Many, if not most, students attend university intending to enter the workforce upon graduation. But today’s climate of student-centered policies and social justice rhetoric often does the opposite. While much attention has been given to the harms of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) initiatives, the rapid expansion of academic accommodations remains underexamined. Originally intended to […]
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The flurry of activity out of the Trump Administration is getting most of the news commentary these days, but much of higher education is still largely under partial control by state government authorities. Some attention has been on big states like Florida and Texas that have created new research centers not controlled by the woke-academic […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Docement Productions on January 10. 2025. With edits to match Minding the Campus’s style guidelines, it is crossposted here with permission. Can Western civilization survive? One wonders. It is mostly the small things that fuel the disquiet. An illegal immigrant sets a woman on the F train […]
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I’ve been a donor to FIRE since 2007, but I’m no longer convinced by its diagnosis or treatment plan for the dire illness afflicting U.S. higher education. The diagnosis attributes the malady to (1) overprotective parenting and (2) teenage addiction to smartphones and social media, which have produced a generation of anxious, depressed, and fragile […]
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The NCAA transfer portal, originally intended to provide athletes with greater freedom, has evolved into a chaotic free agency system with significant consequences for academics and team dynamics. While the portal empowers athletes to escape unfavorable situations or seek better opportunities, it often undermines their educational progress. Many student-athletes struggle with credit transfers, delayed graduations, […]
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America’s legacy elite colleges continue to lose reputation in the public eye. Today’s example is Sarah Lawrence College, where intolerance for heterodoxy is part of the culture. Fortunately, civil rights have been vindicated, if only in a small way, at the college. The story begins in October 2018, when professor Samuel Abrams described the college […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by the College Fix on November 8, 2024. With edits to match Minding the Campus’s style guidelines, it is crossposted here with permission. President Donald Trump has a second chance to enforce a little-known federal law that will treat legal American citizens as equal to illegal migrants. The “Illegal Immigration Reform and […]
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Author’s Note: This excerpt is from my weekly Top of Mind email, sent to subscribers every Thursday. To receive the full newsletter and access more content like this, visit Minding the Campus’s homepage. Simply navigate to the right-hand side of the page, find the section titled “Sign Up for Our Weekly Newsletter, Top of Mind,” […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by the Observatory of University Ethics on May 11, 2024. It was translated into English by the Observatory before being edited to align with Minding the Campus’s style guidelines. It is crossposted here with permission. Recently, the end-of-year medical exam at Sorbonne Paris Nord University was the subject of a lively […]
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Republicans have their best opportunity in decades to significantly reform or even eliminate government involvement in student loans. As I explain in a new Cato Institute paper, doing so could generate up to $212 billion in savings over the next ten years. But Congress needs to act quickly as the window of opportunity will close […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by the Observatory of University Ethics on November 3, 2024. It was translated into English by the Observatory before being edited to align with Minding the Campus’s style guidelines. It is crossposted here with permission. Academic freedom requires that we be free to choose our research topics, but like any freedom, […]
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A blog post recently appeared in my inbox from Frances Lee, the new interfaith chaplain at Sarah Lawrence College, reflecting on the challenges of the fall 2024 semester. That term was marked by violent protests and disruptions led by Students for Justice in Palestine and their allies—events that gained national attention. As a Jewish professor […]
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When I was a business executive and CEO in the transportation and technology sector, we used a concept called “lean thinking.” This concept is a manufacturing philosophy developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Professor Jim Womack, who has been called the “Godfather of Lean,” a nickname that stemmed from his work as a consultant […]
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College football has always been more than just a sport—it’s a cultural institution rooted in tradition and regional pride. Yet, the sport has undergone a profound transformation, as illustrated by the changes to the College Football Playoff (CFP) and bowl structures. The introduction of a 12-team playoff system signals a departure from the longstanding norms […]
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Should biological males be allowed to compete against women in college sports? The most obvious answer to that question is no. Not if we want a competitive contest. The strongest Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) team would likely not come within 50 points of the weakest National Basketball Association (NBA) squad in a game of […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by the Observatory of University Ethics on December 3, 2024. It was translated into English by the Observatory before being edited to align with Minding the Campus’s style guidelines. It is crossposted here with permission. Our fellow philosopher and contributor to this site, Alexandre Portier, Minister Delegate for Educational Success in […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by the College Fix on January 21, 2025. With edits to match Minding the Campus’s style guidelines, it is crossposted here with permission. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology still requires a diversity, equity and inclusion essay for some students despite banning DEI faculty statements last spring. The requirement by MIT’s Sloan School […]
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I have taught non-native English-speaking students and trained teachers to serve these students in various settings for the past 45 years. I believe immigrants enrich our nation, and that is one reason why I went into the field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). Over the years, I have co-sponsored a refugee […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by PJ Media on December 29, 2024. With edits to match Minding the Campus’s style guidelines, it is crossposted here with permission. The foundational idea of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is the Marxist theory that all humanity is divided between oppressors and victims. This class conflict can be […]
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Our nation’s political and business leaders spend the crucial years between adolescent dependency and adulthood preparing for the rest of their lives, and colleges and universities are typically an important part of their preparation for leadership. While in college, students learn how to navigate independence from parents, gain leadership skills, acquire important vocationally relevant knowledge, […]
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On Wednesday, January 15, President Joseph Biden gave his farewell address to the nation. In it he claimed success on a variety of policy matters and also warned of dangers that face the nation in coming years. The National Association of Scholars stands in circumspect silence towards this speech. We note that many observers expressed […]
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With the elections in November giving Republicans small majorities in the House and Senate, there is considerable attention on potential reconciliation bills with pros and cons relative to regular legislation for the new Republican majorities. On the bright side, reconciliation bills cannot be filibustered, which means that they only need 51 votes rather than the […]
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Rivalry Week in college football is known for thrilling matchups and heightened emotions, but it also brought an alarming pattern of conflicts at the end of last year’s season. On November 30, 2024, three separate flag-planting incidents sparked on-field fights, some more severe than others. From the University of Florida vs. Florida State flag-planting incident to the […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by the Observatory of University Ethics on August 1, 2024. It was translated into English by the Observatory before being edited to align with Minding the Campus’s style guidelines. It is crossposted here with permission. There is a lot of talk these days about “academic freedom,” but it is mostly to […]
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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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“Like a mutating virus, racism shape-shifts in order to stay alive; when its explicit expression becomes taboo, it hides in coded language.” — Kathy Waldman In 2024, several states, including Idaho, Utah, Iowa, North Dakota, and Arizona, passed laws prohibiting public universities from using “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) statements as part of the hiring process. […]
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When the FBI learned of the extent to which James “Whitey” Bulger had subverted their Boston Field Office, their response was to clean it out, replacing absolutely everyone in it. Even those who hadn’t done anything wrong were given the choice of transferring to a different job with the Bureau or finding another line of […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by the National Association of Scholars on January 14, 2024, and is crossposted here with permission. Oftentimes, those concerned with the state of higher education get wrapped up—rightly so—in bringing awareness to the loss of rigor, excellence, and pursuit of merit in academia. However, there is another facet of higher education […]
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Inside Higher Ed reports on a new trend: universities creating programs that combine two academic programs. This might not seem particularly new to anyone who attended college in the last fifty years, but it is spiced with a bit of novelty now. The emphasis this time is on combining any of the various subjects with […]
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Alas, cutting funding for “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) and rewarding universities for free speech will prove insufficient to Make Universities Great Again (MUGA)—a key facet of making America great again long-term. With their funding threatened, universities will make it appear that they again adhere to freedom of speech and meritocracy without curbing the leftist […]
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