Connect with us

The Center Square

Advocacy group sues DOE for records related to Columbia antisemitism | National

Published

on

www.thecentersquare.com – Bethany Blankley – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-04 13:06:00

(The Center Square) – An advocacy group sued the U.S. Department of Education seeking records related to the Biden administration’s response to anti-Israel riots held on Columbia University’s campus after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel.

Under the Biden administration, antisemitism flourished on U.S. college campuses as pro-Hamas rioters took over U.S. college campuses, including Columbia University, attacking Jewish students, harassing and threatening public officials, The Center Square reported.

For more than a year, antisemitism and violence escalated  by nearly 400% against Jews in America and Jewish students said they didn’t feel safe on U.S. college campuses, including at Columbia University, The Center Square reported.

Last June, the Center to Advance Security in America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the safety and security of Americans and to government transparency, submitted two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the U.S. Department of Education to find out how it handled “the rampant antisemitic discrimination that erupted in American educational institutions following Hamas’s terror attack against Israel on October 7, 2023.”



NYPD Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry posted on X photos of items he said the police confiscated from protesters who took over Hamilton Hall at Columbia University.




“Large demonstrations and encampments at Columbia University have been left unaddressed, resulting in calls for the university president to resign,” CASA Director James Fitzpatrick wrote in one letter to the agency. “Allowing university students to effectively control the campus grounds while creating a hostile environment for Jewish students sets a dangerous precedent for higher education while also impacting diplomatic efforts in support of Israel. Therefore, increased transparency on addressing campus protests is necessary to mitigate heightened antisemitism and violence.”

The FOIA requested communications to, from or received from DOE officials that contained phrases or words related to the riots, as well as records of meeting requests, meeting invitations, call logs and chats related to Columbia University encampments and riots. CASA also requested calendar entries of DOE officials and communications they had with members of the media, including Politico, the New York Times, the Washington Post, NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, the Los Angeles Times and others.

The DOE acknowledged receipt of the requests but then “failed to provide further communications, responsive records, or a time estimate for its response,” according to the complaint. Since then, CASA has never received the requested information.

On Friday, CASA sued the DOE in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia requesting the court to compel the DOE to provide the requested information in accordance with the law.

“Given the many public statements by former Biden Administration Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and his leadership team, there are undoubtedly government communications that were exchanged regarding the pro-Hamas, antisemitic demonstrations at Columbia University in the Spring of 2024,” CASA Director James Fitzpatrick told The Center Square. “The American public deserves to see how Biden administration Education Department officials were internally discussing these protests to gain insight into why no action was taken to address the threat to Jewish students.”

Even after President Donald Trump was sworn into office and began reversing Biden administration policies, CASA argues releasing the requested information “is in the public interest because it will help the public understand the nature of DOE’s response to mass disturbances, violence, and other serious civil rights issues at Columbia University.” It says its goal is to “inform the public so it can be engaged with its leaders and ensure their decisions are consistent with America’s best interests.”

Trump policies have prioritized cracking down on antisemitism on U.S. college campuses. One executive order he issued required higher education institutions to eliminate what he described as discriminatory policies under the guise of “diversity, equity and inclusion.”

Another directed the targeting and deporting of pro-Hamas and Palestinian rioters who are either in the U.S. illegally or admitted through visas to rescind their visa and remove them from the country, The Center Square reported.

Last month, the Trump administration announced it was cancelling $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia, arguing it failed to crack down on antisemitism on campus. The move resulted in Columbia announcing it would overhaul its student disciplinary process, ban protesters from wearing masks on campus, ban demonstrations in academic buildings, adopt a new definition of antisemitism among other changes, The Center Square reported.

CASA’s lawsuit was filed by Dhillon Law Group, whose founder, Harmeet Dhillon, was nominated by Trump to lead the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. The U.S. Senate confirmed her nomination on Thursday.

Last month, CASA first sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for failing to release records related to Secret Service staff possibly colluding with some congressional Democrats to strip then presidential candidate Trump of his Secret Service detail after a failed assassination attempt was made against him, The Center Square reported.

The post Advocacy group sues DOE for records related to Columbia antisemitism | National appeared first on www.thecentersquare.com

News from the South - Louisiana News Feed

Carbon capture hearings will hear from concerned residents, industry | Louisiana

Published

on

www.thecentersquare.com – By Nolan McKendry | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-25 16:45:00

(The Center Square) − Louisiana Rep. Joseph Orgeron, R-Jefferson, is taking a less cautious position on carbon capture — acknowledging local concerns while defending the role the technology can play in reducing industrial emissions.

Orgeron will vice chair a high-stakes showdown over the future of carbon capture in Louisiana at the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee on Tuesday, where lawmakers are set to hear a sweeping package of bills aimed at reining in the state’s growing carbon sequestration industry.

“I sympathize with those constituents who are looking for the opt-out option—to not have it in their parish,” Orgeron told The Center Square in an interview. “But I represent an area basically awash in hydrocarbon harvesting from the early ’50s, ’60s. We’ve had our environment kind of shared with the hydrocarbon harvesting industry, so we’re a little bit more open to it.”

Orgeron chairs the state’s Clean Hydrogen Task Force and has positioned himself as an advocate for low-carbon technologies that can reduce emissions without sidelining Louisiana’s traditional energy sector.

“In Louisiana, we have the hydrocarbons, like natural gas, that can then be cracked to make the hydrogen feedstock that’s needed,” Orgeron said. “And rather than release [the carbon] into the environment… basically capture that carbon and sequester it safely in underground pore space that we also have a large amount of.”

Still, he acknowledged the desire of some parishes to block carbon capture developments and said he would support local opt-outs — though not without consequence.

“They would have to relinquish any and all benefits, monetary benefits, that they may receive from the added space, the added industry… that may come from carbon sequestration in the state,” Orgeron said.

The legislation, driven largely by Republican lawmakers from western and central Louisiana, targets everything from eminent domain powers to public notice requirements, with an emphasis on strengthening landowner rights and local control.

Rep. Rodney Schamerhorn, R-Beauregard, said in a previous interview that past land seizures for projects like Fort Polk and the Toledo Bend Reservoir have left lasting scars in his region, fueling deep mistrust of new carbon capture initiatives. While many residents initially supported the technology, he said they now feel misled about its purpose and risks.

The committee will also take up House Bill 4 by Rep. Charles Owen, HB353 by Rep. Shane Mack, HB522 by Rep. Danny McCormick, HB568 by Rep. R. Dewith Carrier, and Senate Bill 73 by Sen. Mike Reese.

The wave of proposals comes amid mounting scrutiny of carbon infrastructure, particularly in light of a 2020 pipeline rupture in Satartia, Miss. that released a cloud of CO2 into a nearby town when a landslide hit, causing residents to collapse or suffer seizures from oxygen deprivation.

Industry leaders are pushing back.

“This is a business opportunity,” said Tommy Faucheux, president of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association. “If we lose that, the investments — and the jobs — will go elsewhere.”

“These CCS projects and the associated development could transform communities in ways they’ve never seen,” Faucheux said. “We’re talking about economic development in parts of Louisiana that haven’t traditionally benefited from the oil and gas footprint.”

“The industry has been spending a lot of time engaging with communities, with land owners,” he added. “The companies want to work and come to agreements with all the landowners. They want to have conversations about pipeline routes, for instance. The use of eminent domain has not been something we’ve prioritized or really led with. I think it has been really more the exception than the standard.”

 

The post Carbon capture hearings will hear from concerned residents, industry | Louisiana appeared first on www.thecentersquare.com

Continue Reading

The Center Square

Will Trump extend the 90-day tariff pause? | National

Published

on

www.thecentersquare.com – Morgan Sweeney – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-25 16:01:00

(The Center Square) – The Trump administration has been reluctant to give many details about the implementation of the president’s tariffs since his announcement of the 90-day pause, but Friday, he answered a question that has now been posed many times to his team: Will the pause be extended? 

President Donald Trump called it “unlikely.”

“I think I know pretty much, and again, we’ll have deals made but we’ll also make deals,” Trump told a reporter on Air Force One. “In other words, we’ll just set the tariff and we’ll be reasonable, very reasonable, and that’ll be the end. That’s the deal. We set the price.”

The White House had previously avoided being specific about an extension or most of the ongoing negotiations with a group of at least 100 countries, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

A reporter asked White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday if some of the proposals other countries had put forward would be enough to extend the pause for at least some of them.

“Well look, ask me in July when the deadline hits,” Leavitt said. “There’s a lot of time left and the president’s trade team is working, again, at Trump speed, as quickly as they can to ensure that these deals can be made.”

Trump also said Friday that he had been in talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, as the countries were locked in a trade war after the U.S. raised its tariffs on China to 145% and China responded with a minimum 125% rate. But the president remained cryptic, beyond that, on his conversations with the Chinese leader. 

A reporter asked what the two had discussed as Trump was leaving the White House Friday morning.

“I’ll let you know at the appropriate time. Let’s make a deal,” Trump responded.

The president announced new reciprocal tariff rates for nearly all of America’s trading partners on April 2, roiling stock markets worldwide, but then issued a 90-day pause on April 9 after numerous countries quickly approached the U.S. asking for a deal.

The post Will Trump extend the 90-day tariff pause? | National appeared first on www.thecentersquare.com

Continue Reading

News from the South - North Carolina News Feed

Eradication of divisive medical education policies applauded | North Carolina

Published

on

www.thecentersquare.com – By Alan Wooten | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-25 15:59:00

(The Center Square) – Eliminating policies in higher education that U.S. Rep. Dr. Greg Murphy believes are detrimental to the best in health care is a step in the right direction, the North Carolina Republican says.



U.S. Rep. Dr. Greg Murphy, R-N.C.




“I applaud the Trump administration for rooting out the discriminatory and demeaning requirements of DEI in medication education,” Murphy said, referring to diversity, equity and inclusion. “These practices reward political activism and not merit. Patients deserve better.

“Liberal apologists played with patient’s lives to push a progressive discriminatory agenda. Doctors need to be selected as the brightest and hardest working, not on identity politics.”

Murphy’s assessment came a day after President Donald Trump’s executive order entitled Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education.

The third graph of Section 2 reads in part, “The attorney general and the secretary of Education, in consultation with the secretary of Health and Human Services, shall investigate and take appropriate action to terminate unlawful discrimination by American medical schools or graduate medical education entities that is advanced by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education or the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education or other accreditors of graduate medical education, including unlawful ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ requirements under the guise of accreditation standards.”

Murphy, a practicing urologist, has repeatedly chastised the medical schools promoting diversity policies over merit.

Earlier this month, he responded to a writing in the New England Journal of Medicine entitled “Advancing health equity in the climate crisis – A climate justice curriculum for resident physicians.” He said it was “yet another example of irresponsible leadership in medical education.”

Murphy opined, “Instead of learning to take care of patients, medical residents are studying this nonsense. No wonder the questions about NIH funding are being asked.”

The National Institutes of Health operates with a budget of $47 billion. For worldwide biomedical research, it is the largest public funder.

Murphy believes the American health care system “is killing the patient” with the middlemen, including the education component.

He’s also spoken out on the Association of American Medical Colleges, saying it has been “exposed for their racially divisive lies.” A significant infant-mortality study, The National Review reported, was edited to preserve racial perspective. The story says “researchers deliberately obscured a data point about white babies under the care of Black physicians because ‘it undermines the narrative.’”

“Falsifying research,” Murphy said, “is why Americans have lost trust in medical education. All those involved in this scandal need to resign.”

The post Eradication of divisive medical education policies applauded | North Carolina appeared first on www.thecentersquare.com

Continue Reading

Trending