Boston College is ranked 31st on U.S. News and World Report’s annual college rankings.

Jesse Naiman’s final article on National Review Online has been published. You can read it here.

Read Jesse’s latest article here.

The University of Illinois has reinstated Dr. Kenneth Howell, an adjunct professor who was initially fired in violation of his constitutional rights for sending an email to his class explaining the Church’s positions on homosexual acts.

You can read the story here.

CampusReform.org, a subsidiary of the Leadership Institute, is featuring a recent editorial written by The Observer’s Jesse Naiman regarding the wrongful termination of a Catholic faculty member at the University of Illinois.

The Observer will continue to update readers as the case continues.

Westfield State College, located here in Massachusetts, has lifted its unconstitutional speech code thanks to the hard work of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). FIRE designated Westfield State College’s speech code its “February Speech Code of the Month,” which The Observer reported on here.

Peter Bonilla of FIRE congratulated Westfield State College for its actions and commented in this regard:

“FIRE appreciates Westfield State College’s forthrightness in correcting its error. We now will reevaluate WSC’s red-light rating, which signifies that a school has at least one policy that clearly and substantially restricts freedom of speech. If WSC earns a yellow light as a result of its revisions, it will need to make only a few more changes to policies that still threaten speech, in order to attain a green-light rating. WSC would then join a small but noble list of schools that have achieved FIRE’s most favorable policy rating. FIRE would be pleased to keep working with WSC to fully safeguard free speech on campus while protecting students against harassment and discrimination.”

Jesse Naiman reports that BC Law School dean John Garvey will become Catholic University of America’s (CUA) 15th president. The report continues as follows:

“Garvey replaces Most Rev. David M. O’Connell, who led CUA for twelve years. (Reverend O’Connell is leaving to serve as coadjutor bishop for the Archdiocese of Trenton.)

“Most Rev. Allen H. Vingeron, archbishop of Detroit and chairman of both the CUA board of trustees and the search committee, said that the trustees would have preferred to name a priest as president, all other things being equal, but that the committee found Garvey to be the most qualified person in this case.

“Garvey calls his appointment ‘the greatest honor I have ever received’ and pledges to serve the Catholic Church and the Church community by raising the university’s ambitions.”

Recently, award-winning journalist Khaled Abu Toameh visited Devlin Hall to discuss the power of journalism that communicates only facts and truth. Toameh characterizes himself as both an Israeli-Arab citizen and a Palestinian.

He has had 27 years of journalism experience and has been a producer and consultant for NBC News since 1989. Appearing in the Wall Street Journal and US News & World Report, among other notable publications, his articles relay solely the facts and strive to inform the world of Israeli-Palestinian interactions.

Having worked several years with the International media, Toameh was approached by The Jerusalem Post in 2002. The publication invited him to write on Palestinian affairs, and seeing as the Israeli media is more accepting of free speech than the Palestinian media, Toameh accepted the offer.

Frequently asked if he is considered a “traitor” by Palestinians, Toameh stressed that he simply relays the facts through the Israeli media; he in no way favors either the Israelis or the Palestinians in his reports. He admitted that he has “to go live in Jerusalem to express [himself] freely.”

Though “under heavy pressure to stop writing,” Toameh is “pro-facts and pro-truth” and will stop at nothing to expose the truth, no matter how unattractive. For example, when he learned of the financial corruption in the Palestinian government under the rule of Yasser Arafat, Toameh alerted his colleagues, many of whom were American journalists, of the corruption; to his dismay, his colleagues refused to report negative things about Palestine for fear of Arafat’s reaction. Toameh never submitted to such fear.

At the end of his talk, Toameh cautioned his audience, “whatever you read today, relate to it with reservation,” conscious of the political leanings of the mainstream media. However, he assured that he has no agenda, or rather that his only agenda is the truth; rightly communicated by Khaled Abu Toameh, the facts should speak for themselves.

Scott Brown speaks to BC College Republicans in September 2009

Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) will deliver the BC Law School commencement address on Friday, May 28 at 10:30 a.m. on BC’s Newton Campus, according to a press release from Jack Dunn, the University spokesman.

Brown, a 1985 graduate of Boston College Law School, was elected to the United States Senate in January, winning 52 percent of the vote against Democratic opponent Martha Coakley, the current attorney general of Massachusetts.

While Boston College had initially agreed to host informal discussions  before the upcoming UN negotiations on a new arms trade treaty, BC has decided to cancel the event due to various unresolved logistical details. Professor Donald Hafner, Vice-Provost for Undergraduate Academic Affairs, said that BC has always supported the goals of the conference and that BC had hoped to host it. However, in explaining why BC decided to cancel, Hafner offered the following comment:

“As Boston College made repeatedly clear from the start, however, the ability of the University to play a helpful role has always been contingent upon confirmed funding in the form of financial transfers from international sponsors to the University and upon unanimity among key parties about the vital details that must be resolved for holding a successful conference.  Unfortunately, to date these conditions have not been met, and it has not been possible to resolve vital details.  With the proposed date for the conference now only seven weeks away, Boston College has concluded that such a conference cannot take place as the University had hoped.”

Boston College junior Leon Ratz, who has played a key role in organizing the conference, declined to comment on the record.