Some critics think that to merely step foot on an American college campus today is to be immediately assaulted by gender studies speakers and decolonization posters. Each and every student, it appears, is caught in a web of woke studies from which there is no escape. But spend a cozy evening nestled by the fire […]
Read More
Student loans operate very strangely in this country. A student borrows money from the federal government to pay for higher education expenses—thus, there are three parties involved (the student, the government, and the college or university). But only two of them face any risk from the loan. The student faces severe financial consequences if he […]
Read More
When it comes to civic literacy, the average American is hardly a rocket scientist—and the problem seems to be getting worse. This is, of course, not exactly news for experienced professors who regularly encounter students unable to recall even the most rudimentary facts, turning lectures into high school level remedial courses. Despite America’s massive spending […]
Read More
Curiosity or Ideology? On the morning of September 11, 2001, faculty members at an elite college in Massachusetts aimed their frustration at President Bush. We stood like a small crowd in the department lounge, all of us facing the TV. CNN showed the moment an assistant whispered in the president’s ear while he was reading […]
Read More
In an effort to justify students’ protest against Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan’s invited speech, Stanford Law School Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Tirien Steinbach says that she supports free speech—but she also criticized the judge for harming “people of color.” After the chaotic event, in which about 100 Stanford students heckled Judge Duncan […]
Read More
In my judgment, E. Gordon Gee is the dean of American university presidents. If you had visited West Virginia University (WVU) 40 years ago, Gee would have been president. The same is true if you visited today. But in the four-decade interval, Gordon also headed two other flagship state universities: the University of Colorado and […]
Read More
Over the last few years, the rallying cry of “woke” activists has become “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (often abbreviated to DEI). There is little reason to object to such principles on the surface. After all, America was founded on the principle that all people are created equal. Unfortunately, the meaning of words can change over time. Rather […]
Read More
This past weekend the University of Austin (UATX) held its second “First Principles Summit.” This Summit brought together professors, administrators, public intellectuals, and business-people. (I was also invited.) The purpose of the gathering was, as UATX President Pano Kanelos explained, to hold UATX’s founders accountable to their first principles. Founding is not for the faint-hearted. […]
Read More
Higher education administration has become dysfunctional and dangerous—illiberal, incompetent at its core educative functions, but all too effective at infecting our republic’s civil society with woke ideology. It must be reformed. Yet the radicals who have captured our colleges’ and universities’ bureaucracies have been so effective that, at this point, it seems impossible for successful […]
Read More
Wikipedia is probably the most widely used encyclopedia in the world. If you’re looking for facts, it is pretty reliable. For example, if you want to compare the number of traffic roundabouts per capita in the US and other countries, Wikipedia will provide a nice graph from the World Economic Forum showing that the UK […]
Read More
On the evening of April 23, 2023, a fight broke out in Los Angeles. The masked mob threw chairs, shouted swear words, stole a laptop, and landed a few punches. The cops were called, and, eventually, the chaos subsided. One person was arrested for assault, and one victim ended up with a bloody nose. This […]
Read More
Law students at the University of Chicago recently used colored playground chalk to protest a conservative speaker. This raises the question: are they maturing adults or regressing adolescents? Perhaps philosophy has some lessons for how to understand the problem, and where to look for a solution. One of my favorite philosophers is Robert Hanna. He specializes in the writings […]
Read More
There may be some good news for those concerned about today’s campus madness: the cavalry is on the way. We will, hopefully, be rescued! A recent Wall Street Journal editorial celebrated Harvard’s new Council on Academic Freedom. The organization proclaimed that “… free speech is also essential to human progress,” and that intellectual orthodoxy “is […]
Read More
While student loans are a widely acknowledged problem, one program sticks out as particularly troublesome: the Grad PLUS program. After graduate students max out their traditional student loans, which include an annual and an aggregate borrowing limit, there is no limit to how much they can borrow through the Grad PLUS program. Unsurprisingly, this has […]
Read More
Many centrists and conservatives are leery of Michel Foucault’s enduring popularity in higher education. Some think he’s the very essence of a great postmodern conspiracy to take down Western Civilization. Perhaps. But even if he’s part of a bigger problem, we ought not dismiss the entirety of his work. Not all his books merit attention, […]
Read More
Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard will not end higher education’s race discrimination by itself, even if the Supreme Court unequivocally strikes down affirmative action. America’s colleges and universities are already planning for massive resistance to preserve race discrimination, and they will have the support of state and federal bureaucracies, as well as the commanding […]
Read More
As free speech and expression have come under assault on college and university campuses, a number of clear trends have emerged. One of the most powerful findings is that elite schools are typically less open to free speech. Further analysis reveals a troubling gender gap between male and female students: women are far more liberal […]
Read More
On Monday, academic workers at Rutgers University, including part-time faculty and graduate assistants, returned to their positions, effectively ending the university’s first-ever labor stoppage since its founding in 1766. After the university reached a framework agreement promising comprehensive pay raises, over 67,000 Rutgers students are now able to resume classes after a week of disruptions […]
Read More
Some states are known for being innovative or expressive in outsized ways, with governmental policies that are often bold, and business entrepreneurship that is similarly spectacular in its magnitude. For example, among states with a liberal-progressive tradition, California is seldom dull and ordinary. Similarly, among states with a more conservative-libertarian orientation, Texas and Florida often […]
Read More
Affirmative action in today’s colleges and universities is a giant failure machine. Every year thousands of black and Hispanic students, who have been led to believe that a college degree is well within reach and a first step toward economic success, are admitted to schools for which they barely qualify. The inevitable consequence is failure, […]
Read More