Year: 2025

Resistance to Trump’s Orders Sows Doubt About Reform

Author’s Note: This excerpt is from my weekly “Top of Mind” email, sent to subscribers every Thursday. For more content like this and to receive the full newsletter each week, sign up on Minding the Campus’s homepage. Simply go to the right side of the page, look for “SIGN UP FOR OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER, ‘TOP OF MIND,’” and […]

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Secularism: Understanding Its Origins and Meaning

Editor’s Note: The following was originally published by the Observatory of University Ethics on November 8, 2023. It was translated from French into English by the Observatory and later edited to align with Minding the Campus’s style guidelines. It is republished here with permission. For translation assistance, I used ChatGPT. Secularism? A difficult term to […]

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Artificial Intelligence, the Academy, And A New ‘Studia Humanitatis’

The surprise on the faces of the doctoral students was as palpable as was the disbelief upon hearing the methodological equivalent of heresy spoken in a classroom. When giving a talk to grad students a year ago at the University of California, Riverside about careers beyond the university, I challenged an orthodoxy that is daily […]

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DEI Courses Consume 40 Million Hours of Undergraduate Instruction

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by the College Fix on February 4, 2025. With edits to match MTC’s style guidelines, it is cross-posted here with permission.  “Diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) course requirements in at least 30 states cost students and taxpayers at least $1.8 billion per four-year period. Meanwhile, “the current undergraduate population at public […]

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State Laws Ignored: Counseling Accreditation and How to Demand Reform Now!

Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt of an article originally published on the author’s Substack Diogenes In Exile on December 2, 2024. With edits to fit MTC’s style, it is crossposted here with permission. Under what circumstance would it be acceptable for accreditors to knowingly require a standard that flouts state law? The idea is worth consideration […]

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Oversight Still Fails—NSF Director’s Alleged Plagiarism Still Not Investigated

My recent article on Minding the Campus examined a paper by National Science Foundation (NSF) director Sethuraman Panchanathan, published by the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). ACM refused to investigate Panchanathan’s uncited copying from a paper published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The PubPeer website reported that Panchanathan wrote an October […]

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The Use and Misuse of AI in Higher Education Writing Courses

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the latest major development in the field of education, and it has the potential to either improve educational quality or significantly devalue it. It all depends on how it is used. In composition courses, using AI to produce outlines, take notes, or write, revise, or translate student writing undermines learning by […]

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Dr. Bhattacharya Should Model the Virtues He Seeks

I have just read your endorsement of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to be the head of the National Institute of Health (NIH). While I agree with much of the editorial, I would like to express some concerns, commenting as a long-time teacher of philosophy of science, a private citizen who is eager for the scientific enterprise to thrive, and a long-time supporter of the National […]

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American Thinkers Must Mind the Campus

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by American Thinker on February 3, 2025. With edits to match MTC’s style guidelines, it is cross-posted here with permission.  America’s thinkers should keep colleges and universities on their radar—they’re actively undermining the nation. Over 400,000 illegal migrants are enrolled in U.S. higher education institutions, many receiving benefits unavailable to […]

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Deporting Radicalism: Trump’s Crackdown on Anti-Israel Campus Protests

On February 1, reports emerged that Liu Lijun, a Chinese national studying at the University of California, Los Angeles, is facing deportation after participating in anti-Israel protests on campus. Liu’s case marks one of the first applications of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on January 29. This order targets—among other things—foreign students […]

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The Problem with Conflict of Interest

Of late, scholarly journals and law reviews are now asking would-be authors to fill out a conflict of interest form. What is going on here? What is a conflict of interest? Perhaps the clearest conflict of interest in such academic publications is a chemist writing an article exonerating a pharmaceutical company from charges of malfeasance […]

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Censorship in U.S. School Libraries: What Now for the Bible?

Editor’s Note: The following is an article originally published by the Observatory of University Ethics on June 29, 2023. It was translated into English from French by the Observatory before being edited to align with Minding the Campus’s style guidelines. It is crossposted here with permission. The American and international media have recently echoed a […]

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Back to Stick Figures: How Woke Warriors Destroyed Anthropology

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Reality’s Last Stand on January 16, 2025. With edits to match MTC’s style guidelines, it is cross-posted here with permission.  Biological anthropology and archaeology are facing a censorship crisis. Censorship can be defined simply as the suppression of speech, public communication, or information, often because it is deemed […]

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Federal Funding Shouldn’t Be Going to Woke University Programs

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by the City Journal on January 28, 2025. With edits to match MTC’s style guidelines, it is cross-posted here with permission.  At a June 2024 teacher workshop put together by the African Studies Association Outreach Council, which “promotes the teaching of Africa in K-16 classrooms,” one presenter told attendees that […]

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A New ‘Ellis Island’: U.S. Colleges and Universities Defy Immigration Enforcement

As the Trump administration battles to secure the southern border and undo Biden’s reckless dereliction of duty—which allowed 10 million illegal migrants into the country—colleges and universities are doing everything they can to make immigration enforcement a nightmare. Instead of helping address this crisis, they’re actively obstructing federal agents, blatantly disregarding the rule of law […]

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The Passion Project Industry: How College Admissions Activities Lists Killed Intellectual Wonder

“Do you help with the passion project?” Every so often, I’ll hop on a sales call with an inbound client at my college consulting company, Invictus Prep. Nervous parents, many of them immigrants and newcomers to the American college admissions process, will come prepared with a score of questions about how we propose to help […]

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Rebellion by Habit: How Massachusetts Made Liberty Stick

America survived those crucial months because we had self-government as well as liberty. The Second Massachusetts Provincial Congress assembled on February 1, 1775. The Second Congress would select Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Hancock, Thomas Cushing, and Robert Treat Paine to serve as delegates to the Continental Congress. It authorized a Committee of Safety—among other […]

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Accreditation-Reform Hopes for the Second Trump Administration

Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from an article originally published by The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal on January 31, 2025. With edits to match Minding the Campus’s style guidelines, it is crossposted here with permission. Higher education seemingly played an important, if largely negative, role in the recent presidential election. Exit polls showed […]

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How Did AI Get So Biased in Favor of the Left?

Usage of artificial intelligence (AI) models is rapidly spreading in education. Students use them to help with their coursework, and teachers and faculty use them to help with lesson plans and research. To the extent that these models can act as a tutor for students or an assistant for teachers and faculty, they can be […]

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Ibram Kendi to Shut Down Functionally Inactive ‘Antiracist’ Center and Move to Howard

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by the College Fix on January 31, 2025. With edits to match MTC’s style guidelines, it is cross-posted here with permission.  Professor Ibram Kendi and Boston University will shut down the Center for Antiracist Research on June 30 as the “antiracism” proponent moves to Howard University. Kendi will start a similar […]

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MSU Brushed Ed School Dean’s Plagiarism Under the Rug

Aaron Sibarium at the Washington Free Beacon reports that Michigan State University (MSU) has swept aside charges that the dean of its College of Education, Jerlando Jackson, is a serial plagiarist. MSU’s actions appear to fall short of a formal exoneration, but the university’s student newspaper, State News, quotes a letter from the MSU president, […]

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Libraries: The Quiet DEI Indoctrinators

The “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) ideology that has captured professors and administrators at most American universities has generated considerable discussion. But relatively untouched is the embrace of DEI by college and university librarians—and its implications. DEI ideologues’ quiet infiltration of university libraries distorts the literature that faculty and students read. This subtle and slow-acting […]

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Western Civilization May Not Survive—But Must Be Defended

Editor’s Note: The following piece builds on the reflections of civilizational decline outlined in Peter Wood’s “Death Wish,” in which he argues that Western civilization is in decline, primarily due to internal cultural decay. Various signs of this decay include moral confusion, widespread violence, lawlessness, and the erosion of traditional values. According to Wood, the […]

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SAVING CORNELL: An Open Letter on the 2025 Cornell Alumni Trustee Elections

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by the College Fix on January 29, 2025. It is cross-posted here with permission.  Dear Cornell Alumni, While Cornell University declared 2024 as its Celebration Year for Free Speech, 2024 was also the year that the Cornell Administration planned the complete muzzling of all debate about university policies in its Alumni Trustee […]

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Shakeups A’Coming

Author’s Note: This excerpt is from my weekly “Top of Mind” email, sent to subscribers every Thursday. For more content like this and to receive the full newsletter each week, sign up on Minding the Campus’s homepage. Simply go to the right side of the page, look for “SIGN UP FOR OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER, ‘TOP OF MIND,’” and […]

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Cornell’s Ban on Campaigning Undermines Free Speech

Cornell University’s rules for trustee elections include a startling provision: candidates are prohibited from campaigning. This isn’t a narrow restriction on certain campaign activities. It’s a comprehensive ban on virtually all communication about one’s candidacy. These restrictions seem particularly out of place at an institution that declared 2023-24 its “Year of Free Expression.” The disconnect between […]

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Let’s Hear It From the Faculty

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal on January 29, 2025. With edits to match Minding the Campus’s style guidelines, it is crossposted here with permission. Like many readers of this site, I pay a lot of attention to stories about the latest outrages on our college campuses. All […]

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Equal Protection, Racial Preferences, and Professional Military Judgment: What the Judge in SFFA v. USNA Got Wrong

Racially Discriminatory Admissions Prohibited When the Supreme Court in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U. S. 181 (2023) (“Harvard”), declared the use of racial preferences in the admissions programs of Harvard and the University of North Carolina unconstitutional, colleges and universities, which were not parties to the […]

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Lowering the Bar Isn’t Equity—All Students Deserve High Standards

Editor’s Note: The following is an article originally published by the Observatory of University Ethics on March 22, 2022. It was translated into English from French by the Observatory before being edited to align with Minding the Campus’s style guidelines. It is crossposted here with permission. “Why is it written like that?” All teachers know that children ask […]

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America Needs New Science Standards

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by RealClear Education on January 27, 2025. With edits to match Minding the Campus’s style guidelines, it is crossposted here with permission. America needs new science standards. That’s why the National Association of Scholars and Freedom in Education published The Franklin Standards: Model K-12 State Science Standards. These standards are […]

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