The government shutdown has brought scant good news, but there’s at least one positive development: the investigators at the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) have been deemed non-essential. As a result, OCR has been forced to postpone scheduled inspection visits, including one to Yale. That said, the shutdown at some point will end, and upon […]
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When 2013 SAT scores came out last month and showed no significant change from 2012,many educators may have felt not disappointed or neutral, but relieved. That’s because the overall trend since 2006, when the writing component was added, has been downward. Critical reading has dropped seven points, math four points, and writing nine points. In […]
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Swarthmore received considerable media attention this past spring, after several students filed a complaint against the school, alleging that Swarthmore’s sexual assault policy was so faulty that it discriminated against women in violation of Title IX. Neither the complaint nor most media coverage mentioned the specifics of the policy, which in fact was extraordinarily one-sided […]
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Libertarianism is spreading on our college campuses. An unusually large number of politically-minded, frustrated students, who refer to themselves as the “liberty movement,” believe themselves to be part of a rising tide that will restore the country to greatness. Much of the recent growth in libertarian activism emerged after Ron Paul’s 2008 failed presidential bid, […]
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Is it possible to stop the relentless promoting of anti-Americanism on campus? Let’s forget about donating millions for a patriotic “American Studies” program. Recall the Bass family’s sad experience at Yale–the $20 million donation for this purpose was eventually returned. Similarly forget about a governor (e.g., Mitch Daniels) or trustees trying to meddle in classroom instruction. “Academic […]
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Mark Lilla, an essayist, historian of ideas and professor of the humanities at Columbia University, is best known for his books The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics and The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West. He is interviewed here by Dean Ball, a student at Hamilton College and former intern at Manhattan Institute. *** Q: You wrote […]
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Ever since Ronald Reagan tried and failed to abolish the U.S. Department of Education, conservatives have found themselves in a quandary when it comes to reforming public higher education. Some continue to insist, rightly, that the Tenth Amendment places the power over education solely in the hands of the individual states. A different group, however, […]
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Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy probably deserves his own chapter in the history of black intellectuals and black legal scholars. Over the years he has told us a great deal — some of it intentionally, with scholarship and skill; some inadvertently or unwittingly –about how race is regarded and debated in the academy, especially the legal academy. […]
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Academic politics can be vicious and hence an often entertaining spectator sport. Still, it is not altogether clear why Howard University president Sidney Ribeau’s recent announcement that he will resign the end of this year — unexpected and even shocking though it was — has attracted so much press attention, and not just in the usual higher education sources. It is true, as […]
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Cross-posted from See Thru Edu. I often try to temper my colleagues’ enthusiasm for the coming wave of “creative destruction” that is about to hit higher education. Certainly there are going to be big changes, but there are also key aspects of higher education that prove resistant to change. This is especially true about online […]
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The downfall of Hugo Schwyzer, gender studies professor and onetime darling of the feminist blogosphere–now revealed as a self-confessed “monstrous hypocrite” and intellectual fraud–has been one of the more bizarre spectacles to unfold recently on the Internet. His strange case offers depressing insights into the sexual politics of the modern academy and the cultural left, […]
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Here’s another Orwellian intervention at a U.S. university by the Federal Government: in response to feminist pressure about the handling (under Title IX and Title IV) of sexual harassment and sexual assault cases on campus, the University of Montana agreed to accept a resolution agreement with the Department of Justice and the Education Department’s Office […]
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The Department of Education released new information about student loan defaults yesterday, and it isn’t pretty. A dismaying 10 percent of student borrowers are now defaulting on their student loans within two years of repayment, and nearly 15 percent are defaulting within three years. These are the highest default rates since 1995. The data bear […]
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The Huffington Post brings news of faculty complaints at Occidental College. The background: Several months ago, students filed an OCR complaint, alleging that the school’s process for investigating sexual assault complaints was so biased against accusers that it violated Title IX. That process (which nearly all news media ignored) denies the accused student a right […]
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Writing at National Review Online about the recent release of SAT scores, Jason Richwine wonders whether all the fretting about low college-readiness rates among high school graduates really makes much sense. He links to an Atlantic Monthly story on the 2013 scores that bears the title “This Year’s SAT Scores Are Out, and They Are Grim.” Scores were […]
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Many recent articles say the humanities are in deep trouble on our campuses. Minding the Campus asked seven prominent scholars to respond briefly to this question: “If you could change one thing about the humanities, what would that change be?” Here are the answers from Stephen F. Hayward, Samuel Goldman, James Piereson, Daphne Patai, Patrick Deneen, Peter Wood, […]
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(A speech delivered September 19 at a symposium on “Religious Freedom Under Obamacare,” the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana.) * * * The official title of this talk, “New Gods on the Public Square,” is a cleaned-up version of what it would be at the New York Post, where I now work as […]
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Some 200 Canadian and American men’s activists will gather this Friday at the University of Toronto, where they will be met by angry feminists dedicated to tearing down their posters, heaping abuse on speakers, blockading events and denouncing police as “f—ing scum” if they try to restore order. At least that’s what happened last November […]
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Children of alumni have long enjoyed advantages in gaining admission to the most selective private colleges and universities in the United States–a practice rare in other nations and puzzling and unsavory to foreigners. If not as puzzling, legacy admissions are equally unsavory to many Americans, especially those who consider themselves “meritocrats” and those on the […]
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Classes have started at CUNY, and at least one highly troubling event has occurred. Last week, NRO revealed that CUNY students and at least six members of the CUNY faculty union, the PSC, had descended upon the Macaulay Honors College campus to harass David Petraeus, a visiting professor at the Honors College this term. The […]
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