The average student-loan debt is approaching $30,000. That is to say, of the 70 percent of college students who borrow to pay all or some of their college expenses, the average student left college about $28,400 in the hole in 2013, according to USNews. This alarming number has triggered a spate of news stories about […]
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My experience at Ohio University offered me a first-hand glimpse into the mindset of anti-due process activists, and the subsequent media coverage has indicated a troubling willingness for misdirection. Austin Linfante, a reporter for the OU campus news site New Political, noted that the protesters furiously tweeted how the talk doubted that “the justice system […]
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I recently reported on a clear incident of discrimination against a Jewish UCLA student for her ties to Jewish organizations on campus. Readers who follow this issue will be familiar with other recent cases in which the allegedly progressive movement to boycott Israel has flirted with anti-Semitism. Until now, though, we haven’t had much data […]
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CEI A task force of college presidents has chronicled massive regulatory overreaching by the U.S. Department of Education, which, on a daily basis, floods the nation’s schools with new, uncodified agency requirements that have never even been vetted through the formal rule-making process. “The Report of the Task Force on Federal Regulation of Higher Education: […]
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Thanks to an invitation from the George Washington Forum, I had the opportunity last week to speak at Ohio University on due process and campus sexual assault. I made two primary arguments: first (citing how Duke responded to the lacrosse case), I challenged the idea that universities are somehow biased against sexual assault accusers, much […]
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Members of Wesleyan’s Delta Kappa Epsilon chapter are suing the school for discrimination after being forced to accept women in order to remain on campus. For the record, the university has an array of other residential houses and halls, none of which, it seems, is required to accept students of other genders, sexual orientations, races, […]
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It’s mistake to conclude that “where you go to college is of almost no importance.” Even if they don’t offer the royal road to intellectual or professional success, elite colleges provide opportunities and resources that are tough to find elsewhere. And that’s one of the dilemmas of American higher education. An Ivy League diploma isn’t just […]
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In a recent edition of The Tiger, Clemson University’s official student newspaper, 110 faculty and staff members published a petition endorsing seven “demands” of the “Coalition of Concerned Students.” Demands 2-7 call for Clemson officials to construct a multicultural center, provide more funding for “under-represented student groups,” increase affirmative action hiring, rename “offensively named buildings,” […]
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The headline is unusually blunt: ‘Is the New York Times Smearing Jameis Winston?,’ a reference to the Heisman-winning quarterback of Florida State, who has been accused of rape, a case discussed in 40 New York Times articles. Stuart Taylor, Jr., author of the blunt article today on Real Clear Sports, is an attorney and veteran […]
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Simple Justice When I read Omar Mahmood’s parody, Do The Left Thing, I was rolling on the floor. The kid is good. I mean, he has it. Oh sure, no doubt he was going to rile up all the folks who bleed with every papercut, but that’s the point of satire. Piss them off. Make […]
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Congress recently approved a bill to fund the government for the remainder of the fiscal year. It cuts Pell Grant funding 1.3%, from $22.8 to $22.5 billion. This reduction in the needs-based grant program will be reallocated to student loan service providers such as Navient and Nelnet, a move orchestrated by outgoing Senator Tom Harkin. […]
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At the Washington Wizards-Brooklyn Nets game Saturday night, a Net player, in pursuit of a loose ball, careened into a waitress on the sidelines who was carrying a tray full of beers. The clip of the sudsy disaster went viral, and curious minds wanted to know more about the drenched victim. As it turns out, […]
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My recent article in The Daily Beast exploring previously unknown details of Columbia’s high-profile “mattress girl” rape case—including the fact that alleged victim Emma Sulkowicz continued to have chatty and playful Facebook exchanges with alleged rapist Paul Nungesser for weeks after she says he brutally violated her and choked her within an inch of her […]
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At Salon Magazine, Bill Moyers has an essay penned in direct response to criticism of Barack Obama for his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast. People have assailed Obama for his scolding tone, bad timing , poor history, and moral equivocation. And here is Bill Moyers expanding President Obama’s point, an opinion piece entitled: “When […]
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Yale runs one of the strangest systems of handling sexual assault (“economic abuse” has been counted as a sexual attack, and proceedings can start without the alleged victim’s consent) so its semiannual reports on the subject are well worth studying. I’ve analyzed each of the previous six, all done as part of a settlement with […]
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Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker just made an unforced error. He proposed—then backed away from—a change in the mission statement for the University of Wisconsin. I admire Walker and view him as among the more attractive candidates for the Republican nomination. And in that spirit, I’d like to offer him some friendly advice on a potentially […]
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Swarthmore is again in the news over campus speech. Just yesterday, Hussein Aboubakr, an Egyptian political refugee who’s written about anti-Semitism among Egyptian Muslims, spoke at an event sponsored by Swarthmore’s pro-Israel groups. According to Swarthmore’s Students for Israel, some of the students who attended the event came only to scoff: “As [Aboubakr] tearfully recalled […]
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Cathy Young’s must-read piece on the Columbia case made famous by accuser Emma Sulkowicz triggered a furious backlash, including a twitter hashtag campaign and a Mic article that cast aspersions without challenging a single fact that Young presented. Three elements of the reaction to the article deserve further comment. First, victims’ rights advocates have dismissed […]
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As expected, anti-Israel activist and purported American Indian Studies expert Steven Salaita has filed a lawsuit against the University of Illinois. My take on the merits of Salaita’s case remains essentially the same: (1) FIRE is absolutely correct in the chilling effects of Illinois’ “civility” standard; and (2) the Salaita case is most comparable to […]
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Wisconsin governor Scott Walker made headlines last week by demanding that academics work harder. In response to criticism of his proposal to cut $300 million from the University of Wisconsin system while giving it more autonomy from the state, Walker contended that faculty could help make up the shortfall by teaching extra classes. Professors have […]
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KC Johnson and Adam Kissel have written insightfully about the case of Steven Salaita for MTC. Briefly, this August the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign withdrew its offer to Salaita of a tenured position in American Indian Studies. The offer was withdrawn after Chancellor Phyllis Wise and the Board of Trustees became aware of […]
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A recent Inside Higher Ed story documented an alarming trend in the English departments at University of Maryland, George Mason University, and Florida State University. The numbers of English majors there have plummeted in the last few years. Maryland lost 88 majors in 2012, 79 majors the next year, and 128 majors 12 months later, the story […]
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