Peter Wood is president of the National Association of Scholars and author of “1620: A Critical Response to the 1619 Project.”
The pricing of higher education is always a bit mysterious. In the past, colleges and universities have gotten into considerable trouble for price-fixing when it emerged that they had colluded to set their tuition rates or financial aid packages. But sometimes colleges and universities can read the situation without colluding. I doubt that the University of Pennsylvania, Brandeis, Carnegie Mellon, MIT, and the […]
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The demographic cliff is not news to anyone who has been paying attention to college enrollment or workforce needs. Nothing can be done about all the children who weren’t born in the last two decades, and it is unlikely that much can be done to improve the birth rate in the near future. Many colleges […]
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What drives colleges and universities to offer dual enrollment classes for high school students? Well, many colleges and universities have experienced significant declines in freshmen enrollment in the last ten years—accelerated by the COVID-19 shutdown but continuing since. Some have regained ground by enrolling more transfer and graduate students, but the outlook remains bleak. This […]
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Editor’s Note: This statement was originally published by the National Association of Scholars on November 20, 2024. With edits to match Minding the Campus’s style guidelines, it is crossposted here with permission. The National Association of Scholars (NAS) welcomes the nomination of Linda McMahon to serve as the next Secretary of Education. Her character, her experience, […]
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My street in the Upper West Side of New York City takes Halloween seriously. A week or more before the kids go trick-or-treating, our block features an abundance of ghoulishly carved pumpkins, life-sized plastic skeletons, and enough gauzy cobwebs to set the stage for a dozen Boris Karloff movies. My forays to the suburbs and […]
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The First Continent Congress was not known for taking radical measures. When it met in Philadelphia in the autumn of 1774, it first rejected the plan but was forwarded by Pennsylvania representative Joseph Galloway, Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly. Galloway favored a “solid political union” between the colonies and Britain as the best way to […]
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New York subway scene. Two women. The one with Swedish braids and wearing an army jacket is cradling an umbrella and two flags. One looks like the flag of Yemen, and the other is probably Palestinian. The other woman rests three printed yellow and black poster signs on the floor. One reads “Stand with Palestine. […]
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The First Continental Congress convened on September 5, 1774, in Carpenters’ Hall, Philadelphia. It brought together delegates from twelve of the thirteen North American British colonies to discuss what they might do collectively in response to the “Intolerable Acts” passed by the Crown in May and June. The Congress was not a revolutionary act. Indeed, […]
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The National Association of Scholars (NAS) mourns the loss of Adam Andrzejewski, the visionary Founder and CEO of OpenTheBooks. Adam was a friend to the National Association of Scholars. He inspired our vigorous use of freedom of information requests to pry important information from public universities that are often reluctant to divulge facts that belong […]
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Editor’s Note: The following article was originally published by the National Association of Scholars on July 16, 2024. It is crossposted here with permission. The attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, by a 20-year-old man from suburban Pittsburgh has riveted the nation’s attention. I have no wish to clutter the […]
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In April, I published a tiresomely long explanation of why the newly popular idea of “institutional neutrality” is a dead end. My essay, “The Illusion of Institutional Neutrality,” took up so much space because I wanted there to be at least one easily available account of where this idea came from, why it was about […]
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On June 15, 1774, Boston citizens held a meeting in Faneuil Hall to debate how the townsmen should respond to the blockade that the British had just imposed on the port of Boston. At issue was whether the citizens should pay for the tea that some radicals had dumped in the harbor back in December. […]
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Stacy Hawkins, a former vice dean and law professor at Rutgers Law School, recently wrote an article for the Chronicle of Higher Education. The article’s subtitle reads, “If critics have a problem with the goal of diversity, they should say so”—I’ll come to the main title later. As one of these critics, I’ve been vocal […]
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The nation’s 250 Anniversary is only 29 months away. The National Association of Scholars is commemorating the events that led up to the Second Continental Congress officially adopting the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. This is the sixth installment of the series. Find the fifth installment here. “His Majesty trusts that no opposition […]
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The nation’s 250 Anniversary is only 29 months away. The National Association of Scholars is commemorating the events that led up to the Second Continental Congress officially adopting the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. This is the forth installment of the series. Find the third installment here. Joe Biden — Photo by Gage […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Blaze Media on March 7, 2024 and is crossposted here with permission. The Sunshine State is now the test case of whether anti-DEI laws can have a meaningful effect in turning back these neo-racist programs. The University of Florida boldly advanced to the front of the academic line last […]
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The nation’s 250 Anniversary is only 29 months away. The National Association of Scholars is commemorating the events that led up to the Second Continental Congress officially adopting the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. This is the second installment of the series. Find the first installment here. In December, we celebrated the anniversary […]
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The nation’s 250 Anniversary is only 29 months away. The National Association of Scholars is commemorating the events that led up to the Second Continental Congress officially adopting the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. This is the second installment of the series. Find the first installment here. Last month, we celebrated the anniversary […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by National Association of Scholars on January 24, 2024 and is crossposted here with permission. In the aftermath of Claudine Gay’s defenestration as president of Harvard, many conservatives, libertarians, and un-woke liberals see an opportunity to rally public support for an operation to rescue higher education. The idea has caught […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The American Conservative on January 14, 2024 and is crossposted here with permission. One might think the world had tilted an additional 40 degrees on its axis on January 2. Judging from news accounts, the northern hemisphere was plunged into darkness, and an even more bone-chilling cold than […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The Spectator World on January 3, 2024 and is crossposted here with permission. In the end Barack Obama, Penny Pritzker, 700-some members of the faculty, the mighty voice of the Harvard Crimson and the entire nomenclature of the DEI movement could not save her from herself. Claudine Gay resigned as […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The Spectator World on December 24, 2023 and is crossposted here with permission. Harvard president Claudine Gay’s troubling history of appropriating other people’s idea and words and passing them off as her own has a well-worn name: plagiarism. Every college and university in the United States prohibits plagiarism. Most present students with […]
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Author’s Note: The nation’s 250 Anniversary is only 30 months away. The National Association of Scholars can hardly wait. Over the interval, we will post short commemorations of the events that led up to the Second Continental Congress officially adopting the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Some events are familiar to most Americans, […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The American Spectator on December 14, 2023 and is crossposted here with permission. Academic dishonesty strikes many people as boring. After all, it is academic. It is not like Sam Bankman-Fried, the “crypto king,” making $8 billion disappear into thin air. It is not like Florida dentist Charlie Adelson […]
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How much do the diversity—equity—inclusion (DEI) movement and anti-Semitism feed on one another? There was a time when DEI advocates thought it was part of their remit to fight anti-Semitism too. In fall 2017, the University of Washington’s Department of Epidemiology issued a glossary of DEI terms that along with “ableism,” “birth assigned sex,” and […]
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The Pilgrim’s treaty with the Wampanoag lasted fifty years. This would not have happened had the Wampanoag felt imposed on or exploited. Indeed, at that first Thanksgiving—a three-day feast-The Wampanoag numbered about ninety, while only fifty of the settlers were still alive. Had the Wampanoag decided to end the peaceable encounter, things would not have […]
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The law school deans at places such as Yale, Harvard, Stanford, and Penn rarely turn to me for advice. Ok, never. That’s partly because I am not a lawyer but mostly because I am the head of the National Association of Scholars (NAS), an old organization that is known as one of the conservative voices […]
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Once upon a time, liberals and conservatives could converse easily. I know that sounds implausible, but it is true. Now, I am fairly old. Fred Flintstone was just two grades ahead of me at Bedrock High. Back then we could debate questions such as whether it was a good idea to let dinosaurs turn into […]
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American higher education is in crisis, but persuading students to avoid it won’t fix the underlying problems. Charlie Kirk’s new book, The College Scam: How America’s Universities Are Bankrupting and Brainwashing Away the Future of America’s Youth (Winning Team Publishing, 2022), is based on the faulty premise that America can survive without higher education. No […]
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John Leo passed away on May 9. This website, Minding the Campus, was founded by John Leo, I believe around 2007. He had recently taken a position at the Manhattan Institute, and he and I met around that time. He asked me to write for MTC, and I responded with an article that he posted […]
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