Federal Aid Drives up College Costs, Study Finds

The federal government is now admitting that its own financial aid is partly to blame for rising tuition, reports Blake Neff in The Daily Caller: A new report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has found that the massive investment in grants and student loans by the federal government is a major contributor […]

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Free speech

‘My Students Scare Me’ – A Liberal Professor

I’m a professor at a midsize state school. I have been teaching college classes for nine years now. I have won (minor) teaching awards, studied pedagogy extensively, and almost always score highly on my student evaluations. I am not a world class teacher by any means, but I am conscientious; I attempt to put teaching […]

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Two Federal Judges Misrule in Campus Sex Cases

Since March of 2014, federal and state courts have produced a run of decisions favorable to due process in campus sex cases. But in recent months, this welcome development has been reversed—most spectacularly in the deeply troubling decision in the Vassar case, but also in two recent decisions involving cases at Columbia and Miami (Ohio). […]

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No Due Process, Thanks—This Is a Campus

Here are two troubling developments regarding campus due process from the Upper Midwest: Inside Higher Ed featured remarks from Susan Riseling, chief of police at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, regarding the intersection between campus police and Title IX responsibilities. Riseling told attendees at the International Association of College Law Enforcement Administrators conference that police chiefs […]

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At Clemson, a New Plan for Higher Education

America’s universities are collapsing into a miasma of nihilism, postmodernism, political correctness, multiculturalism, affirmative action, bureaucratization, and skyrocketing costs—and no one seems able to do anything about it.  With the exception of a few “Great Books” colleges, the overarching vision of higher education that once sustained the West for centuries seems all but dead. American […]

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big_blue_marble_apollo17

The Remarkable Class of 2015 Must Save the Planet

It is a truth universally acknowledged that all commencement speeches say more or less the same thing.    All that really changes in the annual dusting off of “follow your heart,” “fix the world,” and “dare to face the great challenges” is the precise address of the heartfelt, world-fixing, great challenge that lies ahead.  The space […]

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Progressives Shoot at Shakespeare

Dana Dusbiber’s statement in The Washington Post deploring the teaching of Shakespeare in high school English courses evoked universal scorn and laughter. Her thesis is simple: Shakespeare is too old, white, male, and European for 21st-century American students, especially those of color.  His language is dense and unfamiliar, enough so that Dusbiber herself can’t always understand it.  […]

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Paper Chase Prof

Why Tenure Makes Teaching Better

It’s impossible not to notice a contradiction on the pages of Minding the Campus. My friend Bill Voegeli seems to be saying that tenure makes teaching in our colleges and universities worse (“Tenure, Kipnis and the PC University,” June 22). The shameful goings on at Northwestern over Kipnis show that tenure doesn’t really protect the […]

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Student Ratings Bait Profs Into Lowering Standards

In the fall of 1980,  towards the end of my first semester of college teaching, I received a memo saying that on the last day of class I was to hand out the course evaluation forms for students to complete and return. A few weeks later, the packet of forms they had filled out was […]

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Brandeis Betrays Students’ Rights

Earlier this spring, a student filed a due process lawsuit against Brandeis, charging that he was disciplined under a procedure different from the one that existed when he arrived on campus. In one respect, the facts of this case are atypical. After a nearly two-year relationship (between two male students) ended, the accuser appears to […]

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Tenure, Kipnis and the PC University

Some coincidences are less coincidental than others are. Northwestern University recently investigated professor Laura Kipnis, regarding complaints that an essay of hers had violated students’ legal rights. Meanwhile, a committee of the Wisconsin state legislature voted to let the University of Wisconsin choose, as a matter of policy, whether its professors would enjoy the protections […]

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More Madness at Duke

“Incoming freshmen at Duke University are expected to read a graphic novel with cartoon drawings of a woman masturbating and multiple females engaging in oral sex—as well as participate in group discussions during orientation.”— from  Campus Reform  

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The Strange World of Social Justice Warriors

Culture wars over “social justice” have been wreaking havoc in many communities, including universities and science fiction fandom. The ordeal of Northwestern University film professor Laura Kipnis, hauled before a campus gender equity tribunal for publishing a critique of academia’s current obsession with sexual misconduct, has brought the backlash against “political correctness” to reliably left-of-center venues such as Vox. But this is […]

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CAMILLE PAGLIA IS UNHAPPY WITH OUR COLLEGES

Reason has released a March, 2015 Nick Gillespie interview with cultural critic Camille Paglia, who as usual has many lively opinions. Here are a few: journalism today (bad), Hillary (a disaster), the ideal first female president (Dianne Feinstein), what kids learn in high school (don’t bully), college now (summer camp, Club Med), what campus leftists should […]

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The Washington Post Joins the Rape Culture Crusade

Stuart Taylor and I have a jointly authored piece debunking the Washington Post series on campus sexual assault. The collection of articles, accompanied by a misleading poll, has also received searing, effective criticism from Ashe Schow in the Washington Examiner, Robby Soave in Reason, and David French in NRO. I recommend each piece. The series […]

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WAPO’s Faulty Rape Poll Muddies the Issue

Rape is a serious matter. That is why it is unfortunate that a Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll, using a small student sample that does not distinguish between unwanted touching and rape, has concluded that 25 percent of college women are sexually assaulted every year. On Sunday the Washington Post devoted half its front page and three […]

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Totalitarians for Social Justice?

In the New York Observer, Cathy Young laments the rise  of “social justice warriors,”  primarily on campus and online, arguing that “this version of ‘social justice’ is not about social justice at all. It is a cultish, essentially totalitarian ideology deeply inimical—as liberals  such as Jonathan Chait wam in New York Magazine—to the traditional values […]

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Lee Siegel: Bad Op-Ed, Bad Thinking

Without rehashing the fine points made by AEI’s Andrew Kelly and Slate’s Jordan Weissmann about the irresponsible advice dispensed in Lee Siegel’s op-ed in the New York Times it’s worth noting a few points on the purported virtues of defaulting on student loans. First, Siegel seems to give the impression he was already under a […]

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Default on Student Loans? Bad Idea

Writing in The New York Times, Lee Siegel encourages students to follow his example and default on their student loans. The four biggest problems with his piece are: Siegel is the wrong case study Even if you are of the opinion that college should be free and student debt is immoral, Siegel is the wrong […]

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AAUP meeting

Two Controversial Professors

The AAUP—the American Association of University Professors—held its annual Conference on the State of Higher Education at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. June 10-14.  A few subway stops away, the Heartland Institute held its tenth International Conference on Climate Change at the Washington Court Hotel, June 11-12.  I suspect that I am the only […]

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