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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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CU Boulder TPUSA Leader Attacked After Antifa “Hit List” Circulates Online
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JONATHANTURLEY.ORG, Approved, Local

CU Boulder TPUSA Leader Attacked After Antifa “Hit List” Circulates Online

By Jonathan Turley | JonathanTurley.org As Democratic leaders like Rep. Dan Goldman (D, N.Y.) insist that Antifa does not exist as a group, two Antifa groups — Front Range Antifa and Colorado Springs Antifa — put out a hit list poster on a University of Colorado sophomore and leader in Turning Point USA. He was promptly attacked by a person in the signature Antifa black outfit on roller blades who used a hockey stick to mete out the punishment. According to a press release, Boulder Police are looking for a suspect accused of attacking a 19-year-old Turning Point USA student leader near the University of Colorado, Boulder on Thursday evening. The attacker is suspected to be an Antifa member and to have followed the victim in the premeditate...
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Young Conservatives Find Their Voice on America’s Campuses
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The Atlantic, Approved, Commentary, National

Young Conservatives Find Their Voice on America’s Campuses

By Julia Steinberg | Commentary, The Atlantic College campuses today have a reputation for being hostile to right-leaning students. As a recent graduate who became a conservative in college, I can’t say I entirely agree. Yes, we’re outnumbered, and yes, our ideas often get disregarded. Being a conservative might be socially disadvantageous. But if you want to know where the real political energy is on campuses, it’s on the right. The recent killing of Charlie Kirk, and the flood of interest in his organization, Turning Point USA, has drawn attention to college students’ appetite for conservative ideas. I was not particularly inspired by Kirk in my personal ideological transformation as a student at Stanford University; Turning Point didn’t have much of a presence on campus ...
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Inside the Radical Agenda Shaping America’s Top Teaching College
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The Federalist, Approved, National

Inside the Radical Agenda Shaping America’s Top Teaching College

By Catherine Gripp| The Federalist “Even my teacher at the first day of class, she said, ‘everything is political,’ and I didn’t understand what she meant until I started doing the content.” Adrianna Mobley should have been excited to be accepted to Michigan State University’s elementary education program, ranked the top elementary program in the nation. Excited, that is, until she stepped into her “Social Foundations of Justice and Equity in Education” class this fall. Required for all elementary education majors, the class dives deep into the demonization of free market principles, meritocracy, and American values. Higher education isn’t a vacuum. Colleges of education and far-left teachers unions are known to push curriculum satura...
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Colorado Democrats Push DOE to Restore $600M in Cancelled Energy Grants
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Just The News, Approved, State

Colorado Democrats Push DOE to Restore $600M in Cancelled Energy Grants

By: Elyse Apel | Just The News Colorado Democrats, including U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, joined together to sign a letter calling for the U.S. Department of Energy to restore over $600 million in funding for 38 Colorado-affiliated energy projects. Colorado Democrats joined together to sign a letter calling for the U.S. Department of Energy to restore over $600 million in funding for 38 Colorado-affiliated energy projects. In the letter, Colorado's U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, and Colorado U.S. Reps. Joe Neguse, Diana DeGette, Jason Crow and Brittany Pettersen argue the cuts are harmful to the state. “By cancelling over $600 million in energy-sector funding, much of which directly supported grid reliability, DOE is making it more di...
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Young Americans are dropping trans and queer labels, study finds sharp cultural shift
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The Western Journal, Approved, National

Young Americans are dropping trans and queer labels, study finds sharp cultural shift

By Bryan Chai | The Western Journal Critics of transgenderism have often described the trend as a “social contagion.” A blistering new report from the Centre for Heterodox Social Science just gave that label newfound heft. In short, the report found that, after surging in the 2010s and 2020s, trans and “queer” identities are in sharp decline among young Americans. Colleges — typically maligned as being the breeding ground for far-leftism in 2025 — saw the number of trans-identifying students cut nearly in half after its peak in 2023. That year, nearly 7 percent of college students identified as trans. That number now sits at less than 4 percent. The report also made a point to note that that percentage could drop even further soon: “Today’s freshmen are less BTQ...
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Free speech and consequences: CU Boulder lecturer and Vail teacher face scrutiny over Kirk assassination remarks
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Free speech and consequences: CU Boulder lecturer and Vail teacher face scrutiny over Kirk assassination remarks

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Editor’s note: This story was updated on Sept. 23 to include a statement from CU Boulder spokesperson Nicole Mueksch. Freedom of speech is one of America’s most cherished rights. But too often it is misunderstood as a free pass to say anything without consequence. The killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk earlier this month has made that painfully clear. Across the country, people who publicly cheered Kirk’s death — whether at work, online, or in classrooms — soon found out that words can carry real consequences. Some were fired. Others were suspended. Many faced a wave of anger from the public. In Colorado, questions about free speech and accountability are now playing out in two very different settings. One invol...
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Universities silent after Charlie Kirk martyred for free speech on a college campus
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Fox News, Approved, Commentary, National

Universities silent after Charlie Kirk martyred for free speech on a college campus

By Evita Duffy-Alfonso | Commentary, Fox News Campus free speech concerns grow after conservative commentator Charlie Kirk’s assassination and the deafening silence from academic leaders When a man is publicly executed for his views on a university campus, one would expect institutions of higher education to respond immediately — if only to confront the chilling effect such violence unleashes. One would expect them to reassure students that their campus remains a place for free inquiry. One would expect them to guarantee that future speakers of every political persuasion are not only welcome but safe from mortal threat. Yet following the gruesome assassination of conservative icon Charlie Kirk, universities have remained largely silent. This silence is a far cry from the deafening...
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