Officials in Austin, Texas, have reached a settlement with a former volunteer chaplain for the Austin Fire Department who sued after he was dismissed from his role following posts on his personal blog that discussed his religious views.
Andrew Fox, an ordained minister who helped launch the department’s chaplaincy program, served as the city’s lead volunteer chaplain for eight years. He filed a lawsuit in 2022 alleging that the city violated his First Amendment rights after officials demanded he apologize for blog posts stating that men and women are biologically different and expressing opposition to men competing in women’s sports.
At the time, he was one of many individuals who were fired, suspended, or otherwise cancelled for discussing their disfavored views on their personal social media platforms. At the time, his case was particularly alarming because, as the Standing for Freedom Center asked at the time, “If chaplains can’t write about or discuss their religious beliefs without fear of retribution, who can?”
Under the settlement, city officials agreed to pay Fox damages and issued a letter thanking him for his service.
“Everyone should be able to speak freely without fear of punishment just for expressing a view with which the government disagrees,” said Hal Frampton, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and director of the ADF Center for Conscience Initiatives, who represented Fox.
The National Endowment for the Humanities says it cancelled a University of Florida professor’s grant to research LGBT cartoonists as well as another scholar’s work on “multethnic graphic literature.”
The NEH website lists a $60,000 grant, beginning on January 1 of this year, to English Professor Margaret Alice Galvan. The grant would aid Galvan’s research on “how LGBTQ+ cartoonists innovated comics through grassroots formats in the 1980s-90s.”
“Based on archival research, each chapter focuses on different grassroots publishing formats and shows how cartoonists wielded these neglected forms to develop their comics and build community,” the grant summary stated.
Pop legend Stevie Wonder told white people to “overcome” their “hate” and “white supremacy” during his time at the mic during Reverend Jessie Jackson’s public funeral on Friday.
The “Isn’t She Lovely” singer appeared during Jackson’s “homecoming” event and told the crowd that “Rev. Jackson and I had a long and strong history.”
“It was personal and political. We were able to love each other and support each other through the good and the bad. I knew his heart, I respected his mind, and trusted his soul. I wish we could say everyone did,” he said of Jackson, who died in February at 84, according to CBS News
Wonder also performed the song “As,” along with “They Won’t Go When I Go,” which he said “speaks the truth in my heart.”
But Wonder also delivered an attack against white people.
“It is you, and you know who you are,” he lectured. “You need to overcome hate. You need to overcome the mindset of white supremacy…You shall overcome the need to dominate every single country and its people.”
In new book, gender studies professor says it’s time to abolish these labels
“Sexual identity” labels should be abolished because they “harm trans people” in their dating and sex lives, a UC Riverside professor argues in a new book.
Brandon Robinson, a professor of sociology, gender, and sexuality studies, wrote the book “Trans Pleasure: On Gender Liberation and Sexual Freedom” based on interviews with men who identify as women (“trans women and trans femmes — trans people who identify with a feminine gender expression”) and their Reddit conversations about dating and sex.
The book documents these individuals’ experiences in “the bedroom,” “restaurants,” “dating apps,” and other typical dating spaces, and the discrimination that they often face, according to Robinson.
“… dominant understandings of sexual identities—which center desires around gender and genitals—harm trans people. They also limit how everyone can love and feel pleasure,” according to the book description.
(LifeSiteNews) — Mobs of feminists across Mexico attempted to attack and vandalize several prominent Catholic churches during marches to commemorate International Women’s Day on Sunday.
A video posted across social media shows masked leftists torching the doors of an unidentified church in Querétaro. Other videos in Guadalajara and Puebla, Mexico, show dozens of Catholics forming human chains or standing in front of churches to protect them from vandalism while being screamed at and, in some cases, being hit with eggs and other objects.
The U.S. Department of Defense announced the cancellation of its military education fellowships at 13 top universities on Friday, citing “toxic indoctrination.”
“We are eliminating certain Senior Service College (SSC) Fellowship programs for the 2026-2027 academic year and beyond. I am also directing the compilation of a revised list of elite institutions offering equivalent programs to replace those eliminated,” the agency wrote in a memo to Pentagon leadership.
It said this change will give leaders “a more rigorous and relevant education.”
Further, in a video posted on X, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said, “For decades, the Ivy League and similar institutions have gorged themselves on a trust fund of American taxpayer dollars only to become factories of anti-American resentment and military disdain.”
“They’ve replaced the study of victory and pragmatic realism with the promotion of wokeness and weakness,” he said.
For too long, the Ivy League and similar institutions have been subjecting our warriors to woke indoctrination—those days are over. pic.twitter.com/0xMC6BArDd
No, this is not satire. But, I think this man handled those officers rather perfectly, don’t you?
Enoch Burke is an Irish teacher who refused to “call a boy a girl.” According to his father, “he was commanded.” Too bad for Irish authorities, but this teacher does not take orders when he is asked to lie to a student’s face. The left calls that compassion, while the other side does not believe it’s compassionate to affirm falsehood. Nonetheless, the police came to his house to arrest him over this dire offense.
Gardaí were last night looking for teacher Enoch Burke after failing to find him at the family home.
A female family member filmed three gardaí arriving at the house in Co. Mayo to arrest him yesterday. She immediately remonstrated with them and maintained that Mr Burke was not allowed his constitutional rights.
The National Education Association (NEA) is training teachers to advance gender and racial ideology in classrooms, and to fight Republicans and parent groups who ‘harm us all’ by trying to stop that agenda, according to leaked materials for an upcoming training event.
Participant handouts for the NEA’s “Advancing LGBTQ+ Justice and Transgender Advocacy” training accuse the right of using an “arsenal of racist dog whistles” and “transphobic tropes” to “whip up fear” and cause harm, parental advocacy group Defending Education (ED) discovered. The materials coach teachers on how to indoctrinate children into progressive dogmas, including gender ideology and pronoun use, among other woke principles.
Parents at a North Carolina high school are unhappy with school officials who allegedly gave them a questionnaire about their prejudices — with “right” and “wrong” answers.
Now, they’re blowing the whistle on Piedmont High School in North Carolina, which allegedly distributed the “quiz.”
According to a report from Libs of TikTok on social media, several screenshots purport to show the test from the Unionville school, with one student’s answers to them.
“A parent confirmed that their child was explicitly told there are ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ answers, and that the assignment will affect their grade,” the Thursday post stated.
Dartmouth students stroll campus in May 2025; Katie Lenhart/Dartmouth. Copyright owned by Trustees of Dartmouth College
“Overwhelmingly, people want politics kept out of the classroom.”
That according to Vanderbilt University political science professor Josh Clinton, co-director of the Vanderbilt Unity Poll, which recently queried 1,033 adults from Nov. 7 to Nov. 10 about pressing higher education issues.
“They don’t want professors using the classroom to push political views, and they don’t want politicians trying to dictate what happens in higher education. People want education to be about education,” Clinton said in a news release regarding the results.
A JAMA Network Open paper calls for medical schools to adopt ‘alternative strategies’ to maintain racial diversity post the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against affirmative action, suggesting race-neutral approaches like increased scholarship support.
Researchers noted a 11% decline in Black and Hispanic medical student matriculation following the affirmative action decision, while Asian and white student admissions increased, highlighting threats to health equity.
Dr. Natalie Florescu, lead author, advocates for initiatives like funding minority-serving institutions and targeted programs to create equitable medical education pathways, though these approaches may face legal scrutiny for potentially being race-based preferences.
John-Henry Westen exposes how Pope Leo XIV is advancing Pope Francis’ progressive legacy, especially on LGBTQ inclusion. From high-profile meetings with activists like Fr. James Martin to appointments linked to homoerotic art, Westen warns that the Vatican is abandoning moral clarity. He contrasts this silence with past Church discipline, calling the shift a betrayal of truth. Framing the crisis as a spiritual battle, Westen urges Catholics to resist the false mercy being promoted as virtue.
Facebook parent company Meta will be working with conservative activist Robby Starbuck to keep political bias out of its artificial intelligence (AI) project in perhaps the most significant sign yet that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg really does want to change the tech giant’s left-wing ways for good.
The Hillreported that Starbuck, best known for his work bringing public attention to corporations’ “woke” practices and marshalling public pressure on them to change, and Meta have reached a settlement in the former’s defamation suit against the latter over Meta AI falsely identifying Starbuck as a participant in the January 6, 2021 riots at the U.S. Capitol.
A New Jersey lawmaker ripped apart “decarbonization” legislation that will increase utility bills in order to stop the fictional “climate crisis.”
“Green” energy is toxic, inefficient, expensive, unprofitable, and prone to failure. And since the “climate crisis” exists only in the minds of hysterical leftists, there is no reason at all for Democrat-run New Jersey to keep moving toward dependence on green energy. Yet they do, which will certainly lead to higher utility costs for New Jersey citizens.
University of Kentucky cancels identity-based graduation ceremonies
The University of Kentucky will no longer host graduation ceremonies that recognize specific student groups, such as LGBTQ+, Black, and first-generation students.
The university said the decision was made “following a number of federal and state policy changes and directives.”
In February, the U.S. Department of Education directed all public universities receiving federal funding to cancel diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
Some alumni have said they never thought their graduation ceremony, or those honoring Black and first-generation students, would face the same fate.
“I love the University of Kentucky with all my heart, but I can see why some parents might not want their children to go there in the future,” said Tuesday Meadows, the former president of PrideCats.
Just one major leftist organization highlights the alleged ways that USAID has funded the dramatic spreading of “wokeness” into American’s everyday lives. One organization, The Organized Crime Corruption and Reporting Project, was funded by both USAID and George Soros’ Open Society Foundation. This organization has sued republicans in office and produced a report that led to President Donald Trump’s first impeachment.
USAID’s Troubling Ties to the Woketopus– www.dailysignal.com Source Link Excerpt:
… USAID and Open Society Foundations jointly funded the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project—an organization that attacked conservatives for criticizing Soros and that published the report that sparked the first Trump impeachment. USAID’s connections to the project raise uncomfortable questions about whether the agency was trying to oust Trump.
The Organized Crime Corruption and Reporting Project also attacked Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J.; Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah; and Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation. These conservatives made the mistake of noticing that the U.S. Embassy to Macedonia had selected Soros’ Open Society Foundations as the main implementer for USAID projects in the Eastern European country.
According to Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., USAID awarded a $2.54 million contract to Open Society for training in “civic activism,” “mobilization,” and “civic engagement” in Macedonia in February 2017.
The East West Management Institute—which has long listed Open Society Foundations as a donor and implementing partner and which received $31.2 million from USAID in the last full fiscal year ending on Sept. 30—launched court changes in Albania that critics allege resulted in the prosecution of Albanian opposition leader Sali Berisha, silencing the opponent of the country’s socialist prime minister.
As for its role in the Woketopus, Open Society Foundations or its partners, the Open Society Policy Center, the Open Society Institute, or the Foundation to Promote Open Society have funded:
the American Civil Liberties Union (which pushed open borders in the Biden administration)
the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Southern Poverty Law Center (which pushed the weaponization of federal law enforcement agencies against conservatives)
the Human Rights Campaign (which pushed gender ideology)
the Sierra Club (which pushed climate alarmism)
The Tides Foundation
USAID has awarded more than $27 million in grants to the Tides Center, which forms part of the Left’s dark money network I expose in “The Woketopus” along with its sister groups the Tides Foundation and Tides Advocacy.
