College Board to rewrite US history exam after critics blast anti-America language

The red, white and blue is going back into the U.S. history being taught to college-bound high schoolers, after critics blasted the curriculum-setting test as biased against America.

The College Board, which writes the test that much of the nation's advanced placement course lessons are based on, last week issued a new course and exam description that has more focus on the positive role of the framers, America's effort to rid the world of the Nazi threat during World War II and how entrepreneurs transformed the world's most dynamic economy. Those points of emphasis are expected next year to replace the previous test questions, which some historians and teachers say took a negative view of the U.S.

“The result is a clearer and more balanced approach to the teaching of American history,” the College Board announced Thursday.

While the College Board can’t directly dictate what is taught in high school Advanced Placement classes, by writing the test that half a million college-bound students take each year it strongly influences the curriculum crafted by teachers. The previous version created an uproar because it focused on racial and cultural divisions in America instead of a collective American identity, and left out unifying figures such as Benjamin Franklin and Martin Luther King. The new version mentions those men and also includes sections on a unified American identity -- plus more focus on America’s founders and founding documents.

The sections on America’s divisions and problems remain, but now exist alongside positive points about America.

One historian who led the charge for the revision said the new version is much better, but not perfect.

“The College Board scrubbed from last year’s document the more obnoxious expressions of bias against America, against capitalism, and against whites,” Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, told FoxNews.com.

The old guidelines also previously criticized free markets, noting that they “helped to widen a gap between rich and poor” without mentioning that they had created prosperity. The new version is less one-sided, noting that “entrepreneurs helped to create a market revolution in production and commerce…” and that “workers’ real wages increased… while the gap between rich and poor grew.”

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Campus turns on Muslim conservative who penned satire

A Muslim conservative who took on political correctness at his college campus found out just how angry the very folks he was lampooning can get.

Omar Mahmood, a junior majoring in literature and anthropology at the University of Michigan, lost his job as a writer for the main campus newspaper and saw his front door tattooed with angry and profane messages after he wrote a satirical column dubbed "Do the Left Thing" for another publication. Written as parody, the column sought to poke fun at people who constantly perceive “microaggressions” -- a new term for small racial or ethnically-driven snubs.

On Friday night, according to Mahmood, people attacked his dorm room door, egging it and leaving copies of his satirical article with notes on the backs including “Shut the f--- up!” and “You scum embarrass us” and “DO YOU EVEN GO HERE?! LEAVE!!” along with various others, including an image of a creature with horns and another one of him with his eyes crossed out.

FoxNews.com viewed surveillance footage taken early Friday at 1:40 a.m. local time inside of Mahmood's dorm, which is for students but is run independently of the university. It showed four figures meeting in the hallway and one of them handing the other three hooded sweatshirts. The three then put on hooded sweatshirts and go to his door. Mahmood says he believes he knows who the attackers were based on the footage.

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UCLA law professor learns Ferguson-related exam question taboo

Law school exams often present legal conundrums ripped from headlines of the day, but one UCLA law professor is apologizing for basing a test question on what is apparently a taboo subject -- the fallout from the police shooting of a black man in Ferguson, Mo.

Professor Robert Goldstein said the exam question was designed to test students’ ability to analyze the line between free speech and inciting violence. It cited a report about how Michael Brown’s stepfather, Louis Head, shouted, “Burn this bitch down!” after a grand jury decided not to indict Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson in the death of Michael Brown.

The question then asked students to imagine that they are lawyers in the St. Louis County Attorney’s office and had been asked to advise the prosecutor “whether to seek an indictment against Head” for inciting violence. The exam reads:

“[As] a recent hire in the office, you are asked to write a memo discussing the relevant First Amendment issues in such a prosecution. Write the memo.”

But students complained, and writer Elie Mystal at the popular legal blog “Above the Law” opined that the test question was “racially insensitive and divisive.” Mystal also incorrectly alleged that the question asked students to “advocate in favor of extremist racists in Ferguson.”

Goldstein has apologized for putting the question on the test and has promised not to grade the question.

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College president sorry for saying 'All lives matter'

The president of prestigious Smith College is red-faced and apologetic Tuesday for telling students on the Northampton, Mass., campus that "all lives matter." ...

she soon received backlash from students for her phrasing. They were offended that she did not stick with the slogan “black lives matter.”

The Daily Hampshire Gazette, which first covered the story, quoted one Smith sophomore, Cecelia Lim, as saying, “it felt like she was invalidating the experience of black lives.”

In response to student backlash, McCartney apologized in another campus-wide email Friday, saying she had made a mistake “despite my best intentions.”

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California prof's required reading paints Usama bin Laden as a freedom fighter

Usama bin Laden was a freedom fighter and the U.S. is a “neocolonial power,” according to a California state university teacher whose writings are required reading for his political science students.

Emmit Evans, a political science lecturer at the public university Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, requires students in his "World Food Systems" class to read the textbook he co-authored, "The Other World." In the book, about politics in the developing world, Evans offers up a sanitized version of the 9/11 mastermind and the terrorist group he headed.

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University Insiders: Illegal Immigrants Get Affirmative Action

This week, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley signed a bill to require the state's public universities to give undocumented aliens -- generally illegal -- in-state tuition privileges.

The bill, known as the Dream Act, is already the law in ten other states, including California, New York, Texas and Illinois.

But critics argue that the bill will give illegal aliens better treatment than Americans and legal immigrants -- thanks to existing diversity policies at universities.

University of Maryland (College Park) computer science Prof. James Purtilo told FoxNews.com that, during his time as an associate dean, he frequently saw admission officers favor students because of their “undocumented” status.

"They favor students with special circumstances. 'Undocumented alien' would be one of these special circumstances... They help fill out the diversity picture for the admissions office."

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Obama's Safe Schools Czar Tied to Lewd Readings for 7th Graders

President Obama's "Safe Schools Czar," already a target of social conservatives for his past drug abuse and what they say is his promotion of homosexuality in schools, is under fresh attack after it was revealed that the pro-gay group he formerly headed recommends books his critics say are pornographic...

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New York Eagle Scout Suspended From School for 20 Days for Keeping Pocketknife in Car

A 17-year-old Eagle Scout in upstate New York has been barred from stepping foot on school grounds for 20 days — for keeping a 2-inch pocketknife locked in a survival kit in his car.

Matthew Whalen, a senior at Lansingburgh Senior High School, says he follows the Boy Scout motto and is always prepared, stocking his car with a sleeping bag, water, a ready-to-eat meal — and the knife, which was given to him by his grandfather, a police chief in a nearby town...

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Former Student Defends Obama's 'Safe Schools' Czar Against Allegations

An update on the Jennings controversy:

The ex-student at the center of a controversy involving "safe schools czar" Kevin Jennings is defending the U.S. Education Department official against accusations he failed to report an alleged underage sexual relationship between a former high schooler and "an older man."

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Obama's 'Safe Schools' Czar Admits He Poorly Handled Underage Sex Case

President Obama's "safe schools czar," under fire from critics who say he's unfit for his job, acknowledged Wednesday that he "should have handled [the] situation differently" years ago when he was a schoolteacher and didn't report that a 15-year-old boy told him that he was having sex with an older man.

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Radio Interview On Safe Schools Czar

I was interviewed on nationally-syndicated America's Morning Radio this morning about my Fox News piece on Kevin Jennings. Audio here.

Critics Assail Obama's 'Safe Schools' Czar, Say He's Wrong Man for the Job

President Obama's "safe schools czar" is a former schoolteacher who has advocated promoting homosexuality in schools, written about his past drug abuse, expressed his contempt for religion and detailed an incident in which he did not report an underage student who told him he was having sex with older men.

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Drug Offenders To Get Federal Student Aid Under New Bill

College students convicted of drug possession may soon get access to federal student loans due to a little-noticed provision in the 181-page Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009.

The bill, which makes major revisions to the student loan system, was introduced by California congressman George Miller, a Democrat. It is expected to pass in the House of Representatives.

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Sixth Grader Sues School Over Right to Wear Pro-Life T-Shirt

A California mom says her public school administrators violated her daughter's First Amendment rights when they ordered the sixth-grader to take off her pro-life T-shirt.

Anna Amador has gone to court on behalf of her daughter, who she says was ordered by her principal to change her shirt on "National Pro-Life T-Shirt Day." The shirt the 12-year-old was wearing displayed two graphic pictures of a fetus growing in the womb.

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Professor Takes Heat for Calling Cops on Student Who Discussed Guns in Class

A professor in Connecticut reported one of her students to the police after he gave a class presentation on why students and teachers should be allowed to carry concealed weapons on campus. Now, free speech activists say the professor’s actions are what really need to be investigated.

Last October, John Wahlberg and two classmates at Central Connecticut State University gave an oral presentation for a communications class taught by Professor Paula Anderson. The assignment was to discuss a “relevant issue in the media,” and the students presented their view that the death toll in the April 2007 Virginia Tech shooting massacre would have been lower if professors and students had been carrying guns.

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North Carolina Teacher Caught on Tape Teaching Pro-Obama Lessons

The election may be over, but more allegations of political bias in public schools are surfacing.

A North Carolina superintendent said Friday that he was "shocked" after viewing video footage of an elementary school teacher harshly questioning a student in class for supporting John McCain.

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