FIRST ON FOX: The educational background of the alleged White House Correspondents’ dinner Correspondents dinner shooter Cole Allen is generating renewed scrutiny from critics about the current state of academia and bias in the teaching profession, as well as questions about far-left politics and rhetoric on college campuses, including the specific institutions the alleged shooter attended.
Allen graduated from Cal State University Dominguez Hills in May 2025 with a Masters Degree in computer science, according to his LinkedIn page. He spent a few years at the institution that multiple university employees who spoke to Fox News Digital said is rife with far-left ideology and antipathy toward countering views to that.
“I was not shocked,” a CSU Dominguez employee, granted anonymity to protect against retribution, told Fox News Digital about the news that Allen was a former student at the university. “Campus policy treats ICE like it is an invading army. There is constant talk of the community under threat.”
“I hope no one here approves of violence, but continually talking about the government as a threat to the community isn’t healthy.”
Some professors and administrators at CSUDH emphasize race and division in their teaching, and while they may not be the majority, they are highly visible and appear to be well supported, another employee said.Â
For example, the employee explained that the university maintains three separate ethnic studies departments, Chicana/o studies, Africana studies and Asian Pacific studies, even though these programs have relatively few majors and graduates. Despite the university facing a serious financial crisis, there are no plans to consolidate them into a single department, which could reduce costs.Â
“Faculty who spearheaded the push for an ethnic studies requirement in the CSU were almost uniformly rewarded with deanships and administrative positions throughout the CSU,” the employee said.
Additionally, the Chicana/o Studies Department publicly supported Gaza on Nov. 3, 2023, weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre, but did not face any official consequences or requests to apologize, the employee said.Â
“Conservative and independent professors and lecturers can expect scorn and insult when they try and actually voice their viewpoints, if not outright censure,” one of the employees told Fox News Digital.Â
“Conservative students can realistically expect retaliation from faculty for disagreeing with said faculty member’s political views. I’ve heard a member dismiss a rather good student as being libertarian, And, therefore, he can’t be that smart.”
One of the employees suggested that “regular folks from 20 years ago likely “keep their mouths shut” in order to not be branded a “right-wing bigot.”
“If you aren’t anti-racist you are part of the problem to many of the most vocal people here. Certainly I’m not comfortable letting my views be fully known and I’m a lifelong Democrat.”
One of the most prominent voices on campus during Allens tenure was the schools president, who often talked about race and labeled the Trump administration as racist.
“We need to be cognizant of how our minds and spirits, minds and spirits, have been contaminated by the residuals of racism and white supremacy,” Thomas A. Parham, former president at Cal State University Dominguez Hills, said during a webinar last fall titled, “Liberation Psychology: Unlocking the Shackles of Conceptual Incarceration,” first reported by Gateway Pundit.
Parham served as the president of CSU Dominguez Hills from March 2018 through this past December, when he stepped down after the schools Academic Senate <a href="https://www.csudhbulletin.com/academic-senate-passes-no-confidence-reso
