When Naomi Schaefer Riley was fired by the Chronicle of Higher Education for her trenchant remarks on Black Studies programs, most of those who criticized the firing saw in it a display of the campus left’s intolerance. Fair enough, but this episode also has a much broader meaning.
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Crossing the snow-covered Dartmouth green one night, I stopped, looked around, and asked, “Who owns this place, and by what right?” More than half a century later, I have still not resolved a complete answer to that question. But I can give you my short-form response: A small group of willful people, mostly money men […]
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It’s “diversity” in higher education gone mad: An embarrassed City University of New York system (CUNY) yesterday hastily denied a report that it had set up a separate “minority” designation for its Jewish faculty. As CUNY professors joked about “yellow stars” for their Jewish colleagues and Jewish Press columnist Yori Yanover wrote that CUNY’s chancellor, […]
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This year’s required reading for incoming students at Brooklyn College, my alma mater, continues the practice of choosing a book that furthers the cause of victimology and anger. The book is Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, described by the Washington Post as “an investigation of a social wrong committed by the medical […]
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Those of us who were disappointed when a divided Supreme Court upheld the distribution of burdens and benefits based on race in Grutter are hopeful that decision might be overturned — or that at least its most deleterious effects might be reined in — when the Court revisits affirmative action next fall in Fisher v. […]
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In a move widely anticipated after President Richard Brodhead engaged in a public self-criticism about his not appointing any African-Americans to senior leadership positions, Duke recently elevated political science professor–and prominent Group of 88 member–Paula McClain to graduate dean. (The Group of 88 statement, issued in early April 2006, asserted as fact that something “happened” […]
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Carol Todd of Nottingham, Maryland, persuaded a bankruptcy judge in Baltimore to “discharge”–that is, wipe the slate clean on–nearly $340,000 in student loan debt. The grounds were that she has Asperger’s Syndrome, a mild form of autism that apparently prevents her from getting or keeping a steady job. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Gordon ruled on […]
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The Chronicle’s firing of Naomi Schaefer Riley was shocking, but no surprise. If you value your job in any position connected with higher education, it is probably wise to avoid being critical of “diversity,” affirmative action and, especially, Black Studies. I learned this lesson in 1997 when, as a Regent of the University of California […]
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The ugly episode at Brown–a botched hearing of an alleged rape case– is part of a disturbing pattern of how sexual assault procedures are handled at Ivy League schools. Typically, the schools impose a gross form of injustice, permanently damaging the reputation of the accused male, then congratulate themselves for acting so fairly and appropriately. […]
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As university after university follows the OCR’s mandate to lower the threshold for evaluating campus sexual assault claims–and thereby to increase the likelihood of convictions from false accusations–it’s worth keeping in mind cases in which even the pre-“Dear Colleague” procedure broke down. Caleb Warner’s is one such case; William McCormick’s is another.
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In an engaging but ultimately unpersuasive essay on Minding The Campus (“Affirmative Action, the Bishops and Women’s Colleges”), Jonathan B. Imber, a sociologist at Wellesley College, argues that the dispensation given to private women’s colleges to discriminate against men provides a model that would allow Catholic institutions to protect their religious values from public encroachment […]
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The Boston Globe has a long article revealing in excruciating detail the extent of Harvard’s publicizing of Elizabeth Warren’s self-identified Cherokeness, as well as her lame claim that she was oblivious to the use and usefulness of her alleged ethnicity to her employer. The article reveals one delicious new item, namely that “[t]he administrator responsible […]
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Here’s something to think about when debating the position of the Catholic bishops on religious liberty and contraception: all-women colleges are allowed under Federal law to discriminate against men in admissions, at least on the undergraduate level. Because they are private, these colleges are free under the law to design their mission (the education of […]
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Alienation between the military and the society it serves has grown in recent decades. There are several reasons, including the advent of the All Volunteer Force and the relative abandonment of military service by the upper and upper-middle classes (the so-called AWOL of the elites). Other factors are the military’s redistribution of resources for ROTC […]
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To hear politicians tell it, the college diploma is the guaranteed gateway to middle-class life, so everybody should probably go to college. The argument seems self-evident–over a lifetime, college graduates far out-earn those without a degree ($2.1 million, supposedly), so go to college, live the American Dream. Unfortunately, as many recent college graduates have discovered, […]
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Almost everybody famous, inventive, erudite, or eccentric has spoken at some time or other at the great TED conference (Technology, Entertainment, Design)–make that TED conferences, once held only in Monterery, now in Long Beach and Palm Springs, and various sites in Europe and Asia. Now a controversy has broken out over a 6-minute talk delivered […]
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Enthusiastically aided by Academia, the late 20th century saw such English Lit stalwarts as Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens and the Lake Poets dismissed as passé. In their place came the likes of Alice Walker, Rigoberta Menchu and Amy Tan, some talented, others fraudulent, but all with impeccable credentials: they were neither dead nor […]
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By Charlotte Allen and George Leef This article was prepared by Minding the Campus and the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy. A new movement is rising on American campuses, timed perfectly to feed the frenzy over the income gap that is Occupy Wall Street’s main complaint. But this movement […]
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Troubles continue to mount for the black studies program at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Three weeks ago an internal review of the program showed 54 phantom courses over three years–classes that had never actually been taught. Last week, the Pope Center’s Jane Shaw reported that the university had asked “the North Carolina State Bureau of […]
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On May 18, both the Chronicle of Higher Education (here) and Inside Higher Ed (here) discussed a new report from the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education arguing that student debt has a disparate impact on Latinos.
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Posted by Carl L. Bankston III From the site ‘Can These Bones Live’ Now that commencement season is here, I’m reminded of some of my favorite quotations on the handing out of credentials. I think of science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, who once announced, “I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries […]
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It is no secret that what passes for an education at most of the nation’s colleges and universities is suspiciously akin to indoctrination. An asterisk: With the exception of a few areas–specifically, climate and the environment, certain fields within biology and medicine, history of science and the interaction between science and public policy–the rot that […]
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The Washington Post and the president of Georgetown University have defended the appearance of Kathleen Sebelius at a commencement ceremony on the grounds of basic academic mission. The Post cited “the proper role of a university and the importance of vigorous, open debate, even–or perhaps especially–involving matters of intense controversy and religious disagreement.” In his […]
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The recent flap over Elizabeth Warren’s claimed Cherokeeness has both raised and obscured a question at the core of debates over affirmative action: just who should receive the preferential treatment it bestows? The standard answer to that question preferred by those who support the current regime of racial preference is “underrepresented minority,” or URM, a […]
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When Victor Hugo claimed that all the world’s armies are powerless against an idea whose time has come, he probably had in mind good ideas. But the time can come for a bad idea also. Low-cost student loans, embraced by President Obama, Governor Romney, and Congressional leaders of both parties, is a bad idea. Students […]
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(from City Journal, summer 1998) Like many people, I can deliver a competent public speech without much fuss. But a commencement address is different. I can’t recall stewing about a speech as much as I did before donning academic garb and talking at the St. John’s College graduation in Santa Fe on May 17. After […]
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(reprinted from Joe Asch’s Dartblog) While the College takes pride in extending generous financial aid to 57.4% of the student body, the other 42.6% pays full whack. That’s an amazing thing when you think about it. The average American family income is $49,445, yet a great many Dartmouth families can pull together $62,125 (according to […]
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A central mantra of the PSC–the City University of New York’s hapless faculty union–is a complaint about defunding CUNY, as part of an alleged plot (by whom and for what reason we never learn) to “defund” public higher education. Yet over the past several months, the most aggressive advocates of “defunding” CUNY have been none […]
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A central mantra of the PSC–the City University of New York’s hapless faculty union–is a complaint about defunding CUNY, as part of an alleged plot (by whom and for what reason we never learn) to “defund” public higher education. Yet over the past several months, the most aggressive advocates of “defunding” CUNY have been none […]
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Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, is scheduled to speak Friday at a Georgetown University commencement event, setting off protests among Catholics and others who believe the Obamacare mandate violates religious liberty. So far, some 25,000 people have signed petitions asking for the invitation to be withdrawn. On campus, the reaction seems more […]
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