Sept. 20, 2024: The Right to Academic Freedom

Tarrant County GOP sought an election advantage with failed effort to shutter college voting locations. Earlier this month, Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare proposed eliminating voting locations at some colleges. Critics pointed to the thousands of students who used the locations in the past — many of whom favored liberal-leaning candidates — and accused O’Hare of wanting to suppress votes for his party’s benefit. O’Hare denied it. But in a rebuke condemning Republicans who helped block the measure, the county’s party leaders unanimously signed a resolution noting officials believed O’Hare’s proposal would’ve improved Republicans’ odds in the upcoming elections. (The Texas Tribune, Sept. 18)  

In an Unprecedented Move, Ohio Is Funding the Construction of Private Religious Schools. The state of Ohio is giving taxpayer money to private, religious schools to help them build new buildings and expand their campuses, which is nearly unprecedented in modern U.S. history. Under a bill passed by its Legislature this summer, the state is now providing millions of dollars in grants directly to religious schools, most of them Catholic, to renovate buildings, build classrooms, improve playgrounds and more. (ProPublica, Sept. 17) 

How this one climate fix means a school nurse sees fewer students sick from the heat. When students would come to the nurse’s office at Johnson Senior High School in St. Paul, Minnesota, complaining of headaches and feeling too hot, Rebecca Randall was always ready. She would hand out water bottles, apply ice packs and ask the students to remove their extra layers. Even the nurse’s office sometimes reached 85 degrees. But last fall the school installed a heat pump cooling system, a type that makes use of the cooler temperatures underground. Now the school is no longer counted among the roughly 36,000 in the U.S. that the Government Accountability Office said need their heating and cooling systems updated. (Associated Press, Sept. 13)