Tag Archives: University

Three Students Shot In Florida State University Library

A gunman who was slain by police shot three students shortly after midnight Thursday at Florida State University’s main library.

Police say that hundreds of students were studying for exams at Strozier Library when the gunman began his attack.  The assailant was shot when he refused to drop his weapon.

The gunman has been identified as Myron May, a lawyer who graduated from FSU before attending Texas Tech University law school and being admitted to the Texas State Bar in 2010.  He had been working as “in-house counsel” for a children’s home in the area.

“He’s just a boy our kids grew up with that we let stay in one of our guest houses for a while,” Abigail Taunton, who runs the home, told the Associated Press. “He’s moving back home from Texas and we were trying to help him get on his feet.”

“This person just for whatever reason produced a handgun and then began shooting students in the library,” FSU Police Chief David Perry said.  Perry characterized the shooting as an “isolated incident” but did not release many details.

Birth Control Mandate Revision Losing In Courts

The birth control mandate in the Affordable Care Act is failing in courts even after revisions made by the Obama administration.

The U.S. District Court in Fort Myers ruled that Ave Maria University will receive a temporary exemption from the Health and Human Services mandate.

“Upon consideration of the record, the submissions of the parties, and the relevant law, it is the Court’s conclusion that Ave Maria’s motion for preliminary injunction should be granted,” read the Court’s ruling.  “This preliminary injunction takes effect immediately, and shall remain in effect pending entry of final judgment in this matter or further order of this Court.”

The school had brought suit against the mandate in February 2012.

“It is a sad day when an American citizen or organization has no choice but to sue its own government in order to exercise religious liberty rights guaranteed by our nation’s Constitution,” said Ave Maria President Jim Towey to The Christian Post.  “Allowing a U.S. president of any political party or religious affiliation to force conformance to his or her religious or secular orthodoxy through executive action, is a perilous precedent.”

The lawsuit had initially been dismissed because the administration said they would be revising the rules to be more tolerant of those with faith but the court found the revised rules are also violations of religious belief.

University Offering Online Abortion Propaganda Course

A publicly funded California university is offering a free online class to promote abortion.

The University of California – San Francisco announced the six week class called “Aboriton: Quality Care and Public Health Implications.”

“I think that if we can inspire even a small portion of the people who take the course to take steps in their communities to increase access to safe abortion and decrease stigma about abortion, then we have been totally successful,” Dr. Jody Steinauer, associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of California – San Francisco, told The Daily Beast who broke the story.

The school claims over 3,000 people have signed up for the class.

The outline of the class shows the pro-abortion propaganda taxpayers are funding.

“Each week’s lectures will incorporate the stories of women who seek abortion in order to better portray abortion significance and rationale,” its outline states. “Other topics will include a brief history of abortion, the clinical aspects of medication and procedural abortions in and after the first trimester, an overview of patient-centered abortion-care, the basics of abortion counseling, the professional obligations of health care practitioners to ensure that women have access to safe abortion care, and the maze of restrictions that make safe abortion care inaccessible to many women.”

Emory University Jewish Fraternity Hit With Anti-Semitic Graffiti

The Jewish fraternity at Emory University holding their Yom Kippur holiday events when someone spray painted Nazi emblems on their home.

Yom Kippur is one of the most holy days in Judiasm, a time when Jews fast and focus on repentance for their sins over the past year.

“We are outraged at the insensitive display of prejudice that occurred at the Alpha Epsilon Pi house at Emory University. We are working alongside Emory to ensure that intolerable acts of hate, such as this, will never occur again. We are thankful for the community around us that has shown tremendous support throughout this time,” the fraternity told Business Insider.

Police are investigating the incident and have increased patrols around the area of the fraternity in case the assailants choose to come back for a second attack.

Emory University President James Wagner e-mailed students and faculty condemning the event.

“On behalf of our community, I denounce this abhorrent act. It is an offense against a Jewish fraternity and the Jewish members of our community, and it is a repugnant, flagrant emblem of anti-Semitism. It is also an offense against the entire university. Among the many pernicious things the swastika symbolizes, in the last century it represented the most egregious and determined undermining of intellectual freedom and truth-seeking. In short, its appearance on our campus is an attack against everything for which Emory stands,” he wrote.

Arkansas State University Allows Players To Wear Crosses

In a victory for the religious freedom of Christians, Arkansas State University has announced they will allow players to continue to have cross shaped stickers on their helmets to pay tribute to fallen classmates.

The only condition from the school is that the players pay for the stickers themselves and that they personally place them on the helmets.

The stickers, which bare the initials of classmates Markel Owens and Barry Weyer who died in the last year, had been placed on all the helmets as a way for the team to pay tribute.  An anti-Christian attorney in Jonesboro, Louis Nisenbaum, saw one of the players on TV with a cross on his helmet and sent a threatening letter to the school.

After initially saying they would remove the crosses in response to the anti-Christianist, the school relented after student athletes contacted various religious freedom organizations to defend their religious freedom.

“In the interest of allowing our student-athletes to memorialize their fallen colleagues, Markel Owens and Barry Weyer, it is the university’s position that any player who wishes to voluntarily place an NCAA-compliant sticker on their helmet to memorialize these individuals will be able to do so,” University attorney Linda McDaniel wrote.

“This is a great victory for the players of Arkansas State University,” Liberty Institute litigation director Hiram Sasser remarked following the decision. “The university officials and the Arkansas attorney general did the right thing restoring the religious liberty and free speech rights of the players to have the original cross sticker design if they so choose and we commend them for doing so.”

Arkansas State University Player Fights Back Against Anti-Christianist

A member of the Arkansas State University football is standing up against an anti-Christianist who demanded a cross emblem on the team’s helmets remembering slain classmates be removed.

The cross emblem was used because both of the slain students, Markel Owens and Barry Weyer, were open and practicing Christians.  The team thought that a cross was appropriate to fit both young men.

Jonesboro attorney Louis Nisenbaum decided that the team shouldn’t be able to honor their fallen classmates that way and sent a demand to the school.

“That is a clear violation of the Establishment Clause as a state endorsement of the Christian religion,” the anti-Christianist wrote. “Please advise whether you agree and whether ASU will continue this practice.”

The school then said they would remove the crosses even though they saw no legal grounds to require it to avoid litigation.

One football player, who is remaining anonymous out of fear of the wrath of anti-Christianists, has obtained legal assistance from the Liberty Institute to fight the decision.

“ASU’s actions in defacing the students’ memorial stickers to remove their religious viewpoint is illegal viewpoint discrimination against the students’ free speech. As these stickers were designed by and adopted by the students on their own, they constitute protected student speech,” the letter, written by Director of Strategic Litigation Hiram Sasser, stated. “Furthermore, ASU’s actions evince that hostility to religion that the Supreme Court has stated is a violation of the Establishment Clause.”

The Liberty Institute has demanded an answer by Wednesday as to whether or not the school will affirm the players have the right to voluntarily put the crosses on their helmets.

Maryland College Hit With Second Lawsuit Over Rejecting Christian Students

A Maryland community college is again facing a lawsuit for rejecting a student due to his Christian faith.

The American Center for Law and Justice has filed suit against Community College of Baltimore County on behalf of Dustin Buxton after they denied him permission to enter their radiation therapy program.

Buxton had cited his faith during his interview as an applicant.

“During that interview in 2013, Dustin was asked by the CCBC interview panel, ‘What do you base your morals on?’ Dustin replied, ‘My faith,’” ACLJ attorney Michelle Terry outlined in a report this week. “His faith was not mentioned again, yet, in a written review of his interview, the program director, Adrienne Dougherty, stated that Dustin had lost points because ‘[Dustin] also brought up religion a great deal during the interview. Yes, this is a field that involves death and dying; but religion cannot be brought up in the clinic by therapist or students.’”

The ACLJ had filed suit against the same school for denying Brandon Jenkins entry into the same program because of his Christian beliefs.

California University System To Discriminate Against Christian Groups

The California State University system has openly announced they will be discriminating against Christian groups on their campuses.

The apparent attempt to drive Christians from their schools was exposed when InterVarsity Christian Fellowship lost their recognition at 23 schools in the state because they require their leadership to be Christians.

The California State University system issued an executive order in 2011 that reads “No campus shall recognize any fraternity, sorority, living group, honor society or other student organization that discriminates on the basis of race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, color, age, gender, marital status, citizenship, sexual orientation or disability.”  A spokesman for the CSU system said InterVarsity would not sign the agreement which meant a vehement anti-Christianist would have to be allowed in the group and run for leadership positions.

The organization showed no concern about infringing on the religious rights of the students.

InterVarsity spokesman Greg Jao said they will keep fighting on behalf of their student’s rights but that the hostile attack by the school system can be a benefit as well.

“Our campus access challenge is actually forcing us, or inviting us, to fully release the ministry into the hands of college students to say the best way students are going to hear the gospel is not by drawing them to a large group meeting—which we may or may not have access to—but in your dorm rooms, in your cafeterias, in your laboratories,” he said. “I think, most importantly, we’re mobilizing students to be missionaries. I’m convinced college students are there to be good students, absolutely, but also to be missionaries wherever they are.”

Christian Professor Wins Discrimination Case Against Public University

A Christian professor who was denied full professorship because of his conservative Christian beliefs has won a lawsuit in U.S. District Court.

Professor Mike Adams received the ruling against the University of North Carolina at Wilmington who refused to promote the associate criminology professor.  The school has been ordered to pay over $700,000 in legal fees.

Professor Adams has been fighting the school in court for over eight years because of their discrimination.  Adams, a former atheist that found Christ in 2000 and began to write a nationally syndicated column with conservative viewpoints, faced opposition from the liberal leaning leaders in his department.

Adams had received multiple awards for his teaching work and multiple accolades from colleagues.

Attorneys for the Alliance Defending Freedom said that the school is still appealing the case and that the costs could go even higher.  They noted the judge’s ruling only covered the attorney’s fees in the case and that increased damage awards against the school could happen following the appeal.

UConn Professor Conducts Hostile Confrontation of Christians

A professor at the University of Connecticut took it upon himself to make a hostile confrontation of Christians who were street preaching on the campus.

James Boster, who is a Professor of Anthropology, spent two hours trying to make students leave the area where several evangelists were sharing the truth of Christ and handing out information regarding Scripture.

At one point, Boster ran up to one of the evangelists and began swearing in his face.  Boster stood just inches away from the preacher and shouted that the man was ignorant for his belief in Christ.

Boster started chants of “Hail Darwin” and demanded to know if Christians in the area had accepted Darwin as their lord and savior.

Boster defended himself in an e-mail to Christian News Network saying that Darwin’s message that all humans are brothers and sisters and all mammals are our cousin is closer to the gospels than the preachers who were telling students to turn from their sin and accept Jesus.

The University of Connecticut released a statement saying the professor’s actions were unacceptable.

“Everyone has a right to exercise free speech on our campuses,” the school said to NBC.  “At the same time, we expect our faculty to act in a way that promotes civil discourse and to express themselves respectfully.  The use of abusive language and the confrontational posture seen here are inconsistent with UConn values.”