Party’s Over for Foreigners at College

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

New rules announced by the Trump Administration are addressing the flood of foreign students at American universities. Half a million of them are illegal aliens, while more than a million additional college students are here from foreign countries on student visas.

Until recently many states, including Republican-controlled Texas, have allowed illegal aliens to benefit from low in-state tuition rates while Americans from out of state were forced to pay much higher rates. The unfair difference over four years can exceed $100,000 per student.

In July 2023 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled against a challenge to how a public Texas university charged only in-state tuition to illegal aliens, while charging much higher out-of-state tuition to American citizens. But this month the same court upheld by a 2-1 vote a settlement with the Trump Administration whereby Texas agreed to stop enrolling illegal aliens at preferential tuition rates.

More than a million students in American universities are foreigners here on visa programs, almost entirely from non-Western countries having political systems unlike or opposed to ours. Texas has brought in many non-Christians as collegians and is reacting now against communities they’re forming.

Many of the international graduate students are receiving salaries or other compensation from American taxpayers, in the form of direct government subsidies at public universities and federal grants at private ones. Trump unsuccessfully attempted to cut off the flow of billions of dollars from the federal government to Harvard University.

For half a century foreigners could enter graduate programs and take many years, far more than 4, to complete their PhD programs while remaining in the U.S. without any deadline to leave. The F-1 visa program has been allowing foreigners to remain on visas here for the “duration of their status” at their university, with no time limit.

Trump has just ended this racket. Under a new rule issued by Trump’s Department of Homeland Security, most new F-1 students will receive visas that expire after a fixed period of time, usually four years.

This puts healthy pressure on universities and students to reach the finish line as scheduled, rather than dawdle indefinitely in the academic cocoon. The average length of time in graduate studies has ballooned to more than 7 years for a PhD, which harmfully causes students to delay having families and finding employment.

Trump is also cutting back on the period in which foreigners may linger in the U.S. after completing their programs, reducing it from 60 to 30 days. International students who line up jobs here can seek other visa programs, but most should be returning to their homelands.

Trump’s regulatory changes also restrict transfers by foreigners from one university to another, while here. Restrictions are being imposed on foreigners switching academic programs within their schools, too.

Graduate programs are generally funded by universities and government grants, so it is fair to question why there are any foreigners in these positions. Academic teaching positions are particularly scarce, such that in STEM fields there are academic jobs available for fewer than 10% of those who obtain PhDs.

Only 4.2% of applicants to Harvard College were admitted in its Class of 2029, which is the most recent data available. Every admission of a foreigner takes a spot away from an American applicant.

The blockbuster summer movie is The Odyssey, based on the ancient Greek classic that became a foundation of Western Civilization. Its concepts like the “Trojan horse” have become staples of our culture, and the Texas State Board of Education recently included this book in its new reading list of great texts including the Bible.

For decades movies have been shifting away from live-action films into animation. The popularity of The Odyssey as a live-action movie, along with the acclaim it has received from movie critics, demonstrates that the traditions of Western Civilization remain relevant and inspiring.

Yet most international students in our universities are from non-Western countries whose culture and traditions are entirely alien to American history, culture, and way of life. It would take several generations to assimilate the millions of foreigners already here, and a moratorium on new immigration should be seriously considered.

Universities are already complaining about a decline in international students in graduate programs, which they attribute to Trump’s occasional travel bans and freezing of some federal grants. The drop in high-school enrollment (which is mostly due to the declining birth rate) means there will be fewer American students in the pipeline for universities in the future.

But universities have only themselves to blame if there is a shortage of American students. Liberal political ideology dominant at universities leans strongly against child-rearing, and if more students are wanted for the future then there should be more encouragement now by academia for Americans to have and raise their children.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Family not merely a private arrangement

@writersabstract aka abstractruth writes:

In conducting research for my upcoming book about American culture, I came across the controversial figure of Phyllis Schlafly. I remember her as someone my mother liked, as she was exactly the demographic Phyllis tried to reach: a Christian homemaker. I vaguely remembered the controversy surrounding the Equal Rights Amendment growing up, and the argument that while its supporters claimed they wanted “equal rights for women,” its detractors believed it would strip women of certain protections and privileges, such as exemption from the draft. ...

Now we come to the usual complaint about Schlafly, other than the fact that she was not a Marxist feminist in the style of today—or even the 1970s. Even those attempting to be “fair” to her often lapse into the same condescending refrain: “She was so intelligent and ambitious, yet she wanted to deny rights to women. Such a paradox.” Or: “She left the home, but wanted to trap all other women inside it.”

By now, these observations are so trite and thoughtless they hardly merit serious attention. ...

To Schlafly, the family was never merely a private arrangement. It was the central institution through which morality, memory, culture, and continuity were transmitted across generations. ...

But perhaps Schlafly’s greatest insight was this: women traded away a profound form of civilizational power. They exchanged the ability to shape the culture of families, neighborhoods, communities, and future generations for peripheral participation in bureaucratic and corporate systems that neither know nor love them. Modern ideology snookered women to surrender deep and lasting influence for managerial status inside institutions built by technocrats.

Essay is reprinted here.

Birthright Citizenship Must Be Reversed

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The dire consequences of the birthright citizenship decision by the Supreme Court on June 30th are sinking in. It impedes deportation and it gives millions of future votes to the Democrat Party, which is increasingly electing socialist candidates.

Texans had already been in an uproar about foreigners taking over entire communities there. Texans do not want to be subjected to future socialism as voted in by birthright citizens whose parents were illegals or sojourners.

A week after the Supreme Court’s ruling, the backlash in Texas prompted Gov. Greg Abbott to order an investigation into whether “birth tourism” is being encouraged by hospitals there. Birth tourism is foreigners coming to the U.S. to give birth here, and thereby claim birthright citizenship for their children.

Gov. Abbott took action only after several prominent Texas Republicans rebuked the Supreme Court decision and called for Texas to assert its sovereignty by refusing to issue birth certificates to children of foreigners. State Representative Brian Harrison (R-Midlothian), who previously worked in the Trump Administration, demanded that Gov. Abbott call a special session of the legislature to push back against this Court decision.

“I hope every elected Republican in Texas joins my call for immediate action. Delay is unacceptable for a state like Texas!” Rep. Harrison posted on X.

The next Texas Railroad Commissioner, which is one of the most powerful offices because it regulates the oil and gas industries, is Bo French after winning a stunning upset against the establishment candidate. He successfully campaigned against the rise in Islamic culture among migrants into Texas, and he boldly demands that Texas assert its sovereignty against the Supreme Court ruling on birthright citizenship.

“The correct response to the traitorous decision today on anchor babies is nullification,” French declared. “Texas can just do things and we should. Texas is sovereign. If I have anything to say about it, Texas will not recognize them as citizens.”

Bo French and Brian Harrison show where the next generation of Texas leaders are headed. Gov. Abbott’s call for an investigation into birth tourism may have been a reaction against the younger, charismatic Bo French, who could run against the aging Abbott for governor one day.

Politicians in D.C. have failed in their initial attempt to downplay this birthright citizenship decision. Proposals in Congress to legislate around this ruling are unlikely to succeed, both because the votes are not there and because the Court declared birthright citizenship to be a constitutional right.

There is a 25-day window for President Trump to seek a rehearing and reconsideration of this erroneous decision by the Supreme Court, which Trump said he would do. The Court has on its own initiative reheard momentous cases in the past, such as the Citizens United case about campaign funding, although it has been more than half a century since the Court has granted a request by a party for a rehearing.

Birthright citizenship is that once-in-a-century issue justifying a rehearing. The harmful impact of this on the sovereignty of Texas and every other State is at stake, just as the notorious Dred Scott decision in 1857 wrongly interfered with States that prohibited slavery.

If the Supreme Court had reconsidered and reversed its Dred Scott decision after seeing the Republican-led backlash against it, then perhaps the lives of 750,000 American soldiers would have been saved by averting the Civil War. The Supreme Court is supposed to act to unite the country, not divide it with a 5-4 decision that invents a new constitutional right for foreigners who are not even domiciled in the USA.

Chief Justice John Roberts seems unlikely to reconsider his pet theories about English feudalism to hand the future of America over to foreigners who will become voters under his decision granting them citizenship. But Justice Amy Barrett, who silently provided the swing 5th vote for Roberts’ ruling, may be willing to listen and reconsider.

A survey just conducted by the Idaho Freedom Caucus, which is a coalition of some of the most conservative legislators in our country, found that stopping illegal immigration remains the #1 issue among the grassroots. This makes the birthright citizenship decision the new equivalent of Roe v. Wade, against which Republicans campaigned for nearly 50 years until the Supreme Court overruled it.

It won’t take that long to overturn this decision that jeopardizes Texas sovereignty. States control the issuance of birth certificates, and as a practical matter they can decide whether to grant one to someone born here to foreign parents as legislation introduced in 2011 in Arizona sought to do.

This argument should resonate with Justice Barrett, who has favored state autonomy on other controversial issues such as the power of states to ban transgender procedures or to protect girls’ sports against intrusion by boys who present themselves as transgender girls.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Meet Gen Z's Phyllis Schlafly

Prominent feminist Jessica Valenti writes:

Over the past few months, the powerful Heritage machine has pushed out book promo for Waters, put her on panels, and given her a new podcast — “Rethinking Fertility.” In other words, they want her to be a Gen Z Phyllis Schlafly — advising young women to stay at home while she, herself, enjoys a high-profile career writing books, giving talks, and shaping national policy.

I don’t think she’d mind the comparison: in her book, Waters lauds Schlafly as a “revolutionary” who “didn’t abandon her home, her femininity, or her faith.” She also cites Schlafly as precisely who American women should strive to be: a “model of traditional womanhood [that] encourages public engagement, but only after family duties have been honored.” ...

That doesn’t mean Waters isn’t dangerous; of course she is. ...

Waters, like Schlafly, found a way to have her cake and eat it too: working while making it harder for other women to work, embracing her professional drive while telling young women their ambition will make it harder for them to be mothers. Most egregiously, she's robbing other young women and girls of the choices she was privileged enough to have.

I listened to a Waters podcast, and she is certainly not dangerous, not robbing girls of choices, or advising young women to stay home.

It is strange how upsetting it is for feminists to hear a woman who is happy to be a wife and mother.

NY Times Slant on Women in History

By Tim Graham, Newsbusters.

History? New York Times Puffs RBG, Paints Phylllis Schlafly as Hyper-Polarizing Hypocrite

In the newspaper on July 3, The New York Times tried to play Historian in a series of little profiles under the headline:

These 8 Americans Shaped History.

The Debate Over How Continues.

You could see the obvious contrast in the modern subjects: Phyllis Schlafly vs. Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Times reporter Jeremy Peters was pro-Ginsburg, except she took too long to retire. He began: “Ruth Bader Ginsburg had attained folk hero status as the notorious R.B.G. for her lifetime of legal work dismantling gender bias in the law. But her decision not to retire has put an asterisk on her legacy.”

Times reporter Vivian Yee complained "anti-feminist" Schlafly “slayed” the so-called Equal Rights Amendment, but the cultural Left was winning:

By 2016, much of American life had turned nightmarish for someone like her.

Gay marriage: widely accepted. Abortion: legalized. Gender-neutral bathrooms: commonplace on many campuses. Many women no longer measured their success in marriage and children, but in financial independence and personal fulfillment.

In these eight profiles, Times reporters used “conservative” 12 times. There were no words like “liberal” or “left-wing” or “progressive” for Ginsburg. But Yee complained Schlafly “tarred feminists as radicals, just as her heirs do now.” The Left’s positions on abortion on demand, gay marriage, and biological males in women’s sports are never “radical.”

And then, Yee suggested Schafly was “divisive” – and somehow Ginsburg wasn’t?? They also accused Schafly of hypocrisy:

The political divisions that defined those 1970s debates “only got more pronounced over the years,” leading to today’s hyper-polarization, said Marjorie J. Spruill, the author of Divided We Stand. “And Schlafly’s tone had a lot to do with it.”

Schlafly’s victories came wreathed in paradoxes: She presented herself as a model wife and mother, breastfeeding all six of her children, yet she had resources (her husband, a lawyer, came from wealth) and a housekeeper that allowed her to run political campaigns and churn out books, newsletters and commentary. While exalting homemaking, she lobbied (unsuccessfully) for a top post in the Reagan administration.

NewsBusters acquired an unpublished letter sent to the editor of the New York Times from Anne Schlafly, Phyllis’s daughter:

America's 250th anniversary was an opportunity to reflect honestly on the men and women who shaped our nation. Instead, The New York Times has chosen to spotlight the shortcomings of eight influential Americans while giving comparatively little attention to the accomplishments that earned them a place in history.

Among those featured is my mother, Phyllis Schlafly, who is portrayed as a hypocrite because she championed the importance of mothers and homemakers while remaining active in public life. But that ignores an important fact: she raised her six children before devoting herself fully to politics, often saying that homemaking and public service came at different seasons of her life. Women do not surrender their voice when they have children, and mothers have every right to help shape the public policies that affect their families.

Without ever holding public office and while living in a Midwestern town of just 35,000 people, my mother inspired millions of American women to become engaged citizens. A decade after her death, Americans are still debating her ideas. That enduring influence is why she deserves to be remembered as one of our nation's most consequential figures, not reduced to a caricature.

Anne Schlafly told NewsBusters: “Why is The New York Times so reluctant to engage with competing viewpoints on issues like feminism? A publication that prides itself on open debate should be willing to examine whether the promises of modern feminism have matched the lived experiences of women, or whether alternative perspectives deserve a fair hearing.”

Feminists suggest they want women to have choices, but they really don’t believe it. They mock their choices if it’s being a housewife (God forbid being a “tradwife”) or working in conservative politics. Yee wrote "feminist never tire" of leveling the hypocrisy charge today, against conservative women like Erika Kirk and Katie Miller.

Update: Leftism Controlling Education

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The largest teachers’ union, the National Education Association, held its annual convention over the July 4th weekend. Once again, its resolutions provide a horrifying glimpse of the leftist ideology that controls our public schools (and quite a few private schools, too).

Fifty delegates to this teachers’ convention submitted New Business Item 10: “The National Education Association will call for the impeachment, conviction, and removal of Donald Trump from the US Presidency.” This resolution seeks a “National March on Washington D.C. to remove Trump before the November 2026 midterm election.”

At a time when fewer than a third of fourth-graders can read at their grade level in public schools nationwide, teachers should focus more on education than on politics. Instead, they proposed spending $5 million in teachers’ dues on a highly publicized demonstration against President Trump just before voters head to the polls.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has presidential aspirations, so let’s look at how well his state schools are doing. A generation ago, when Ronald Reagan was governor, the sprawling University of California system was widely considered a crown jewel of public education.

But under Gov. Newsom’s tenure the University of California stopped using the standardized SAT and ACT scores in its admission process, and the result has been catastrophic. The Obama Administration’s Janet Napolitano, who was the high-salaried president of that system after serving as Obama’s Secretary of Homeland Security, admits that what she still insists was a “worthwhile experiment” to drop standardized admissions testing needs to be “revisited.”

Even the New York Times is appalled, devoting its entire editorial column on July 6th to explaining how that formerly great university betrayed its mission by adopting test-blind admissions in 2020. More than half the students who enter Cal Berkeley, its most prestigious campus, cannot solve elementary equations, such as finding the values of x for which x-squared is greater than 4, and its English Prof. Janet Sorensen observed that she “got students who could not write a sentence.”

The NEA spreads these errors nationwide. It is the largest labor union in the United States, having approximately 3 million members, which is more than enough to swing the outcome of a national election.

Its annual budget is based mostly on public employee dues, which are mandatory in many states, totaling about $400 million. It has a large staff of hundreds in its headquarters, which of course are located in Washington, D.C.

NEA members typically have summers off and thus lots of time to attend liberal conventions and campaign for Democrat candidates. Many teachers retire early with substantial pensions.

Roughly 10% of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention are public school teachers, so its platform as adopted every four years largely reflects the views of the NEA and its smaller rival, Randi Weingarten’s American Federation of Teachers. Both groups oppose laws that protect girls’ school sports against intrusion by biological boys who seek to compete with girls.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently rejected the NEA’s effort to force West Virginia to allow boys to compete as transgender girls in girls’ school sports. The NEA also wants to require schools to use opposite-sex pronouns demanded by transgender students.

Many Americans have been abandoning public schools in favor of alternatives, and the declining birth rate has contributed further to a drop in public school enrollment. Since 2020 there has been a decrease of 1.4 million public school students, creating pressure to close many schools and thereby requiring longer commutes by the students who remain.

But rather than becoming more mainstream to attract more students, the teachers’ unions continue to veer leftward and demand more funding. Dumping more money into the system has not improved it.

Liberal ideology in education has infested the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, at federal taxpayer expense. A new 162-page report by the White House Domestic Policy Council demonstrated for our Independence Day how far afield our treasured national museum system has strayed from our proud heritage.

Spearheaded by Vince Haley, this report observes that the Smithsonian Institute “has not met its obligations to the American people.” Entitled “Saving America’s Story” and subtitled “How Ideological Capture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History Erases Our Heritage,” the report condemns the shift “from straightforward historical education and scholarship toward an extreme political activism that seeks to transform our country.”

Examples provided in this report of the distortions of our history are indeed shocking. An 1840 statue of George Washington is depicted as merely “the perceived courage of the American people,” rather than the “exceptional courage of the American people” as often proven.

There is “no major exhibit dedicated to America’s founding era” at the Smithsonian Museum. Instead, many founders are disparaged for having some connection to slavery, despite how most worked to end the slave trade and to put slavery on a path to extinction.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.