Ruth Institute Blog

Unsubstantiated accusations against my son by a former girlfriend landed him before a nightmarish college tribunal.

By JUDITH E. GROSSMAN

I am a feminist. I have marched at the barricades, subscribed to Ms. magazine, and knocked on many a door in support of progressive candidates committed to women’s rights. Until a month ago, I would have expressed unqualified support for Title IX and for the Violence Against Women Act.

But that was before my son, a senior at a small liberal-arts college in New England, was charged—by an ex-girlfriend—with alleged acts of “nonconsensual sex” that supposedly occurred during the course of their relationship a few years earlier. Read more…

by College Fix Staff

Katherine Timpf of Campus Reform reports on some very unusual career advice being given out at Washington College of St. Louis:

Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) hosted an event in the school’s main chapel last week aimed at preparing students to pursue careers in pornography. Read more…

by Katie Hinderer

Last week as I happily went through another Valentine’s Day single – and not the I hate the celebration and want to be all anti type of single – I couldn’t help but cringe at the way this holiday has morphed over the years. Yes, it is still about the cards, candy and flowers. But it is also an excuse to be permissive, to drink too much, to hook up with strangers to drown out the pervasive loneliness. It’s overwhelming and disheartening at times. Read more…

by Katie Hinderer

by Katie Hinderer

Some days it is all too easy to see everything that is apparently going wrong in the world, wars, political problems, untimely deaths, etc… But there are also things that can give hope; a ray of light that proves goodness, truth and beauty is still out there and operating in our every day. Read more…

Posted by Leslie Eastman

We recently posted a piece, “An Argument Against Hook-Up Culture at Princeton,” which presented writer James Clark’s assertions that “objectification” of men and women is corrosive to the development of meaningful personal relationships. Read more…

by Helen Alvare, JD

Today, Catholic institutions across the country have filed suits in a large and coordinated legal challenge to the HHS contraception mandate. A total of twelve suits were filed for a total of 43 platiffs. Among the plantiffs are the University of Notre Dame, who honored President Obama with an honorary degree in 2009, and the Archdiocese of New York.  Read more…

by Mariette Ulrich

This NY Times piece discusses last month’s first-ever Sex Week at Harvard, a student-run program of lectures, displays and conversations about “all things sexual,” including: how to talk to your doctor about sex; careers in sexual health, the ethics of pornography; sex and religion; kinky practices like bondage; how to “talk dirty”; gay and lesbian sex. “After every event, organizers raffled off vibrators.” Read more…

by Bob Kellogg

Hannah Smith, senior counsel at The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, reports that Ave Maria University is “seeking a declaratory and injunctive relief from a federal court in Florida, because the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services demands the university to offer health plan services that undermine its firmly-held religious convictions.” This makes the fourth plaintiff The Becket Fund is representing in lawsuits against the mandate (see earlier story). Read more…

It is generally conceded that the Catholic Church is under considerable legal coercion to change its doctrine and practices to conform to President Obama’s view of how things ought to be. Beyond this local problem, as it were, the persecution of Catholics and Christians in Muslim lands is extensive, brutal, and indefensible. Jennifer Roback Morse, on her Ruth Institute web-site, wrote that, with these recent internal pressures, the American “experiment” in religious freedom is “over.”  Read more…