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Ruth King

Is the Jig Up for Elite Higher Education? Elite universities face a reckoning as public backlash and new legislation threaten their finances, admissions policies, and ideological excesses, forcing them to reform or risk irrelevance. By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2025/03/13/is-the-jig-up-for-elite-higher-education/

Over the last three decades, elite American universities have engaged in economic, political, social, and cultural practices that were often unethical, illegal—and suicidal.

They did so with impunity.

Apparently, confident administrators assumed that the brand of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and other elite universities was so precious to the nation’s elite movers and shakers that they could always do almost anything they wished.

By the 1970s, non-profit universities had dropped pretenses that they were apolitical and non-partisan.

Instead, they customarily violated the corpus of iconic civil rights legislation by weighing race, gender, and sexual orientation in biased admissions, hiring, and promotions.

Graduation ceremonies became overtly racially and ethnically segregated. The same was true for dorms and “theme houses.”

So-called “safe spaces,” in the spirit of the Jim Crow South, reserved areas of campus solely for particular races.

Affluent foreign students often openly protested on behalf of designated terrorist groups like Hamas.

First-Amendment-protected free speech all but vanished on elite campuses. Any guest speaker who dared to critique abortion on demand, Middle East orthodoxy, biological males dominating women’s sports, or diversity/equity/inclusion dogmas was likely to be shouted down, or on occasion roughed up.

University administrators either ignored the violence done to the Bill of Rights or quietly approved when their rowdy students were turned loose on supposed conservatives.

But in their hubris, the universities began a series of blunders that may now end them as they once were.

Antisemitism on the Hill A Senate committee discusses Jew-hatred. by Bruce Bawer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm-plus/antisemitism-on-the-hill/

On March 5, the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill was the setting for a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that was truly fascinating. The subject: antisemitism, in particular the displays of vicious Jew-hatred that have taken place on college campuses since the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023.

It’s a subject that the Democrats have tried to avoid for years because it sorely divides their ranks. After all, several congressional Democrats – notably members of the so-called “Squad” – are openly antagonistic toward Jews and deeply hostile to Israel. In 2019, a House resolution condemning antisemitism – introduced in the wake of remarks by the appalling Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), one of the members of the Squad – was watered down by Democrats into a general condemnation of all hatred and intolerance.

Well, it’s a new day. Hence this two-and-a-half-hour hearing, which was made possible by the fact that the Republicans won a senatorial majority in the November elections. Of the five witnesses, three were selected by the Republicans: Adela Cojab of the National Jewish Advocacy Center; Alyza D. Lewin, president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law;  and Asra Q. Nomani of the Pearl Project. All had powerful, disturbing things to say about the rise in student antisemitism since October 7.

Cojab, for instance, recalled a college class in Middle Eastern Studies in which she’d asked the professor whether bin Laden should be considered a terrorist. “Everybody laughed,” she said – because, you see, her classmates had all been taught that the terrorist label is vulgar and simplistic. Indeed, Cojab explained, they’d been taught a lot of things – among them, that “the political is personal”; that the world is divided into the “global north and global south,” the former of which is always wrong and the latter always right; and that it’s permissible to commit acts of violence “if your ideology is correct.”

The Moral Inversion of Antisemitism A review of Robert Spencer’s new masterpiece, ‘Antisemitism: History & Myth’. by Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-moral-inversion-of-antisemitism/

After Oct 7, Robert Spencer, the eminent scholar of religions and expert on Islamic terrorism, witnessed the irrational return of antisemitism, not just on the left, but also on the right.

“Fervent and articulate opponents of globalism and socialism began sending me articles in which globalists and socialists rehearsed all the alleged evils and misdeeds of Israel,” he writes.

“Vociferous critics of the United Nations began citing its figures on civilian deaths in Gaza.”

In response, Spencer began working on what would become his latest book, ‘Antisemitism: History & Myth’. Spencer, already the author of numerous critically acclaimed books touching on the intersections of religion and history including ‘Empire of God’, about the Byzantine Empire, ‘The Palestinian Delusion’ and his recent, ‘Muhammad: A Critical Biography’, once again goes back in time and perhaps further so than his past books have ever traveled before.

In  ‘Antisemitism: History & Myth’, Spencer traces the origins of antisemitism to an initial pagan reaction against the translation of the Bible until “in the ancient world, revisionist versions of the accounts in the Jewish scriptures became a cottage industry.” Antisemitism became a way to rebut scripture and with it the moral foundations of a divine religion. The more contemptible the Jews were, the less reason there was to respect anything that Moses and later prophets had to say. This echoes the moral inversion that Spencer now sees all around him on social media in which the Jews attacked on Oct 7 become the perpetrators and Hamas becomes the victim.

In trying to understand this present day moral inversion, ‘Antisemitism: History & Myth’ travels through the ancient pagan world, from Egypt to Greece and Rome, through to the rise of Christianity in which Spencer, a devout member of the Greek Orthodox Church, grapples with the troubled history of antisemitism in Christianity, and then on to the Muslim world.

The escalating leftist violence against conservatives from Trump and Musk on down By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/03/the_escalating_leftist_violence_against_conservatives_from_trump_and_musk_on_down.html

The news lately has been filled with stories of the escalating violence against conservatives. We already saw it last year with the two assassination attempts against Donald Trump, but it’s now spread to Musk, Vance, and conservatives generally. As with the blasphemous song a so-called “transgender” person sang at the Bernie rally, I can’t say I’m surprised. Some things are predictable, and leftist violence, especially when you’ve driven your supporters insane, is especially predictable.  

I don’t need to rehash the Butler assassination attempt that Trump survived by a millisecond and millimeter. Nor do I need to remind you about the wannabe assassin at Mar-a-Lago.

But for the left, two missed assassination attempts aren’t a sign of societal breakdown; they’re a sign of failure, which needs to be remedied. So it was that a UCLA professor (that is, a man making his money on the public dime) is urging the military to engage in a violent coup against President Trump.

Immigration and Fertility by Nation As birthrates drop in developed nations, mass immigration reshapes demographics, raising concerns about cultural integration, intelligence decline, and the long-term stability of advanced economies. By Edward Ring

https://amgreatness.com/2025/03/12/immigration-and-fertility-by-nation/

“But one thing is certain: the human population is rapidly declining in every developed nation on earth. How we adapt to that, and who we invite into our nations, should involve a discussion that includes all variables.”

When a nation’s population grows, it’s easier for that nation to experience economic growth. This is the conventional economic wisdom that has been unchallenged for centuries. And there was little reason to challenge this axiom, because throughout human history, the global population trend has been one of perpetual increase. But as birthrates are crashing in wealthier nations, without exception, it may be time to reexamine what constitutes healthy economic growth and how it may be achieved without increasing population.

The way Western nations have chosen to respond to crashing birthrates is to rely on mass immigration. Tens of millions of people are being encouraged to migrate from poor nations where fertility remains high into rich nations with low fertility. This gives rise to challenges that remain unresolved and indeed may worsen as people arrive by the millions from cultures with dramatically different values and beliefs than the host culture.

Let’s assume for a moment that these cultural clashes can be resolved. That’s making a huge leap of faith, but let’s envision a world where, as the developed nations saw their indigenous population diminish, they were steadily replaced by immigrants from high-fertility nations. This is not mere speculation. Based on current trends, within a generation, indigenous populations in developed nations will become minorities, outnumbered by immigrants.

So notwithstanding how these nations would maintain social stability in the face of replacement levels of immigration, and notwithstanding how the indigenous cultures would merge with the immigrant cultures into something unrecognizable by any historical comparisons, what else can we surmise might characterize these new and blended populations?

One of the most salient determinants of individual success is an individual’s general intelligence, and what’s true for individuals is also true for nations. The data on average IQ by nation is available online, and when checking multiple sources here, here, and here, the overall figures were remarkably consistent. What is also true, although the scatter plot does reveal some outliers, is that in the world today, the higher the national average IQ, the lower the fertility. The converse is also true.

Urgently Needed: A President Trump 21st Century ‘Manhattan Project’ for Fusion Energy to Secure Global Leadership by Lawrence Kadish

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21465/manhattan-project-for-fusion-energy

Tariffs, Ukraine, DOGE, the budget, NATO, the Middle East; the headlines are dominated by daily issues that demand our attention, but they also serve to distract us from the strategic issues that will determine who will be the dominant superpower during the remaining years of 21st Century.

So, it should come as no surprise that China is currently investing billions of dollars to create unlimited power by seeking to conquer the challenging technology of fusion power.

Media reports suggest that Beijing is investing anywhere between $1 billion and $1.5 billion annually into fusion research. One Washington energy insider told the press, “…What’s more important than the number, it’s actually how fast they’re doing this.”

Equally telling is one report, which observed that China’s patents on crucial aspects of fusion technology are more than any other country, including our own.

China’s pursuit of unlimited energy is not just about powering cities and electric vehicles. The most major breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI) will come about when one country’s computers have access to unlimited power. The country that can lead in AI development will become the next global superpower.

Americans understand the threat. It is important to revisit a national survey recently conducted by President Donald J. Trump’s pollster, McLaughlin & Associates. A significant majority of citizens recognize the danger and want Washington to safeguard our future by investing in fusion energy.

Trump has much on his plate, but the poll revealed that three-in-five voters are concerned that China’s fusion energy leadership could place America’s leadership in jeopardy. The issue should receive the funding priority from Washington that it demands.

A former Columbia professor applauds the defunding By Thomas Lifson

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/03/a_former_columbia_professor_applauds_the_defunding.html

I almost cheered out loud when I read that the Trump administration has cancelled $400 million in funding for Columbia University, despite the fact that when I taught there about three and a half decades ago, I no doubt directly benefitted from federal money flowing in, enjoyed my colleagues, and was treated very well. My animus and support for the cuts derives from the reluctant conclusion that as an institution, it has been corrupted, and nothing less than traumatic levels of change are required. The level of change required includes firing administrators, faculty, and admissions officers, expelling students, and revising hiring and admissions criteria. Only fear of financial catastrophe will suffice to strengthen sufficiently the spines of trustees and the administration.

Consider this abuse:

Some Columbia University professors canceled in-person classes on Monday in support of Mahmoud Khalil, the student activist and foreign national whom the Trump administration moved to deport over his pro-Hamas campus organizing. The cancellations — which came amid a pressure campaign from the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter — put the professors at odds with Columbia’s provost, who emailed “faculty colleagues” Monday morning to issue “a reminder that faculty must meet all scheduled classes.”

Faculty who cheat their students in order to make a political point should be immediately fired. They are defrauding the young minds whose families have coughed up the exorbitant tuition Columbia (and every other prestige college) charges: $71,170 per year. That works out to a quasi “ticket price” per hour of classroom instruction of $182 to $228, depending on whether a student takes 4 or 5 courses per semester. (See Columbia’s requirements, regulations and costs posted online for the underlying data.)

Imagine a theatre cancelling a performance that people spent over $200 to attend and refusing to refund the tickets.

It’s obvious that deeply politicized faculty, staff, and students are so numerous that they dominate the campus and poison the atmosphere, making the campus unsafe for Jews and any other minority that they may decide to target. They can’t be “reformed” because, as ideologues, they will resist.

Tal Fortgang The Rise of Civil Terrorism Radicals seek the demise of the West through organized criminal mayhem—here’s how to stop them.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/civil-terrorism-anti-israel-radicals?utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-

Masked criminals attacked several Citibank locations in New York City one night last September. They brandished no guns and demanded no cash. Instead, they squeezed epoxy and cemented stickers on debit-card readers, damaged door locks, and vandalized windows with profanities and threats of future violence. Rather than keep their identities hidden, the marauders filmed their work and posted it to their enterprise’s Instagram page. “Unity of Fields,” the recently rebranded group formerly known as Palestine Action US—the new name comes from a Palestinian Islamic Jihad call for violence across the world—included a lengthy caption in the post, exhorting followers: “These actions are not hard to do. Please escalate for Palestine and humanity. We will not rest until Palestine is liberated from the river to the sea.”

Over the last few years, but especially since Hamas massacred Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, this type of organized criminal mayhem has increasingly become part of American life. The criminal bands that have arisen act for ideological reasons. They operate where they believe that they have the most latitude: on college campuses and in Democratic-controlled jurisdictions. And their beliefs are overwhelmingly left-wing: radically environmentalist (“Just Stop Oil”), anarcho-socialist (Antifa), and, most often, anti-Israel.

A framework beyond protest politics and civil disobedience is needed to understand this phenomenon. Today’s left-wing agitators deploy random acts of lawlessness designed to inconvenience and disrupt as many civilians as possible, hoping to pressure them to get the government to change course. This tactic is reasonably described as a form of terrorism, though the activists aren’t murderous like al-Qaida or Hamas—they don’t use guns, bombs, or threats of unpredictable bloodshed. Instead, they engage in civil terrorism.

Though some of these groups, like Antifa, are loosely connected networks of the like-minded, the ascendant anti-Israel, and more broadly anti-Western, outfits come with brand names. Within Our Lifetime, Jewish Voice for Peace, Palestine Action, Samidoun, Students for Justice in Palestine, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Palestinian Youth Movement, IfNotNow, and more—the names signal that the chaos they sow is intentional. Like Unity of Fields, they take credit for their actions and try to stoke more unrest through social media. They put their names on the banners, signs, and other paraphernalia that their members and sympathizers display at “direct actions.”

“Inside Cyber: How AI, 5G, and Quantum Computing Will Transform Privacy and Our Security” by Chuck Brooks

In a nutshell, Artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, 5G, IoT and others will require new approaches and understanding for cybersecurity as they offer uses for cyber-defenders but also cyber-offenders.

For example, Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be able to help make decisions more effectively by prioritizing and acting upon data. Speech recognition, learning planning, and problem-solving are some of the fundamental tasks for which computers with AI are built. While AI and ML are valuable instruments for businesses, hostile governments, and malicious hackers are already using AI and MI as tools to find and exploit an organization’s cyber defenses.

Quantum Computing  operates by utilizing the unique characteristics of atoms and subatomic particles. It will allow for completely new forms of cryptography, analytics, and calculation at incredibly fast speeds. Unfortunately, the same computational capacity that makes it possible to tackle complicated problems can also be used to compromise cybersecurity. This is because current cybersecurity protocols usually encrypt sensitive data, like passwords and personal information, using pseudo-random numbers. However, quantum computers can break the techniques used by traditional computers to generate random numbers, which poses a serious risk to any organization that uses standard encryption tools.

5G will enable faster networks with greater capabilities and reduced latency or lag times will be possible for businesses thanks to 5G. For the business community, 5G will have enormous advantages. Higher traffic capacity and enhanced dependability are only two of the many advantages that advanced 5G and wireless networks will offer. The ability to access broadband will empower millions of people. Unfortunately, hackers will be able to use the speed and connectivity to their advantage too, enabling the rapid proliferation and targeting of malware.

The Internet of Things (IoT) includes all hardware and software that can be read, recognized, located, addressed, and/or controlled over the internet. The growth of the Internet of Things has totally changed how cyberattacks work and how big the attack surface is getting. Because IoT devices don’t have security built in, hackers have many ways to get past cyber defenses and steal data.

Insanity, Immorality, Conspiratorial Antisemitism, and Foreign Funding Fun stuff in today’s title! Just as it began to look like we might be reining in our national plunge into insanity, Qatari money promoted conspiratorial antisemitism among right-of-center influencers. Bruce Abramson

https://bda1776.substack.com/p/insanity-immorality-conspiratorial?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=4

Now, on to the topic of the day. Follow the money! Or at least look for it.

Over a decade ago, I began to notice that more and more of my friends were spouting dangerous, hateful, nonsensical garbage. Then I noticed that the problem was hardly restricted to my friends. There seemed to be a groundswell of support for charged beliefs running counter to all available evidence.

You all know some of the top line absurdities, but just to clarify with a few examples: Men cannot become women, the U.S. is not overrun with violent racist cops, and a climate catastrophe is not imminent.

Then came Covid and all bets were off. For three years we were fed a steady stream of nonsense—pronouncements that not only proved to be wrong after the fact, but that made no sense when they were first uttered—yet plenty of “serious” people accepted them as Gospel. Asking basic questions was treated as blasphemy.

Totalitarianism emanated far beyond the weaponization of public health. Violent race rioters burning down business districts were mostly peaceful. An election employing the least credible procedures in American history was the most secure our country had ever seen. Unarmed trespassers wandering through a donnybrook in the Capitol Building sought to bring down the American government. Eliminating cheap and efficient energy was the key to our economic success. An obvious dementia patient was sharp as a tack and in full command of the country.

It was hard to escape the feeling that we were living in an insane asylum—and that the worst of the inmates were firmly in charge. The only plausible alternative was even scarier: We were living through a moral inversion, in which decency was vilified and villainy extolled.