Reaction is beginning to set in against the campus trend of letting angry protesters act to remove commencement speakers they don’t like. In one of the three graduation speeches at Haverford College yesterday, former Princeton President William G. Bowen criticized both Robert Birgeneau for withdrawing as a commencement honoree, and the activist students and professors who pressured Birgeneau to withdraw. Bowen called the […]
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May a public university manipulate a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request of a faculty member in an effort to squelch the politically incorrect side in the on-going climate wars? The University of Delaware, which has a long, sorry history of political correctness, seems to think that it may–even if its actions violate the faculty member’s […]
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The personal statement is a fixture of the college admissions process. In a distinctively American ritual, prospective undergraduates at selective colleges and universities spends weeks or even months crafting roughly 250-500 word responses to broadly worded questions about their character, circumstances, and aspirations. The following prompt from the 2014/15 Common Application is typical: “Some students have a […]
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A federal judge has permitted a second denial-of-due process suit against a university to proceed. First it was Xavier–after which the university quickly settled with Dez Wells. Now it’s St. Joe’s, where district court judge Felipe Restrepo (an Obama appointee) has issued a ruling that narrowed the lawsuit filed by Brian Harris, but has allowed […]
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What is the purpose of higher education? You can find seven philosophies of education in today’s conversations and arguments. The list isn’t exhaustive and there is, of course, some truth to each. 1. Aristocratic Platonism argues that leisurely contemplation is for the few and work is for the many. The few live outside the “cave,” while the […]
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Stanford University’s board of trustees has voted to divest from the university’s $18.7 billion endowment all of its holdings in coal-based energy companies. The university, which is private, has not disclosed what holdings these are, their market value, or the likely cost to the institution in foregone growth of its portfolio. The significance of the […]
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Two different items in the last week in the New York Times provide a reminder of why the struggle for due process on campus has such difficulty penetrating the media. The first example came in the latest from Richard Pérez-Peña, who while ostensibly a hard news reporter for the newspaper seems to envision his role as a cheerleader for […]
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“Disinvitation season” keeps on rolling: this time, Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, has withdrawn as the commencement speaker at Smith College. The IMF is one of the world’s most important international agencies, and Lagarde is the first woman to lead it. But achievement is not enough for Smith students, who demand intellectual conformity as well: a petition asking […]
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Universities have two contradictory traditions: one of searching for truth and, alongside it, one of mindless, self-righteous protests. The Rutgers University protests against giving Condoleezza Rice an honorary degree at the 2014 Commencement belongs to the second tradition. Having served on the Rutgers faculty from 1951 to 2003, I know that this demonstration was not […]
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Out of North Carolina come some disturbing new details about a death on the campus of High Point University. In March 2012, Robert Eugene Tipton, Jr., a student at the school, died while in the company of several brothers of his Delta Sigma Phi fraternity. Tipton’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit which claims […]
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As “rape culture” activism heats up, reporters are demonstrating a startling credulity on the subject. One case in point is the Chronicle of Higher Education‘s recent investigation of Title IX complaints from 2003 to 2013. The piece, entitled “Promise Unfulfilled?,” illustrates the faulty assumptions driving many journalists who cover campus sexual assault . The nearly 3000-word article, by Jonah […]
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The questionable assumptions of campus “rape culture” activists are finally receiving mainstream attention. In National Review, Heather Mac Donald noted the irony behind campus hearings on sexual assault: The campus sexual-assault tribunal also has a performative aspect: It dramatizes the patriarchy before a sympathetic audience of adults. “Our task is to give voice to the […]
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“Honor” sounds quaint to modern ears. When I teach the Declaration of Independence, I find that students often struggle to understand why its signers committed “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor” to the cause of liberty. Raised to regard health and wealth as the highest goods, they cannot easily imagine why dishonor might […]
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Most everyone agrees that tenure is in trouble. At many schools, adjunct and non-tenure-track faculty make up a majority of college teachers, and in plenty of departments they teach the majority of classes. Writers are calling into question the value of tenure, alleging that it protects research-focused and even incompetent professors to the detriment of […]
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Employers tend to complain that the graduates of American universities are skilled in solving particular problems but “often miss the big picture.” This complaint rings true for colleges graduates in general these days, but it’s an even larger issue for M.B.A. students, who hope to ultimately ascend to leadership positions in a wide array of businesses. […]
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A recent bombshell article by National Review‘s Kevin D. Williamson may elevate the impeachment proceedings against University of Texas Regent Wallace Hall to a national issue. “There is something rotten in the state of Texas,” argues Williamson in his essay, “Lone Star Lunacy“. “A regent [Wallace Hall] exposes wrongdoing at the University of Texas and […]
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Anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock for the past several years knows that things are harder for college graduates than they once were. Higher education writing that exaggerates this point with the help of misleading factoids consequently leaves readers less informed than they were before. Writers are especially to be blamed when the […]
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Posted by Michael Poliakoff and Avi Snyder It’s a sad day for Rutgers University. Amidst widespread student and faculty protests over her selection as Rutgers’ commencement speaker, Condoleezza Rice has turned down her invitation. In a statement, she said that her background in academia allows her to “understand and embrace the purpose of the commencement ceremony”; to that end, she […]
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Everything created by humanity is subject to a cycle of creation and destruction. Humans live 70-80 or sometimes even 100 years; their business enterprises rarely last that long. A generation ago, there was no Facebook or Google, but Enron and Eastman Kodak were going strong. Even buildings seldom last more than 200-300 years. Until recently, […]
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To great fanfare, the Education Department released a list of 55 colleges and universities that the OCR is investigating for allegedly violating Title IX in their treatment of sexual assault issues. Though Education Secretary Arne Duncan said there’s “absolutely zero” presumption of guilt in the list’s release, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that principles […]
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