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Plaintiffs Win $10 Million Settlement in CU Anschutz Case Over COVID Vaccine Mandate
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The Colorado Sun, Approved, Local

Plaintiffs Win $10 Million Settlement in CU Anschutz Case Over COVID Vaccine Mandate

By: John Ingold | The Colorado Sun The Thomas More Society sued the University of Colorado Anschutz in 2021 alleging that the university violated its plaintiffs’ religious freedom. The University of Colorado Anschutz will pay more than $10 million to settle a lawsuit brought by students and staff who sued in 2021 after being denied religious exemptions to the campus’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate, according to a group that represented the plaintiffs. CU Anschutz has also agreed to make policy changes, the Thomas More Society announced Monday. The group, which represents plaintiffs in religious liberty cases nationwide, called it one of the only cases in the country where plaintiffs have received money damages in a lawsuit over a COVID vaccination mandate. Th...
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CU Denver Puts Its Pro-Hamas Hate on Full Display
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, Local, Top Stories

CU Denver Puts Its Pro-Hamas Hate on Full Display

By Ahnaf Kalam | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Every so often, a university event accidentally tells the truth about the institution hosting it. The recent panel on November 19,  “Gaza: Two Years On” at the University of Colorado Denver – my alma mater – was one such moment: a rare occasion when the carefully maintained façade of academic neutrality collapsed, revealing the fetid ideological machinery underneath. It was presented as an open conversation, a balanced intellectual exchange. In practice, it was a ceremony—an orchestrated display of political piety in which the outcome was preordained, the narrative sealed in advance. Even the panel composition made this clear: three anti-Israel speakers and a lone Israeli Jewish professor, the only person on stage with firs...
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TPUSA approval sparks chaos at Fort Lewis College: Assault reported after professor emeritus erupts
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

TPUSA approval sparks chaos at Fort Lewis College: Assault reported after professor emeritus erupts

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Fort Lewis College in Durango erupted into chaos on November 7th after the Associated Students of Fort Lewis College (ASFLC) reversed an earlier decision and voted to approve a Turning Point USA (TPUSA) chapter on campus. What began as a routine appeal meeting ended with a reported assault, shouting, and a professor emeritus’s profanity-filled outburst—all recorded on video that has since gone viral. The confrontation was captured on video and quickly spread after being posted to Facebook and amplified on X/Twitter by Libs of TikTok, where it gained national attention. The appeal meeting itself followed weeks of tension. TPUSA students had first been denied chapter approval, prompting an appeal that drew more than 60 suppo...
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Faith and friction: A nursing student’s stand at Regis University
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

Faith and friction: A nursing student’s stand at Regis University

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Student John Scarboro and his pastor say they were only sharing their faith on campus while Regis leadership officials cite concern for inclusivity and compliance with university policy John Scarboro thought the meeting would be simple—just a quick talk with ministry leaders at Regis about forming a student group. It didn’t start that way. The 32-year-old nursing major and new father met with university staff on September 12 after campus security stopped him for talking about Jesus with students. Kyle Turner, Director of University Ministry, framed the university’s concern around student wellbeing. “If you engage a Muslim student and make them feel uncomfortable about their own lived faith, that becomes a problem,” he said during the meet...
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Fort Lewis College Reverses Course and Quickly Approves TPUSA Chapter After Student Backlash
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Fox News, Approved, Local

Fort Lewis College Reverses Course and Quickly Approves TPUSA Chapter After Student Backlash

By Joshua Q. Nelson | Fox News The decision came after a petition launched backing TPUSA, garnering over 1,000 signatures A Colorado college student government reversed its decision to block a Turning Point USA (TPUSA) chapter during an emergency meeting on Friday night. The Associated Students of Fort Lewis College (ASFLC) voted to approve the TPUSA chapter after previously rejecting senior Jonah Flynn’s proposal to register the group with the university. "It was strange. They put us in a tiny room, with at least 100 people being forced to wait outside. Tons of local conservatives, students and community members. Inside the meeting, we got to speak briefly, and they immediately voted and unanimously approved it," Flynn told Fox News Digital. Flynn planned to appeal t...
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Fort Lewis College Faces Political Fire from GOP Lawmakers After Blocking Turning Point USA
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, Local

Fort Lewis College Faces Political Fire from GOP Lawmakers After Blocking Turning Point USA

By: Marissa Ventrelli | The Denver Gazette Republican state lawmakers are criticizing the student government at Durango’s Fort Lewis College for rejecting a proposal to establish a Turning Point USA chapter on campus. Turning Point USA is a nonprofit organization that advocates for conservative issues on high school and college campuses. Its founder, Charlie Kirk, was killed during a campus event in Utah in September. According to the Durango Herald, more than 30 students spoke on the matter during a four-hour-long meeting last week, with most expressing opposition to the proposal. The effort to bring Turning Point USA to the Fort Lewis campus was led by senior Jonah Flynn, who told the Durango Herald he wanted to “keep the conversation going” about conservative values in ...
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CSU faculty under fire as students allege “hostile environment” in anti-racism course
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The Chronicle of Higher Education, Approved, Local

CSU faculty under fire as students allege “hostile environment” in anti-racism course

By: Emma Pettit | The Chronicle of Higher Education After taking a social-work course at Colorado State University in 2023, one student had striking words to share in a course evaluation: “I don’t feel safe in this classroom,” they wrote, adding that “judgment and rejection” came from the two instructors. “This makes me shut down.” One of those instructors was Quinn Hafen, then a Ph.D. student at Colorado State and now an assistant professor at the University of Wyoming. Hafen, who uses they/them pronouns, was surprised by the comment. Their counterpart, a senior instructor named Marie Villescas Zamzow, was not. She receives this sort of comment every semester. “I can actually predict who’s going to write that it’s not a safe learning environment,” she said, according to a re...
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Colorado AG Joins 21 States in Lawsuit Claiming Student Loan Program Is Politically Biased
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Colorado AG Joins 21 States in Lawsuit Claiming Student Loan Program Is Politically Biased

By: Marissa Ventrilli | Colorado Politics Colorado has joined 21 states in a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education over placing restrictions on a student loan forgiveness program for public service employees. It’s the latest lawsuit filed by Attorney General Phil Weiser, who is running for governor, against the Trump administration. He has so far pursued more than 40 lawsuits since January. According to the lawsuit, a new federal rule deems certain state and local governments and nonprofit organizations ineligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLF) if they are found to have engaged in “activities or actions” that are “disfavored” by the Trump Administration, such as providing services for transgender children and promoting diversity, equity...
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Free speech tested: Fort Lewis TPUSA students persevere with faith, composure—and resolve
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

Free speech tested: Fort Lewis TPUSA students persevere with faith, composure—and resolve

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice The first Turning Point USA event, “Debate a Conservative,” took place Oct. 16 in the Fort Lewis College Student Union, where police stood at the doors as a steadying presence. Jonah Flynn, a senior studying philosophy and Spanish, along with Charlie Parke and Isabella Trevino, who were working to start a TPUSA chapter on campus, had braced for hostility but insisted on dialogue. “People with opposite views asked hard questions, but we all talked,” said Zen Moreno, a first-semester transfer in environmental conservation and management who joined the chapter after attending the event. She said she felt compelled to step in, hoping to turn hostility into conversation and connection. Flynn recalled how tension turned to civility. “People came...
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