The thesis of my 2008 book, The Dumbest Generation, was that digital tools and media have become so prominent in teens’ and 20-somethings’ thoughts and acts that their intellectual and civic capacities are bound to deteriorate. While devices and social networks allow the possibility of intellectual and civic engagement, I argued, they mean something else entirely […]
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The latest due process lawsuit comes against a highly vulnerable target: Occidental. Occidental is the California college whose rules allow branding a male student a rapist even if his female partner says “yes” to sexual intercourse. Moreover, the school includes what seems to be a disproportionate number of anti-due process “activists,” professors inclined toward delusional claims against their […]
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In his new book, Philology: The Forgotten Origins of the Modern Humanities, James Turner has written a rich intellectual history of what many American scholars would describe as the long lost art and science of philology. A rebirth of philology is also long overdue, says Turner, who is the Cavanaugh Professor of Humanities at the University of Notre […]
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A federal district court in Ohio made an interesting ruling Wednesday in a lawsuit filed against Case Western Medical School by a student who had not reported his DWI arrest to school administraators. The issue was somewhat afield from the current debates about due process in higher education, but the reasoning of Judge James Gwin, […]
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Before going bungee jumping, you sign a hefty waiver that you understand that death and other serious consequences may result. Before every movie preview is a rating to give audiences an idea of how much sex and violence they will see. Many books are also dangerous, raunchy, scary. Some literary characters even hold offensive points […]
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Representative Alan Grayson, a Democrat from Florida’s 9th District has introduced H.R. 4776, “to prohibit an institution of higher education that participates in a boycott of the Israeli government, economy, or academia from receiving funds from the U.S. federal government.” The text of the bill is not yet available, but it is not too early to say that Grayson’s […]
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The New School prides itself as an epicenter of progressivism, so it’s fitting that its 31st annual Social Research conference focused on a beloved progressive cause: sustainability. Sustainability pairs environmentalism with social activism. It takes aim at the free market, which it holds responsible for destroying the environment. It also takes aim at traditional social structures (especially “the patriarchy”) […]
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We noticed no reporting in the New York Times on Michael Bloomberg’s notable commencement address at Harvard. Google couldn’t find any Times coverage either. Very strange. Bloomberg had been mayor of the Times’ home city for twelve years and except for the nannyism over big sodas and his clear support for stop-and-frisk, he has been […]
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Tim Groseclose’s new book, Cheating: An Insider’s Report on the Use of Race in Admissions at UCLA, is a masterful expose of the lying and deception UCLA officials employ to evade Prop. 209’s prohibition of racial preferences in admissions. In his otherwise positive review, Russell Nieli expresses disappointment that Groseclose’s criticism of UCLA’s continuing and […]
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The Obama administration’s Task Force recently contained a jarring recommendation to minimize the minimal due process protections that accused students on campus possess. Some schools, the report noted, “are adopting different variations on the ‘single investigator’ model, where a trained investigator or investigators interview the complainant and alleged perpetrator, gather any physical evidence, interview available […]
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Cross-posted from FIRE Colleges are in an increasingly untenable position when it comes to the sexual autonomy of their students, and the house of cards is going to come crashing down sooner or later. Last week, the California State Senate approved SB 967, a bill that would require colleges receiving state-funded student aid to use […]
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Not all experts think expertly. Consider Clayton M. Christensen, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. Christensen, as his web site informs us, “is the architect of and the world’s foremost authority on disruptive innovation.” Last year, he predicted that hundreds of colleges and universities would go bankrupt within the next ten years. One can’t rule it out, but Christensen’s reasoning does not inspire confidence. […]
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As critics have noted for years, the affirmative action regime in America inevitably requires deception and untruthfulness from its operatives. In his new book, Cheating: An Insider’s Report on the Use of Race in Admissions at UCLA, Tim Groseclose gives us a rare glimpse into the covert racial preferences given at UCLA, where he is […]
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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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