Tag: University of Pennsylvania

Judge Greenlights ‘Save Women’s Sports’ Title IX Suit amid More Forfeits over Alleged Trans Player

Just the News

Years before University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas drew national attention to males who identify as women dominating girls’ sports through eligibility via gender identity, male sprinters who identify as girls took first and second in Connecticut high school track championships, prompting a go-nowhere Trump administration investigation and lawsuit by parents of the female athletes they defeated.

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Elite Universities Ranked Lowest for Free Speech, Report Finds

Daily Caller News Foundation
NYU Students

Some of the most prominent elite universities in the nation have been ranked lowest for freedom of speech, according to a report released Thursday.

Harvard, Columbia, New York University (NYU), the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) and Barnard College make up the bottom five in a free speech ranking of 251 universities, according to a report by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and College Pulse. The report cited several incidents of “suppression of free expression” at the schools, including disruption of events and sanctions on students and staff for expressing their views as the reasoning behind the schools’ low rankings.

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Comic Books, Monuments, Historic Buildings Targeted by Pro-Palestinian Protesters

Virginia Star Staff
Portland State University library

A valuable comic book collection, statues of the founding fathers, and historic buildings where great minds like Albert Einstein have taught – all reportedly have been targets of anti-Israel protesters in recent weeks.

Some have caused massive damage. Images show graffiti and debris covering campuses like the University of California at Los Angeles, California State Polytechnic University at Humboldt, and Portland State University (pictured) – attracting national news attention and public shock.

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‘Cruel’: Franklin and Marshall Faculty Denounce ‘Transphobic’ Lia Thomas Teammate Speech

Virginia Star Staff
Paula Scanlon

A speech by former William “Lia” Thomas teammate Paula Scanlan promotes “dehumanizing and cruel,” views according to a letter signed by Franklin & Marshall College affiliates.

The letter, signed by more than 125 professors, administrators, and staff, criticizes the speech planned for Wednesday and hosted by the campus Young Americans for Freedom and the national Young America’s Foundation.

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Commentary: Claudine Gay’s Resignation Is Not the End of the University of Harvard’s Dilemma

Virginia Star Staff
Claudine Gay

Harvard may assume the forced resignation of its president, Claudine Gay, has finally ended its month-long scandal over her tenure.

Gay stepped down, remember, amid serious allegations of serial plagiarism—without refuting the charges. She proved either unable or unwilling to discipline those on her campus who were defiantly anti-Semitic in speech and action.

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Sporting Associations Start to Crack Down on Men In Women’s Sports

Virginia Star Staff

Sporting associations have tightened rules regarding transgender athletes competing in women’s sports in 2023, drawing complaints from LGBT activists.

The issue of men competing in women’s sports has received considerable scrutiny amid instances such as Laurel Hubbard, a biological male, competing against women in the weightlifting events during the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, as well as University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas’s participation in the 2022 NCAA championships, where the biological male won the 500-yard women’s final and placed highly in other events. The international governing bodies for cricket, fishing and track and field barred biological males from competing in women’s events in 2023, following a similar decision by the international governing body for competitive swimming in 2022.

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Over 70 Representatives Call for Removal of Elite University Presidents Following Disastrous Hearing

Virginia Star Staff

Over 70 members of Congress called for the removal of the presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Friday following their testimony at a Tuesday hearing, which caused widespread outrage.

Harvard President Claudine Gay, Penn President Elizabeth Magill and MIT President Sally Kornbluth refused to say during the hearing if calls for genocide were violations of their campuses’ codes of conduct, and Gay and Magill later backtracked on their statements following widespread backlash. The letter, spearheaded by Republican New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, calls on the boards of the universities to “immediately remove each of these presidents” from their positions.

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House Panel Opens Probe into Ivy League Schools Following Anti-Semitism Hearing

Just the News

The House Education and Workforce Committee is opening an investigation into Harvard University, MIT, University of Pennsylvania and other schools, following a recent congressional hearing about antisemitism on college campuses. 

House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik R-N.Y., called the testimony of the universities’ presidents “morally bankrupt.” Democrats and Republicans have condemned the universities’ presidents’ responses to questions about how their respective schools combat hate speech and antisemitism on campus. 

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Commentary: Let the Donor Revolution Begin

RealClearWire

The donor revolts at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, and elsewhere are the long-overdue wake up calls that their faculty and administrators needed. The overwhelming majority of politically progressive faculty and administrators have long guarded their right to advance their cherished political causes inside and outside the classroom, while punishment has awaited those who challenge the shibboleths. Instead of the free exchange of ideas and the intellectual capaciousness that ultimately advance social justice, it is now clearer than ever that it is not social justice they have fostered but mindless ideology and hate.

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Elite Universities That Defended Free Speech for Hamas Supporters Have Long Record of Canceling Conservatives

Virginia Star Staff

Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) released statements defending students’ pro-Hamas speech after campus protests, but in the past have muzzled conservatives for speech and online statements.

Harvard University President Claudine Gay and UPenn President Elizabeth Magill both said their respective universities support “free expression” in statements made after pro-Palestinian rallies at the colleges following Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks in Israel. In the past, however, conservative speakers and professors at the universities have frequently been shouted down, and some have been canceled for online statements.

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Commentary: The Left Uses Barriers to Advance Their Agenda

Virginia Star Staff

The subject of barriers came up in an unintentionally comical way a few weeks ago, during former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Paula Scanlon’s testimony before Congress.

As Campus Reform reported, Scanlon testified that she and her teammates were “forced to undress in the presence of a 6-4 biological male with fully intact male genitalia 18 times a week”—a reference, of course, to Will “Lia” Thomas.

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While Trump Faces Host of Charges, None Filed in Biden Special Counsel Probe on Classified Memos

Just the News

While former President Donald Trump faces an array of federal charges in two separate cases as a result of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation, no one has yet been charged in a separate special counsel probe of President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents while he was vice president.

In January 2023, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Robert Hur special counsel to investigate the Biden case.

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New Documentary Exposes Ivy League Privilege and the Students it Shuts Out

Admin

“Exclusion U,” a feature documentary released this year, details how Ivy League universities accumulate billions of dollars as they restrict class sizes, turn away qualified students, and favor the children of the rich.

“Ivy League endowments are worth $193 billion dollars, but they only educate 0.3 percent of U.S. undergrads,” the film’s narrator stated. “That’s less than 63,000 students.”

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Blue State School Districts Shelled Out Thousands for Equity, Racial Literacy Trainings

Admin

Pennsylvania school districts are paying thousands in membership dues to the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education (GSE), which offers administrators trainings on identifying “microaggressions” and growing “racial literacy,” according to documents obtained through a public records request by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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Democratic Congressman: ‘No One Can Defend Having Classified Documents’ at Penn Biden Center

Bradley Vasoli

A Democratic California congressman this week weighed in on President Joe Biden’s classified-document scandal, characterizing the president’s housing of restricted records in his University of Pennsylvania office and his Delaware home as indefensible. A member of the House Oversight and Armed Services committees, U.S. Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA-17) told Fox News that Biden warrants scrutiny for keeping numerous records he obtained during his earlier service as a U.S. senator and later as vice president. Khanna noted that the law requires classified federal documents to be kept in “sensitive compartmented information facilities” (SCIFs). While presidents can sometimes temporarily designate rooms within their personal properties as SCIFs, Biden has never suggested any spaces in his home or office were deemed to be such areas.

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House Oversight Chair Says China’s Donations to Penn Biden Center May Have Influenced Administration

Just the News

The House Oversight and Accountability Committee on Wednesday demanded the University of Pennsylvania release information about anonymous donations from China to the Penn Biden Center, where classified documents were found, over concerns the Chinese Communist Party may have influenced Biden administration policies through the contributions.

“The Committee has learned UPenn received millions of dollars from anonymous Chinese sources, with a marked uptick in donations when then-former Vice President Biden was announced as leading the Penn Biden Center initiative,” the GOP-led committee said. “Following the formation of the Penn Biden Center, donations originating from China tripled and continued while Joe Biden explored a potential run for President.”

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Watchdogs Have Long Warned About Biden’s Pay-to-Play Penn Biden Center

M.D. Kittle

The Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement opened in 2018 as then-former Vice President Joe Biden’s “think tank.” It was founded, according to the institution, “on the principle that a democratic, open, secure, tolerant, and interconnected world benefits all Americans.” But it looks like Biden, his 2020 presidential campaign, his liberal allies, and perhaps some foreign friends have grabbed the brunt of the center’s benefits.  

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Biden-Penn-China Funding Concerns Flagged for Then-Pennsylvania AG Josh Shapiro 18 Months Ago

Just the News

Concerns about funding ties linking China, Joe Biden and the heavily Chinese-funded University of Pennsylvania were brought to the attention of state law enforcement almost two years ago, with no official action taken by the state’s then-Attorney General Josh Shapiro or any members of his staff. 

The letter, sent by a group called “Take Back Our Republic” and addressed to Shapiro and other high-ranking members of his team, was sent in July of 2021. That was nearly a year and a half before the Biden classified document story broke, resulting in Attorney General Merrick Garland appointing a special counsel on Thursday to investigate the matter. 

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Men Are Winning Women’s Athletic Competitions Across the Nation

Admin

Dozens of athletic competitions for women and girls have been upended by the participation of males identifying as transgender women, who benefit from a host of biological advantages over female competitors, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation found.

Transgender-identified males have competed in a variety of women’s athletic competitions, from school sports for young children to top college events and Olympic competitions. Differences in an average woman’s strength, stamina and physique compared to the average male are sustained even when a male undergoes testosterone suppression, according to the Sports Councils’ Equality Group.

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Commentary: Women’s Opportunities Are Being Taken Away by ‘Womxn’

Admin

In celebration of Women’s History Month, colleges and universities are hosting events to celebrate womxn, not women.

In an effort to become more inclusive of those that deny biological reality, higher education is in fact erasing women’s opportunities to excel in academics, athletics, and career tracks.

I am proud to be a woman. Women have been pivotal to our society. But making women compete with men undermines females’ ability to achieve success.

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Schweizer: U.S. Institutions of Higher Learning Fail to Report Millions of Dollars from China

Julie Carr

TRANSCRIPT: McCabe: Investigative journalist Peter Schweizer, in his new book Red-Handed, reports how the Chinese Communist Party has targeted American institutions of higher learning. Schweizer told The Star News Network how these institutions, after receiving funds from communist China, have worked to suppress criticism of the communist regime there and…

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University of Pennsylvania Trans Swimmer Breaks Another Women’s Record, Finishes a Lap Ahead of Competition

Virginia Star Staff

Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas won an Ivy League Championship in the women’s 500-yard freestyle event Thursday, beating most of her competitors by about one lap, according to multiple sources.

Thomas, who competed on the University of Pennsylvania men’s team for three years before adopting a transgender identity, beat the second-place 500 free swimmer by seven and a half seconds and the third-place swimmer by more than ten seconds, according to an event summary.

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16 University of Pennsylvania Swimmers Say Trans Teammate Should Not Be Allowed to Compete

Virginia Star Staff

Sixteen women on the University of Pennsylvania swim team said their transgender teammate, Lia Thomas, should not be allowed to compete in the women’s category, The Washington Post reported.

The teammates sent a letter to the university and to Ivy League officials asking that they not take legal action against new NCAA rules which would block Thomas from competing in the 2022 championships, according to the Post. The women said they supported Thomas’s decision to live as a transgender woman, but they say “the biology of sex is a separate issue from someone’s gender identity.”

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Schweizer: Yale, Other U.S. Institutions of Higher Learning Fail to Report Millions of Dollars From China, Chinese Nationals

Neil W. McCabe

The investigative reporter and author of the new book “Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win” told The Star News Network that U.S. colleges and universities, such as the case with Yale University and Joseph Tsai, are not complying with federal reporting laws in regards to their gifts from China and Chinese nationals.

“Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965 is very explicit,” said Peter Schweizer, the founder and president of the Government Accountability Institute and the host of “The Drill Down” podcast. “It says that if U.S. colleges and universities take in foreign donations, they’re required to report those to the federal government.”

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Swimmer Says Her Team Is Uncomfortable Sharing Locker Room with Trans Swimmer Lia Thomas

Virginia Star Staff

A female swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania said the school brushed off her and her teammates’ concerns about sharing locker rooms with a male swimmer, the Daily Mail reported.

She and her teammates felt uncomfortable sharing locker rooms with transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, who has male body parts and is reportedly “attracted to women,” according to the Daily Mail.

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University of Pennsylvania Removes Suffragette’s Name from ‘Feminist’ Research Center to Prioritize ‘Inclusiveness’

Virginia Star Staff

The University of Pennsylvania named its women’s studies center the “Center for Research in Feminist, Queer, and Transgender Studies” — removing a tribute to a prominent suffragette in the process.

According to Melissa Sanchez, an English and comparative literature professor who will lead the center, Penn decided to rename the Alice Paul Center — home to the Ivy League university’s gender studies department — in order to signal “commitment” to LGBTQ “intellectual and political movements.”

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Biden’s Secretary of State Pick Led ‘Biden Center’ at UPenn, as School Allegedly Accepted Millions in ‘Anonymous’ Donations from China

Virginia Star Staff

Antony Blinken — former Vice President Joe Biden’s choice to become Secretary of State if he is inaugurated president in January — was the director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, which recently faced criticism for accepting $22 million in “anonymous” funds originating in China.

The Biden Center, which the University of Pennsylvania officially launched in February 2018, “engages Penn’s students and partners with its faculty and global centers to convene world leaders, develop and advance smart policy, and strengthen the national debate for continued American global leadership in the 21st century.” It is located in Washington, D.C.

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Ivy League Grapples With Decisions Surrounding Anti-Racism Training, Course Requirements

Virginia Star Staff

Ivy League schools are grappling with whether or not to implement mandatory antiracism and bias training programs. So far, the results have been mixed.

In a statement from the Board of Trustees released on July 1, Dartmouth College announced that it would “make implicit bias training mandatory for all students, faculty, and staff” as part of a “strong support for the growing movement across the nation to put an end to systemic and systematic racism.”

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