In his recent book, Change.edu: Rebooting for the New Talent Economy, Andrew Rosen writes: “It’s rare for anyone to lay out a clear case as to exactly what the problem is with private-sector education.” Ok, here it is. The problem is not, as Rosen says, that the pairing of the words for-profit and education makes […]
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For Democrats (like me) concerned with academic freedom and depoliticizing personnel and curricular processes in higher education, the 2008 primary season offered only one candidate who even might adopt a good policy on higher education, an area where the GOP has had the overwhelming advantage in recent years. Even if he wasn’t a transparent phony, […]
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The third round of a very engaging and amiable debate on affirmative action is here on the National Association of Scholars site. The debaters are James P. Sterba, professor of philosophy at Notre Dame and author of “Affirmative Action for the Future” (pro) and George Leef, a frequent writer here, director of research for the […]
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Vartan Gregorian once said the way to become a successful college president is simple: stand up, give a speech on “diversity,” then sit down. Richard Levin, president of Yale, is the longest-lasting president of an Ivy League university, and following Gregorian’s sage advice is surely one reason why. Whenever a serious incident occurs at Yale, […]
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Universities have been expressing concern and even outrage over Associated Press reports that the New York Police Department spent six months in 2006-2007 keeping tabs on Muslim Student Associations at 16 colleges in the northeast, including Columbia, Yale, Rutgers and NYU. Some university presidents and spokesmen complained that the NYPD’s surveillance activities, conducted without clear […]
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The abortion-drug and contraceptive mandate issued by the Obama administration is a frontal assault on the freedoms given to every American by God Himself, and guaranteed in our Constitution. If allowed to stand, the precedent will have been set that the government can, in fact, prohibit the free exercise of religion, by taking to itself […]
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The first sentences of Jeffrey Williams’ essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education, “Deconstructing Academe: The Birth of Critical University Studies”, sounds like an introduction to the many conservative and libertarian critiques of higher education that have appeared in recent decades, starting with Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind, Martin Anderson’s Imposters in […]
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The Chronicle recently featured an article about the Adjunct Project, a program put together by a University of Georgia adjunct named Joshua Boldt “asking fellow adjuncts to enter information about their pay and working conditions.” Adjuncts are often underpaid. They also generally do not have research or service expectations, and they are almost never hired […]
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Cross-posted from Open Market The Obama administration is pushing quotas in the workplace and higher education, seeking to force businesses that have federal contracts to hire at least 7 percent disabled workers, and encouraging colleges to use race in admissions to achieve a “critical mass” of black and Hispanic students — a de facto quota. […]
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The last time I had dinner with Andrew Breitbart we talked about the 2012 elections. He had just forced Rep. Anthony Weiner, the liberal congressmen caught tweeting pictures of his nether parts, from office in disgrace. Brooklyn, for the first time since Calvin Coolidge, had elected a Republican to replace Weiner. But Andrew wanted more. […]
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Pressure has been building for President Obama to sign an executive order prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression by federal contractors, a move that might make the recent controversy over requiring religious institutions to offer contraception services look mild by comparison. Metro Weekly recently reported on a strategy session in […]
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(The following is a transcript of a new podcast) JOHN LEO: I’m John Leo, Editor of Minding the Campus, and I’m here today with Professor Andrew Hacker, the well-known sociologist and public intellectual and author of many excellent reviews in New York Review of Books. He’s also the co-author, with Claudia Dreifus, of the recent […]
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