Few universities are less well-suited to adjudicate sexual assault cases than Duke. The university’s president and judicial affairs staff remains the same as 2006-2007, when their egregious mishandling of events in the lacrosse case resulted in an approximately $6.7 million legal settlement with each of the three falsely accused players. The hostility to due process […]
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Number One finding in the annual survey of Harvard seniors: about 60 percent of African-Americans and more than 40 percent of Latino and Asian-American students have felt marginalized because of their race while at Harvard. “Marginalized,” an invitation to aggrievement, is now a mainstream college term, raising the question, “How marginalized can you be if […]
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The National Center for Higher Education Risk Management, whose stated purpose is advising colleges on how to avoid legal liability, has earned a reputation as a foe of campus due process, especially on matters related to sexual assault. (In 2011, after FIRE criticized the “Dear Colleague” letter, NCHERM president Brett Sokolow responded, “FIRE is sticking […]
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By James Piereson and Naomi Schaefer Riley When Thomas and Lorraine Pangle, married professors of government at the University of Texas at Austin, launched a great books program for freshman this year, they expected a demand, but they weren’t prepared for just how strong it would be. With 80 slots available, the scholars program of […]
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It’s common knowledge that the humanities are in trouble. To that end, one would expect that the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), a federation of 72 scholarly organizations, would offer a strong and constructive critique of the status quo. However, at its recent panel entitled “The Public Face of the Humanities,” the ACLS’s panelists […]
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5/20: Admiral William H. McRaven at the University of Texas, Austin
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Liberals have been complaining loudly about two recent Supreme Court decisions, Schuette, which ruled that Michigan’s constitutional amendment prohibiting preferential treatment based on race does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, and Town of Greece v. Galloway, holding that, in the absence of any intent to discriminate or exclude, a town board opening its sessions with prayers […]
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Over the past year, I’ve been invited to speak at over 150 college campuses around the U.S. about my experiences as a commander in the Israeli Defense Forces. I’ve spoken at the University of Washington, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Georgetown, NYU, Columbia, Swarthmore, and many more. I looked forward to meeting and talking with students who […]
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Colleges and universities almost certainly face a deluge of lawsuits from accused males over the mishandling of sexual misconduct hearings. Columbia and Drew, for instance, have joined the ranks of universities sued by male students claiming that unfair processes led to disciplinary action against them. At first blush, the Drew case involves a typical […]
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Despite growing concern over the rights of accused parties in campus sexual assault hearings, the mainstream press has largely ignored these worries. Our friends at SAVE (Stop Abusive and Violent Environments) have compiled a helpful list of the many writers who have called out the denial of due process on our campuses. Unsurprisingly, a good number of the pieces originally […]
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Six million fifty seven thousand six hundred and fifteen dollars. That’s how much American’s highest paid public university president, E. Gordon Gee, made in his final year at the helm of Ohio State University. Gee was most certainly an effective and reform-minded leader. And, in fairness, his 2012-13 pay was especially high, as it included millions in deferred compensation as […]
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Why is New York University giving a sweetheart deal on an apartment in Manhattan’s hottest neighborhood to a professor from Harvard? Henry L. Gates, known to friends and colleagues as “Skip,” is an academic superstar, a leading intellectual in the realm of African-American studies, a noted critic and author and a sometime TV personality. Gates […]
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The sad debate over “white privilege” education sessions on elite campuses has reached its low point with a comment in a New York Magazine article by a Harvard student Reetu Mody, a graduate student in public policy and “campus activist.” Mentioning Princeton student Tal Fortgang’s protest against these privilege-consciousness-raising programs, the article continues: “Mody has […]
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Controversy over one of the worst college hearings on sexual misconduct is moving right along. Vassar has requested summary judgment in the lawsuit of former student Peter Yu; last week, Yu’s attorneys filed a motion opposing Vassar’s request. The filing should get wide reading; in light of the administration’s efforts to ensure that more male students share […]
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Reaction is beginning to set in against the campus trend of letting angry protesters act to remove commencement speakers they don’t like. In one of the three graduation speeches at Haverford College yesterday, former Princeton President William G. Bowen criticized both Robert Birgeneau for withdrawing as a commencement honoree, and the activist students and professors who pressured Birgeneau to withdraw. Bowen called the […]
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May a public university manipulate a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request of a faculty member in an effort to squelch the politically incorrect side in the on-going climate wars? The University of Delaware, which has a long, sorry history of political correctness, seems to think that it may–even if its actions violate the faculty member’s […]
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The personal statement is a fixture of the college admissions process. In a distinctively American ritual, prospective undergraduates at selective colleges and universities spends weeks or even months crafting roughly 250-500 word responses to broadly worded questions about their character, circumstances, and aspirations. The following prompt from the 2014/15 Common Application is typical: “Some students have a […]
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A federal judge has permitted a second denial-of-due process suit against a university to proceed. First it was Xavier–after which the university quickly settled with Dez Wells. Now it’s St. Joe’s, where district court judge Felipe Restrepo (an Obama appointee) has issued a ruling that narrowed the lawsuit filed by Brian Harris, but has allowed […]
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What is the purpose of higher education? You can find seven philosophies of education in today’s conversations and arguments. The list isn’t exhaustive and there is, of course, some truth to each. 1. Aristocratic Platonism argues that leisurely contemplation is for the few and work is for the many. The few live outside the “cave,” while the […]
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Stanford University’s board of trustees has voted to divest from the university’s $18.7 billion endowment all of its holdings in coal-based energy companies. The university, which is private, has not disclosed what holdings these are, their market value, or the likely cost to the institution in foregone growth of its portfolio. The significance of the […]
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Two different items in the last week in the New York Times provide a reminder of why the struggle for due process on campus has such difficulty penetrating the media. The first example came in the latest from Richard Pérez-Peña, who while ostensibly a hard news reporter for the newspaper seems to envision his role as a cheerleader for […]
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“Disinvitation season” keeps on rolling: this time, Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, has withdrawn as the commencement speaker at Smith College. The IMF is one of the world’s most important international agencies, and Lagarde is the first woman to lead it. But achievement is not enough for Smith students, who demand intellectual conformity as well: a petition asking […]
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Universities have two contradictory traditions: one of searching for truth and, alongside it, one of mindless, self-righteous protests. The Rutgers University protests against giving Condoleezza Rice an honorary degree at the 2014 Commencement belongs to the second tradition. Having served on the Rutgers faculty from 1951 to 2003, I know that this demonstration was not […]
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Out of North Carolina come some disturbing new details about a death on the campus of High Point University. In March 2012, Robert Eugene Tipton, Jr., a student at the school, died while in the company of several brothers of his Delta Sigma Phi fraternity. Tipton’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit which claims […]
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As “rape culture” activism heats up, reporters are demonstrating a startling credulity on the subject. One case in point is the Chronicle of Higher Education‘s recent investigation of Title IX complaints from 2003 to 2013. The piece, entitled “Promise Unfulfilled?,” illustrates the faulty assumptions driving many journalists who cover campus sexual assault . The nearly 3000-word article, by Jonah […]
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The questionable assumptions of campus “rape culture” activists are finally receiving mainstream attention. In National Review, Heather Mac Donald noted the irony behind campus hearings on sexual assault: The campus sexual-assault tribunal also has a performative aspect: It dramatizes the patriarchy before a sympathetic audience of adults. “Our task is to give voice to the […]
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“Honor” sounds quaint to modern ears. When I teach the Declaration of Independence, I find that students often struggle to understand why its signers committed “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor” to the cause of liberty. Raised to regard health and wealth as the highest goods, they cannot easily imagine why dishonor might […]
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Most everyone agrees that tenure is in trouble. At many schools, adjunct and non-tenure-track faculty make up a majority of college teachers, and in plenty of departments they teach the majority of classes. Writers are calling into question the value of tenure, alleging that it protects research-focused and even incompetent professors to the detriment of […]
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Employers tend to complain that the graduates of American universities are skilled in solving particular problems but “often miss the big picture.” This complaint rings true for colleges graduates in general these days, but it’s an even larger issue for M.B.A. students, who hope to ultimately ascend to leadership positions in a wide array of businesses. […]
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A recent bombshell article by National Review‘s Kevin D. Williamson may elevate the impeachment proceedings against University of Texas Regent Wallace Hall to a national issue. “There is something rotten in the state of Texas,” argues Williamson in his essay, “Lone Star Lunacy“. “A regent [Wallace Hall] exposes wrongdoing at the University of Texas and […]
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