shared stories of their high school experience with new students," reports Fox News

Here is a Facebook page calling for the firing of Hebson, who is the District 113 assistant superintendent in Highland Park, IL.

The Facebook page supplies the contact information below and asks concerned citizens to "keep the comments civil . . . please!"

District 113 Superintendent
George Fornero
District 113 Asst. Superintendent
Suzan Hebson
433 Vine Avenue
Highland Park, IL 60035-2099
(224) 765-2000
shebson@dist113.org



Thursday, May 13, 2010

Horowitz Asks UCSD Student: "Will You Condemn Hamas?"

By Rick Pearcey • May 13, 2010, 07:12 AM

As this interchange available at YouTube reveals, the answer a Hamas-supporting UC San Diego student eventually gives a couple of days ago is more ominous than a mere "No."

There is more on this "confused, chilling cold-blooded woman" at The Anchoress at First Things.

Hat tip: Reader of The Pearcey Report



Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Dictionary Mistake Goes Unnoticed for 99 Years

By Rick Pearcey • May 11, 2010, 03:31 PM

"It has taken the keen eye of a Queensland University of Technology physicist to spot a 99-year-old mistake in the Oxford English Dictionary," reports Marissa Calligeros in the Brisbane Times.



Monday, April 26, 2010

Expulsion of Christian Sparks Crackdown on Universities

By Rick Pearcey • April 26, 2010, 06:23 AM

Bob Unruh reports at WorldNetDaily:

Lawmakers in Michigan are preparing to call on the carpet leaders of taxpayer-supported universities across the state after top officials at Eastern Michigan University expelled from a counseling program a Christian student who refused to argue in support of the homosexual lifestyle.

As WND reported, trouble began for master's-program student Julea Ward when she refused to accept a client whose issue concerned a homosexual relationship.

Here is graduate student Julea Ward on YouTube.

Let's see how the formerly mainstream media "reports" on this strong, black woman who stands in the center of the enduring defining mainstream of American thought and practice. 



Monday, April 5, 2010

Campus Communism

By Rick Pearcey • April 5, 2010, 06:44 AM

Ron Meyer writes at Human Events:

As a college student, I constantly hear about how college is supposed to be trial place for new ideas. New ideas like communism. A student government experiment at Principia College has produced some humorous and rather predictable results.

Last year, my student government decided they were going to try this new idea called "Go-Bikes." Basically, the school would have community bikes where any student could take these labeled bikes wherever they needed to around campus. In theory, it looked like it would make student life much easier.



Thursday, April 1, 2010

Forgotten Study: Abuse in Schools 100 Times Worse Than by Priests

By Rick Pearcey • April 1, 2010, 03:35 PM

As a corrective to the formerly mainstream media comes this report from LifeSiteNews:

In the last several weeks such a quantity of ink has been spilled in newspapers across the globe about the priestly sex abuse scandals, that a casual reader might be forgiven for thinking that Catholic priests are the worst and most common perpetrators of child sex abuse.

But according to Charol Shakeshaft, the researcher of a little-remembered 2004 study prepared for the U.S. Department of Education, "the physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests."

After effectively disappearing from the radar, Shakeshaft’s study is now being revisited by commentators seeking to restore a sense of proportion to the mainstream coverage of the Church scandal.



Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Christian College Prof Encourages "Gay Identity"

By Rick Pearcey • March 10, 2010, 10:58 AM

"A conservative activist is asking a Christian college in Pennsylvania whether it supports the 'sexual identity therapy' of one of its professors who is unwilling to discourage some of his clients from remaining in the homosexual lifestyle," reports Jim Brown at OneNewsNow.

"Dr. Warren Throckmorton of Grove City College was once a spokesperson for the ex-'gay' group PFOX (Parents and Friends of Gays and Ex-Gays) and produced a documentary titled I Do Exist, which highlighted the testimonies of former homosexuals who chose to leave that lifestyle," reports OneNewsNow.

To ask the professor a question, please use the following email address, which is made available on Dr. Throckmorton's Grove City College webpageEWThrockmorton@gcc.edu.

Richard G. Jewell (rgjewell@gcc.edu) is president of Grove City College. William P. Anderson (wpanderson@gcc.edu) is provost and vice president for academic affairs. For additional contact information on Grove City College, please see this page.



Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Delaware School Board Allowed Christian Prayer

By Rick Pearcey • March 2, 2010, 09:06 AM

"A ruling by a federal judge in Delaware could be a step in the right direction toward protecting school boards across the country that wish to open meetings with Christian prayer," reports OneNewsNow. 

"The U.S. Congress is allowed to open its sessions with prayer, and according to Judge Joseph Farnan, the Indian River School Board in Delaware is closer to a legislative body than a school, so it should be allowed to open its meetings in the same manner."

But why erect a wall around the schools? 

This judge seems not to realize that the "unalienable rights" of the Declaration do not end at the school door.

Not just school board members, but also teachers, students, principals, and other human beings are "created equal" and are "endowed" by our Creator with "certain unalienable rights," among them "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

This false wall of separation between prayer and school -- between who we are as humans and how we learn as humans -- smacks of secular hubris. 

Instead, the 1st Amendment prevents Congress from passing any "law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" or "abridging the freedom of speech."

Congress, and the federal establishment generally, needs to get back to the rules of freedom as set forth in our Founding documents.

Of course prayer in schools is constitutional. Free-thinking Americans set free by the Creator bow to no human king, to no judicial elite, nor to an overweening Congress. Nor to the privations of secular philosophy. It's all part of keeping a republic.



Friday, February 26, 2010

Wheaton College Embracing Ayers'-Style Radicalism?

By Rick Pearcey • February 26, 2010, 01:11 PM

Radio talk show host Sandy Rios writes:

Imagine the dismay of many to learn that, in an effort to educate its students, Wheaton has moved to the left, so much so that in a survey by the Wheaton Record, 60 percent of its faculty voted for President Barack Obama, the most pro-abortion, pro-homosexual agenda, spiritually confused president the nation has ever elected.

Related
The Evil Religious Presidents Do
Betraying Christ: Obama Affirms Perverted Sex
American Fascism: Obama and Mussolini



Friday, February 19, 2010

Stossel: Education Too Important for a Government Monopoly

By Rick Pearcey • February 19, 2010, 08:06 AM

John Stossel explains why the government monopoly over education needs to be broken and that parents, even poor parents, are just the people to do it.

Stossel writes:

Parents care about their kids and want them to learn and succeed -- even poor parents. Thousands line up hoping to get their kids into one of the few hundred lottery-assigned slots at Harlem Success Academy, a highly ranked charter school in New York City. Kids and parents cry when they lose.

Yet the establishment is against choice. The union demonstrated outside Harlem Success the first day of school. And President Obama killed Washington, D.C.'s voucher program.

This is typical of elitists, who believe that parents, especially poor ones, can't make good choices about their kids' education.

Is that so? Ask James Tooley about that (http://tinyurl.com/ydgln9z). Tooley is a professor of education policy who spends most of every year in some of the poorest parts of Africa, India and China. For 10 years, he's studied how poor kids do in "free" government schools and -- hold on -- private schools. That's right. In the worst slums, private for-profit schools educate kids better than the government's schools do. (emphasis added)
Read the entire Stossel column at the Washington Examiner.



Thursday, December 17, 2009

College Prof Compares Cross to Swastika

By Rick Pearcey • December 17, 2009, 07:04 AM

"A student says a Dallas public community-college teacher compared crosses to swastikas while explaining a school ban on religious items made in ceramics classes," reports Chelsea Schilling at WorldNetDaily.

"Liberty Legal Institute sent a Dec. 15 demand letter on behalf of Joe Mitchell, a retired General Motors employee, Dallas resident and student, to Eastfield College in the Dallas County Community College District," Schilling reports. "The complaint accuses the school of an 'unconstitutional attack on religious expression in the classroom'."

WND reports that the attack, according to the complaint, was launched by ceramics department chairman James Watral, who was filling in for the "regular ceramics instructor on the first day of a spring 2009 class."

According to the demand letter, "As Mr. Watral was giving students a tour of the pottery department, he took them to a shelving area where ceramics pieces are stored prior to being fired in the kiln. Mr. Watral then pointed to a cross and stated in front of the entire class with contempt: 'I don't like that.'"

WND notes that "concerned individuals may contact professor James Watral by e-mail or by calling (972) 860-7656. Interim college President Jean Conway can be reached by calling (972) 860-7001." Here is the website of Eastfield College.



Saturday, December 5, 2009

Obama "Safe Schools" Chief Recommends XXX Child Porn for Classroom Reading

By Rick Pearcey • December 5, 2009, 01:22 PM

Clear and Present Danger: "A new report is raising alarms that the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, a homosexual advocacy organization founded by Kevin Jennings, now head of the U.S. Office of Safe Schools for the Obama administration, is recommending XXX-rated sex writings for children as young as preschoolers," reports WorldNetDaily.



Thursday, November 5, 2009

Look Mom, No Brains! -- 11 Uncovered Videos of Schoolchildren Praising Obama

By Rick Pearcey • November 5, 2009, 06:38 AM

Big Hollywood Exposes Big Control: Who needs re-education camps when you have "schools" that allow junk like this inside their doors?

Parents with an ounce of self-respect -- not to mention love for their kids or love for learning -- will come down very hard on this tyranny.

And seek alternatives, because a child's mind really is a terrible thing to waste.

Related
Obama Speaks: Public Schools as Gov't Thoughtcamps
Thoughtcamp Spotlight: Obama in Schools to "Indoctrinate Children Into Socialist Agenda"



Tuesday, November 3, 2009

NEA Website Recommends Saul Alinsky

By Rick Pearcey • November 3, 2009, 06:12 AM

From the National Education Association: Saul Alinsky an "inspiration to anyone contemplating action in their community! And to every organizer!" (emphasis in original)

Hat tip: American Thinker



Thursday, October 8, 2009

Twisted Sister: For Language-Abuser Kevin Jennings, "Safe Schools" Means Pro-Homosexual-Propaganda Schools

By Rick Pearcey • October 8, 2009, 05:50 AM

Troy Silva writes at American Thinker:

Kevin Jennings is Safe School Czar not by some vetting breakdown.

He was an official in the Obama Campaign as it Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual fund-raising co-chair. For twenty years until 2008, Jennings succeeded on a massive scale at pro-homosexual propagandizing of school children. 

His adeptness and accomplishment at semantic deception are extraordinary.

More . . .

Related
Audio: Obama "Safe Schools" Czar Criticizes Schools for Promoting Heterosexuality
Child Molesting: From Pelosi to Polanski to Jennings
Obama "Safe Schools" Chief Praised Child-Sex Promoter
The Evil Religious Presidents Do
"Faggot" Easy to Defend: Surprising Help From Secular America
No McDonald's Today 
Rosie O'Donnell's Oppressive Coat



Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Audio: Obama "Safe Schools" Czar Criticizes Schools for Promoting Heterosexuality

By Rick Pearcey • October 7, 2009, 11:54 AM

From Breitbart TV: "Kids are being aggressively recruited to become heterosexuals in this country."

According to an editor's note at Breitbart, this "uncovered" audio is from "the speech Kevin Jennings gave at a GLSEN event in Iowa in 2000."

GLSEN refers to the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network (see its support for the "Safe Schools Improvement Act").

The animosity of the Obama administration for the societal norms and content of the Declaration and the Constitution -- and the Judeo-Christian worldview upon which these documents rest philosophically -- continues to reveal itself in all the pastel colors of the liberal, secularist, homosexualist rainbow.

Free-thinking human beings who question authority, group think, and the creation of pseudo-rights on the basis of marketing campaigns (e.g., homosexual "rights"), to be imposed by neo-pagan secular elites, rebel.

Kevin Jennings needs to step down, the federal goverment needs to get out of the thoughtcamp business (public "schools"), and any U.S. president worthy of that Constitutional office needs to reform government on the basis of the Constitution (as written), or resign. 

Otherwise, as Americans, we revolt.

Otherwise, as human beings endowed by our Creator with "certain unalienable rights," we revolt.

America lives in a dangerous world growing more dangerous with every passing day. We cannot afford sickness within the body politic.

Related
Child Molesting: From Pelosi to Polanski to Jennings
Obama "Safe Schools" Chief Praised Child-Sex Promoter
The Evil Religious Presidents Do
"Faggot" Easy to Defend: Surprising Help From Secular America
No McDonald's Today 
Rosie O'Donnell's Oppressive Coat



Saturday, October 3, 2009

We Revolt: Community Cheers Cheerleaders for Jesus

By Rick Pearcey • October 3, 2009, 11:30 AM

OneNewsNow reports:

Friday night highschool football in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, took a backseat to a battle of another sort in the bleachers and on the sidelines.

Since 9-11 the Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe Warrior's cheerleaders have been using scripture verses on the banners that the football team bursts through at the beginning of each game. However, that tradition has been banned by school authorities who fear a hefty lawsuit if they allow the practice to continue. Officials nixed the banners after receiving a complaint from one individual who claims she was offended by the verses. (cheerleaders perform for local news video)

In a surprising turn of events, community members have showed their overwhelming support for the cheerleaders who have since become media celebrities. A local youth pastor, Brad Scott, started a facebook page in their support and organized a rally at a local Chick-fil-a. That rally had to be moved when more than 1,100 supporters showed up. Now in another overwhelming show of support, members of the community showed up to Friday nights football game to cheer the cheerleaders.

Here's the high school website.

Related
Why We Revolt: Cheerleaders Violate "Separation of Church and State"?


Obama "Safe Schools" Chief Praised Child-Sex Promoter

By Rick Pearcey • October 3, 2009, 10:56 AM

"A transcript from a 1997 speech shows Office of Safe Schools chief Kevin Jennings in the U.S. Department of Education expressed his admiration for Harry Hay, one of the nation's first homosexual activists who launched the Mattachine Society in 1948, founded the Radical Faeries and was a longtime advocate for the North American Man-Boy Love Association, NAMBLA," reports WorldNetDaily.



Thursday, October 1, 2009

Film: Rediscovering God in America

By Rick Pearcey • October 1, 2009, 07:43 AM

"A new documentary detailing the history of the United States from the first colony in Virginia through the Civil War focuses on the beliefs of the nation’s founders and the written documents that grant each citizen freedom of religion and the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," reports Penny Starr at CNSNews.com.

"The film, Rediscovering God in America II: Our Heritage, is not a commentary on the Founding Fathers’ theology or lack thereof. It is an oral history using in the founders’ own words to describe how God played a role in America becoming a nation of religious liberty and tolerance."

Read the rest of "New Documentary Examines God's Place in America's Heritage, as Told by the Founding Fathers."



Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Update: Obama Praise Song "Publicly Posted Without Permission"

By Rick Pearcey • September 29, 2009, 10:33 AM

Joshua Rhett Miller reports at Fox News:

A song about President Obama that was performed by a group of young New Jersey students and has led to charges of indoctrination was videotaped and posted on the Internet without authorization, a district official told parents.

"The performance and the videotaping at the B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington, N.J., have sparked a review by school officials, according to a letter to parents from Christopher Manno, Burlington Township's superintendent of schools.

"We are carefully evaluating what occurred and will implement any additional needed procedures to prevent children's images in school from being publicly posted without permission," Manno wrote on Friday. "We will also provide reasonable direction and guidelines so that classroom activities will not give the appearance of promoting a particular political perspective."

Is this an example of one fox videotaped in the hen house -- and other foxes complaining about the videotape?

About the only thing missing from the video were images of the glorious Obama walking among the children and patting them on their heads.

Didn't that glorious leader of Iraq -- what, Saddam Hussein -- do that sort of thing? Ah, don't worry. He was just a guy from the neighborhood.

If parents and neighbors are skeptical, good. That's precisley what they are expected to be as free and independent thinkers created in the image of the God who endows each of us with "certain unalienable rights."

By the way, one more thing is missing in the video: Education.

Read the whole story.



Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Thoughtcamp Watch: Brits to Tighten Screws on Homeschooling?

By Rick Pearcey • September 23, 2009, 02:35 PM

"A recent British report calls for the government takeover of home schooling," reports OneNewsNow.

"The report was released in June 2009 by Graham Badman, who was commissioned to conduct the report by the Children's Secretary of Britain -- England's version of the U.S. Department of Education. Michael Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), says the report is bad news for Britain."

Read the story from OneNewsNow.

Related
Obama Speaks: Public Schools as Gov't Thoughtcamps
Thoughtcamp Spotlight: Obama in Schools to "Indoctrinate Children Into Socialist Agenda"



Tuesday, September 22, 2009

School Blues: The American University the Saddest Place on Earth

By Rick Pearcey • September 22, 2009, 12:30 PM

"Today's colleges can make MSNBC seem fair and balanced and give the term 'clinical depression' a sunny and joyful flavor," writes Matt Spivey at American Thinker.

"It's no wonder so many prominent liberal intellectuals are angry, begrudging, and gloomy. They imbibe four to ten years of it during their college studies. And their brethren in the media give them a consistent platform for their gloom."



Tuesday, September 15, 2009

White Student Beaten on School Bus, Many Cheer

By Rick Pearcey • September 15, 2009, 11:23 AM

"A Belleville West High School student was beaten aboard a bus on the way to school Monday, and a police spokesman said the beating could be racially motivated," reports the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

"Two black juvenile suspects are in custody after they allegedly beat a white student on a bus heading to Belleville West, police and school officials said," according to the Belleville News-Democrat.

"We don't tolerate it," said Bob Dahm, the principal of Belleville West. Concerned parents can contact Mr. Dahm at this email address: bdahm@bths201.org (available on the school website).

Here is raw video. See also "Click to Play" at the top right-hand corner of this page.

Hat tip: Drudge Report

Related
How to Have a Race War



Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Obama Speaks: Public Schools as Gov't Thoughtcamps

By Rick Pearcey • September 8, 2009, 09:32 AM

David Welch, founder of the U.S. Pastor Council, says there's far more at work today in Obama's talk to kids in schools than a simple speech to kids in schools. 

Read "It's About Much More Than 1 Speech."



Monday, September 7, 2009

Text: Obama Remarks on Education

By Rick Pearcey • September 7, 2009, 12:51 PM

Below is the complete text of remarks President Obama is slated to deliver tomorrow to the schoolchildren of America. Released by the White House.

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama

Back to School Event

Arlington, Virginia

September 8, 2009

The President: Hello everyone -- how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday -- at 4:30 in the morning.

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.

Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.

I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.

I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world -- and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.

Maybe you could be a good writer -- maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper -- but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor -- maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine -- but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life -- I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that -- if you quit on school -- you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.

Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life -- what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home -- that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer -- hundreds of extra hours -- to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.

And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education -- and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you -- you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust -- a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor -- and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you - don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down -- don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

Hat tip: Fox News



Thursday, September 3, 2009

Thoughtcamp Spotlight: Obama in Schools to "Indoctrinate Children Into Socialist Agenda"

By Rick Pearcey • September 3, 2009, 08:32 AM

"President Barack Obama's plans for a televised back-to-school address to students next week are drawing fire from some conservatives, who say he's just trying to indoctrinate them to his political beliefs," writes Nia-Malika Henderson at Politico.

Yesterday on Facebook I wrote:

An event like Obama's presumptive, disrespectful in-your-face "these kids are my kids" speech to the public schools (all for a good cause, of course) may well sufficiently raise the consciousness of parents to begin a mass exodus out of the gov't school thoughtcamps.

Educational authority resides in parents, not in the State. No cause is good enough to sell our souls, forfeit our obligations, or give our kids away to any president, state, or other pretender of the gods.

As the Declaration of Independence makes clear, the American experiment in liberty is about independence under God, not dependence on presidents, Washington regimes, or federally controlled thoughtcamps otherwise known as schools.



Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Should Martin Luther King on God's Law Be Taught in Public Schools?

By Rick Pearcey • August 26, 2009, 07:50 AM

"On the 46th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s March on Washington, Education Secretary Arne Duncan declined to say whether King’s view that just laws are based on God's law should be taught in public schools," reports CNSNews.com.
 
"In his famous 'Letter from Birmingham Jail,' King expressed his classical belief, based on the teachings of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas as well as the Founding Fathers, that a just law is a law that comports with the law of God and an unjust law is a law that does not comport with the law of God."

Comment: The real factor prohibiting the teaching about the Creator in the public schools is an imposed secularism, not the U.S. Constitution.

The real threat to liberty in America comes not from teaching about our true Creator, upon whom the American republic is founded.

No, the real threat derives from a secular state, which seeks to impose an alien, false, and inhumane ideology upon American life and thought.

In that un-American, unconstitutional and anti-Declarational world, Martin Luther King and his "Letter From Birmingham" will forever be at the back of the bus. 

Far better for free-thinking Americans to act upon our "unalienable rights" -- endowed not by some privatized, abstract religiousity, "faith," or "value," but by a living, factual, and rationally knowable Creator who is a public figure.

Far better to show secularist tryanny the door at the next bus stop.

Let freedom ride. Up front. 



Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Sweden Outlaws Home Schooling

By Rick Pearcey • August 19, 2009, 09:46 AM

"The founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association says home schooling in Sweden will soon be banned altogether, with a few minor exceptions," reports OneNewsNow.

"Mike Farris says that Sweden will ban all home schooling except for children with medical exemptions and foreign workers with the appropriate work visas."

Comment: If the state is supreme, the people must obey.

But as the American Founders realized -- and acted upon -- that's a big "if." 

A free people, aware of their dignity as created in the image of a knowable and verifiable God, and thereby endowed with "certain unalienable rights," rightly and properly resist.

These rights are not mere "values," but facts imbedded holistically in human existence by a Creator who is anything but indifferent.

So it matters little whether we are talking about secular and inhumane idolatry abroad -- or here at home in the U.S.

"Love thy neighbor" simply will not be domesticated, bought off, or scared away. 

A mind is a terrible thing to enslave.



Thursday, July 23, 2009

Alleged Lesbian Sex Assault on Student at London Girls School

By Rick Pearcey • July 23, 2009, 09:46 AM

"A woman teacher at a top private school for girls has been arrested over allegations that she sexually assaulted a pupil during an 'inappropriate' relationship," reports the UK Times.



Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Broken Trust: 3 Coequal Branches of Government?

By Rick Pearcey • May 26, 2009, 06:05 AM

WND Editor and CEO Joseph Farah offers a lesson in U.S. government and political freedom to "constitutional scholar" Barack Hussein Obama.



Monday, May 18, 2009

Obama at Notre Dame -- Video

By Rick Pearcey • May 18, 2009, 04:16 PM

From FoxNation: "Open Minds" and "Fair-Minded Words"? You be the judge. Click here to view the entire speech at RealClearPolitics.

Related
Humane Resistance: Palin Hits Notre Dame for Recognizing Obama
Farah: Obama Wants Civil Dialogue Over Murder of Unborn Humans
Obama at Notre Dame: Text


Humane Resistance: Palin Hits Notre Dame for Recognizing Obama

By Rick Pearcey • May 18, 2009, 11:55 AM

In an email to columnist Holly Robichaud, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin writes: 

My favorite grandpa, Clem James Sheeran, was Catholic. Irish to the core, his favorite place (other than church) was Notre Dame.

I can’t imagine what he would think as the university recognizes someone who contradicts the core values of the Catholic faith by promoting an anti-life agenda. As we learned today, our nation is more pro-life than ever before; it is a very important time to strengthen the message that every baby is created for good purpose and has the potential to make this world a better place.”

"While Palin understands this battle is about a fundamental value," comments Robichaud, "Obama supporters trivialize it by suggesting it is about opening a dialogue with people of opposing views. Despite their belittling, this outrage is well deserved. By bestowing the degree on President Pro-Choice, a message is conveyed that he is a role model, someone deserving of recognition in the eyes of the university. Jenkins even said he is an inspiring leader."

Well said. But note also that Obama is in conflict not just with a question of "value," even a fundamental one. For this man stands on the wrong side of fact, science, evidence, the Constitution, the Declaration, and the Founding Vision of the United States of America. Most of all, the president of the United States stands against the knowable, verifiable, and factual Creator, upon whom and from whom all human rights that have any adequate foundation are based.

The president's ideological alienation from the good, the true, the beautiful, and the humane is complete and total. No amount of oratory or dialogue or enablement from a lapdog, secularist press can cover up the stench of this cult of barbarism divorced from humanity and reason. By the measurement of the American experiment in liberty, his is an extremism rooted in inauthentic faith.

What remains is for albeit imperfect people of good will to listen -- as did our Founders -- to their Creator instead of to this mere mortal and his pretended wisdom but all-too-real vanity. What remains is to insist on human freedom and dignity under God in effective and principled resistance to overcome a kind of state control and cool barbarism that European dictators and totalitarians and orators from days not that long ago could only have dreamed of.

That kind of resistance would be progress. That would be humane. That is the way of dignity.

Related
Farah: Obama Wants Civil Dialogue Over Murder of Unborn Humans
Obama OKs Killing Unborn in Notre Dame Speech
Episcopalian High Priestess: "Abortion Is a Blessing!"

What About Obama, Mussolini, and the Unmentionable Herr Hitler?
The Evil Religious Presidents Do
How to Argue Like a Fascist
American Fascism: Obama and Mussolini


Farah: Obama Wants Civil Dialogue Over Murder of Unborn Humans

By Rick Pearcey • May 18, 2009, 07:48 AM

Go ahead. Make Nice. But Notre Dame party-spoiler Joseph Farah of WND chooses not to play by Obama's pathetic, inhumane, and bloody rules:

If I were presiding over a public policy that called for the murder of unborn babies for any reason or no reason at all, that provided mandatory public funding of those procedures both domestically and in foreign countries, that required doctors and nurses to perform abortions even if they were conscientiously opposed, that permitted experimentations on living human embryos, that promoted even partial-birth abortions outside the womb and that called for the extermination of infants who somehow defied all the odds and managed to survive efforts to kill them before birth, I guess I would want to frame the debate in such a way as to diminish the hideous monstrousness of my morally indefensible position.

He doesn't really want people who recognize what abortion is to approach the debate with "open hearts." He wants us to harden our hearts.  

More on "The Blowback of Notre Dame," by Joseph Farah at WND . . .

Related
Obama OKs Killing Unborn in Notre Dame Speech
Episcopalian High Priestess: "Abortion Is a Blessing!"

What About Obama, Mussolini, and the Unmentionable Herr Hitler?
The Evil Religious Presidents Do
How to Argue Like a Fascist
American Fascism: Obama and Mussolini



Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Hate America First: Kids Enviro Video Coming Soon to Your School

By Rick Pearcey • May 12, 2009, 08:38 AM

From Warner Todd Huston at RedState:

A new propaganda video created by an extreme environmental activist is making its way into America’s classrooms and The New York Times loves the whole idea. Enviro obsessive Annie Leonard, Greenpeace member and activist, has created a 20 minute video filled with anti-capitalist, anti-American propaganda to encourage kids to eschew “stuff,” calling the presentation “The Story of Stuff.”

More here.

Related:
Czech Prez: What Climate Activists Really Want




Friday, April 10, 2009

Campus Tyranny: Expulsion Threatened Over Prayer for Sick Teacher

By Rick Pearcey • April 10, 2009, 08:11 AM

Two college students in California prayed for a sick professor, with her consent. No question about it, says the College of Alameda: They should be kicked out. 




Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Texas Chooses Science Over Secularist Dogma

By Rick Pearcey • April 1, 2009, 01:52 PM

The Discovery Institute, where Pearcey Report editor at large Nancy Pearcey is a fellow of the Center for Science and Culture, announces an advance in educational and scientific freedom:

Austin, TX -- Today [March 27], the Texas Board of Education chose science over dogma and adopted science standards improving on the old "strengths and weaknesses" language by requiring students to “critique” and examine “all sides of scientific evidence.” In addition, the Board -- for the first time -- specifically required high school students to “analyze and evaluate” the evidence for major evolutionary concepts such as common ancestry, natural selection, and mutations. 

The new science standards mark a significant victory for scientists and educators in favor of teaching the scientific evidence for and against evolution.

“Texas now has the most progressive science standards on evolution in the entire nation,” said Dr. John West, Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute.  “Contrary to the claims of the evolution lobby, absolutely nothing the Board did promotes ‘creationism’ or religion in the classroom. Groups that assert otherwise are lying, plain and simple. Like the boy who cried ‘Wolf,’ the Darwin only lobby always screams ‘creationism!’ anytime educators or policymakers try to ensure a fair presentation of the scientific evidence both for and against evolution. Let’s be absolutely clear: Under the new standards, students will be expected to analyze and evaluate the scientific evidence for evolution, not religion. Period.” 

Regarding teaching creationism or religion in the public school classroom, a couple of points are worth noting.

First, this is a terrific win for academic freedom, but it should be remarked that nothing in the Declaration of Independence or U.S. Constitution forbids teaching creationism or religion in the classroom. Entrenched secularist dogma on this matter is less than convincing.

In fact, progress in the American experiment in liberty advances from the fixed point of a knowable and objectively existing Creator who endows humanity with unalienable rights. The Constitution is a legal contract designed to protect those rights so that what Mark Levin in Liberty and Tyranny calls a "civil society" might come to actuality, which is what happened in the course of human events that we call the American Revolution.

The 1st Amendment forbids Congress from sticking its Federal Nose into our business, educational or otherwise -- something those who embrace a secularist tryanny over the minds of free human beings seem to disapprove. The 1st Amendment does not forbid Texicans or the rest of us from exercising our freedom and our sovereignity in education.

Here's the 1st Amendment in its entirety:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.  [emphasis added]

The question therefore is not whether creationism or religion can be taught in the classroom. Of course they can. The real question is this: What's the evidence? If the evidence for or against a particular theory of origins is scientific, then present the case for and against, let the students think for themselves, and let them make up their own minds. Even in biology class.

The second point is that the Creator acknowledged in the Declaration, and against whom Congress is prohibited from passing laws against, is not a matter of "religious" belief or "faith" in the poor sense of the word bandied about inside and outside of secularist circles today.

The more rigorous, concrete, humane, and Biblical concept of faith has to do with the commitment of the whole person to that which is rationally, empirically, and existentially knowable as true. It is a worldview commitment rooted in truth about God, man, and the cosmos -- that same worldview, by the way, which provided the critical intellectual mass needed to launch modern science in the first place.

This wholistic approach has nothing to do with subjectivist "values," privatized "faith," emotional crutches, blind believism, or other characteristics swimming about in congressional waters, "religious" meetings, secular baptisms, and marketing strategies of the ACLU. 

The wonder and dignity of humanity male and female created in the image of a knowable God who endows each of us with unalienable rights cannot be squeezed into such limiting, dehumanizing, and regressive nonsense. It's time we all broke free of those chains. Bravo, Texas!




Monday, March 30, 2009

Protest Notre Dame, Disinvite Obama From the Presidency

By Rick Pearcey • March 30, 2009, 03:06 PM

"The outrage over Notre Dame inviting President Obama as commencement speaker has not abated," reports OneNewsNow.

"Last week, pro-lifers strongly voiced their anger about a pro-abortion president being invited to speak at a prominent Catholic university, which supposedly upholds church doctrines such as the sanctity of life. But they also are objecting to the school's plan to give Obama an honorary Doctor of Law degree. Notre Dame has been flooded with complaints, but university President John Jenkins will not be deterred."

Says Notre Dame graduate Eric Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League: 

If Jenkins won't do the right thing and disinvite Barack Obama, then we are absolutely going to have no choice but to go out and rain on Barack Obama's parade on May 17 in South Bend, Indiana. . . . We are already working with pro-life leaders around the country, especially throughout the Midwest, to put on the mother of all protests.

In his language and policy moves, this man Barack Obama is a rogue official occupying the office of the President of the United States.

Why rogue? Because, for example, he is in violation of the Declaration of Independence, which is the Foundational Vision Statement of the United States of America and which acknowledges that every single human being is endowed by our Creator with "certain unalienable rights," including the rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Well, dead preborn American citizens are deprived of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And no American politican ought to serve who favors the liquidation of the preborn in aborcentration centers that mar and bleed the land.

One would think that governing according to the Vision Statement of the United States is not above the paygrade of the president of the United States.

One would think that respecting unalienable rights endowed by the Creator upon alive but preborn American citizens is not above the paygrade of the President of the United States.

One would think that elementary scientific and inclusive facts of biological life regarding the humanity of unborn human beings created in the image of God is not above the paygrade of the President of the United States.

What kind of man is this? Let us hope not, but is Barack Obama too much of a political ideologue to care about the facts, the Declaration, the Constitution, and that liberating vision of life that American heroes have bled and died for on battlefields across history and across the world, both within and without the borders of our homeland?

No only should Barack Obama be disinivited from Notre Dame, the American people should rise up and disinvite him from the presidency. His pro-abortion, anti-life policies are an embarrassment to civilized humanity under the Declaration, under the Constitution, and under God. Yes he was elected, but he now imposes tyranny. He now wars against the American experiment in liberty under God. 

Americans must take every opportunity to disinvite not just him, but his alien, anti-American, inhumane, and anti-Creator coup against the foundational Mission and Vision Statement of this land. We can yet still enjoy the "blessings of liberty," but this will require a return to the Creator to whom our Founders looked and from whom those blessings derive. It will require casting off the chains of the Federal Empire and its new Emperor on the Potomac.

No only should pro-life Americans "rain" on Obama's parade, they ought to thunder and lightning upon it, with a few cats and dogs thrown in for good measure. May the "mother of all protests" at Notre Dame have many children.




Friday, March 27, 2009

Obama: 63, Notre Dame: 0

By Rick Pearcey • March 27, 2009, 10:38 AM

The Obama "Alinskys" are thrashing the Notre Dame "Girly Girls," and here's a bit of color analysis by George Neumayr:

The Catholic Church in America has bred her own destroyers, graduating from doctrinally corrupt catechetical programs, schools and colleges two generations of pro-abortion politicians. Barack Obama, in his effortless Alinskyite style, has exploited this phenomenon to the hilt, seeking out Catholics such as Joe Biden and Kathleen Sebelius to serve as his agents of destruction.

The controversy this week at Notre Dame is one more snapshot of this self-implosion. Here we have the American bishops' most prominent university planning to confer an honorary degree upon Obama even as he accelerates the destruction of its moral teachings.

Coach Alinsky surely must be beaming in his grave. "Were Saul Alinsky alive today," notes Neumayr, "he would have to smile at the ease of it all. Obama can not only thwart the Church at every crucial turn and still retain the Catholic vote; he can even expect over the next few years prizes and pats on the back from Catholic colleges for doing so."

See also: "Notre Dame Should Disinvite Obama."



Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Notre Dame Should Disinvite Obama

By Rick Pearcey • March 25, 2009, 10:23 AM

"Opposition is mounting to the University of Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama to be a commencement speaker in May," reports OneNewsNow.

This is a sign of spiritual health. Inviting him to speak and conferring a degree upon him is a sign of spiritual weakness. Worldview confusion. Sellout.

By his language and actions, Obama inhabits a post-Catholic, post-Protestant, post-Christian, post-Declaration, post-Constitution, post-American, post-humane universe. Other than that, no problem.

Notre Dame would do well to disinvite the President with extreme unction. Just as the great and free people of the United States of America should show him and his Statist, Washington-centric worldview the door at the first opportunity. Exit stage left. Now, April 15, and forevermore. 

If asked to serve humanity in such a fashion, I'll be happy to stand in for the President at Notre Dame to explain the matter in further detail. You don't even have to confer a degree.




Monday, February 23, 2009

Iowa Academics Resist Evolution Freedom

By Rick Pearcey • February 23, 2009, 01:06 PM

They believe it, that settles it. Think "peer pressure."

STATEMENT BY IOWA FACULTY ON HF 183:
THE EVOLUTION ACADEMIC FREEDOM ACT

We, the undersigned members of institutions of higher learning in Iowa, urge our legislators to reject passage of "The Evolution Academic Freedom Act" (HF 183) introduced by Rod Roberts (R-Carroll). The language of this bill comes primarily from the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which has conducted lobbying efforts and political activism against the teaching of evolution since 1994.

Evolution is as established a scientific theory as any other theory in science.  It is misleading to claim that there is any controversy or dissent within the vast majority of the scientific community regarding the scientific validity of evolutionary theory. Since there is no real dissent within the scientific community, then "academic freedom" for alternative theories is simply a mechanism to introduce religious or non-scientific doctrines into our science curriculum.

Similar efforts to undermine the teaching of evolution in schools repeatedly have been found to be unconstitutional, something witnessed most recently in Kitzmiller v. Dover (2005) in Pennsylvania.

We, therefore, urge our legislators to recognize HF183 as part of a long history of creationist assaults on science education, and reject passage of this bill.

Now if students were able to examine the scientific evidence for themselves, there's no telling where that might lead. Consider the following outrage in HF 183:
It is therefore the intent of the general assembly that this Act be construed to expressly protect the affirmative right and freedom of every instructor at the elementary, secondary, and postsecondary level to objectively present scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution in connection with teaching any prescribed curriculum regarding chemical or biological evolution. (italics added)
OK, freedom-lovers. You've got your marching orders!

On the other hand . . . 




Tuesday, February 17, 2009

12-Year-Old Steals Day With Pro-Life Speech

By Rick Pearcey • February 17, 2009, 07:56 AM

Toronto girl overcomes discouragement from teachers, disqualification by judges.

Here's her winning presentation.