Why the heckler’s veto is wrong, and why universities must stop it Something disturbing is taking place with increasing regularity at elite law schools. For the third time this year, a guest speaker has been rudely confronted by a mob of tendentious scolds intent on suppressing views with which they disagree. Not content to merely […]
Read More
Western civilization depends on science, but science, especially social science, is now under threat. Until WWII, science was mostly a vocation. Scientists were motivated by curiosity and the search for verifiable truth. Since the growth of centralized, largely governmental funding, science has become not so much a vocation as a profession. Career incentives now increasingly […]
Read More
“Each side is coming face to face with its own conception of the devil!” – Norman Mailer, The Armies of the Night Arthur Rackham’s 1935 illustration of Edgar Allan Poe’s “A Descent into the Maelstrom” At some point while reading The Peloponnesian War (late fifth century BC) you begin to realize that Thucydides is up […]
Read More
Portland State University (PSU) closed its Confucius Institute (CI) in January 2021, citing “a range of financial, staffing and operational reasons.” Thus it shuttered its China-backed language program of 13 years. In its announcement of the closure, PSU noted that it intended to “expand direct academic ties” with China. PSU has made good on its […]
Read More
Editor’s Note: This piece is part of an ongoing series of articles by Professor Bruce Gilley. To read the other articles in the series, click here. If you plan to present a paper at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in Spokane next year, please be advised: your submission needs to be chock full […]
Read More
The higher education reform movement, as pursued by Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida Legislature, has run into a heavy barrage of criticism from both the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and Keith Whittington, who, though writing in his individual capacity, is chairman of the governing committee of the Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA). Normally, […]
Read More
Imagine if a single law could simultaneously force colleges to drastically lower their costs and decimate the diversity, inclusion, and equity (DIE) bureaucracy. Happily, this is possible, and the solution can be summarized in a single word: unbundling. Almost overnight, the cost of college would fall precipitously, students would mature as they learned to manage […]
Read More
With China on track to produce nearly double the number of STEM doctoral graduates as the US by 2025, it is worthwhile to reflect on the national importance of these fields. A nation’s security and economic prosperity rely largely on STEM capability. Indeed, much of the historical success of the industrialized West was owed to […]
Read More
Since the University of Chicago pioneered the test-optional movement in 2018 by dropping the SAT and the ACT from its undergraduate admissions requirements—ostensibly to “level the playing field”—1,843 accredited four-year colleges in the U.S. have made standardized tests optional, and 84 have gone completely “test-blind.” Diminishing or eliminating the role of admissions tests seems to […]
Read More
In “How To Fix Student Loans—Permanently,” Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity Senior Fellow Preston Cooper proposes an alternative solution to the Biden administration’s expensive student loan jubilee: financial penalties for colleges and universities whose graduates struggle to make repayments. His solution holds institutions accountable for a portion of unpaid loan repayments. He expects the […]
Read More
The atmosphere was akin to Hotel Rwanda—a beleaguered assemblage of innocents shivering behind thin walls, surrounded by a tempestuous sea where the dark forces of the anti-science movement lurked, ready to snuff out enlightenment at the first opportunity. Such was the recent annual meeting of America’s preeminent scientific body, the American Association for the Advancement […]
Read More
Why do countless students willingly pay upwards of $50,000 a year for a degree in black studies, when the skills they learn are seldom sought in the marketplace? In fact, the opposite may be true: few employers want to hire angry activists who’ve spent years marinating in grievances while learning to write impenetrable, jargon-filled prose […]
Read More
Leftists specialize in pejorative labeling of anyone who disagrees with them, calling them racist, sexist, homophobe, transphobe, Islamophobe, deplorable, etc. But they save their ultimate insults for their most important targets; they are labeled “fascists,” “Nazis,” and “literally Hitler.” These childish insults take the place of serious debate, of presenting arguments substantiated by evidence, and […]
Read More
Editor’s Note: This piece is part of an ongoing series of articles by Professor Bruce Gilley. To read the other articles in the series, click here. In 1980, two doctors from the Boston University Medical Center published a five-sentence letter in the New England Journal of Medicine noting that only four of their 11,882 patients […]
Read More
The ability to express diverse viewpoints without reputational and professional consequences has been under threat at colleges and universities for many years now. Numerous surveys and reports reveal that students on both the Left and the Right consistently self-censor for fear of being canceled. Yet, these issues have a geographic component—they appear to be most […]
Read More
Not all segregationists are created equal. Some lose their jobs—others get six-figure salaries. Last week cartoonist Scott Adams became the first type of segregationist, losing his award-winning comic strip for advocating that his fellow whites separate themselves from blacks to avoid racial harm (apparently the Dilbert creator is afraid of black people). Ironically, just days […]
Read More
Last week the student chapter of Turning Point USA at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) attempted to show on campus a film, “The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM,” produced by The Daily Wire and narrated by Candace Owens. Fifteen minutes into the film, before an audience of approximately fifty […]
Read More
For almost five years, I have been sounding the alarm about problematic higher education administrators. Not only are these staffers omnipresent and growing in number, but they try to set the terms of discourse on campuses nationwide and actively promote progressivism among the student body. This tragic state of affairs was on vivid display last […]
Read More
In October, Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter was finalized, and he quickly made changes to the social media service. Musk built his reputation as an innovator, first in online commerce and later with SpaceX and Tesla. His reforms at Twitter follow a historic pattern of diagnosing problems and quickly working to implement a vision that […]
Read More
“I think that you appreciate that there are extraordinary men and women and extraordinary moments when history leaps forward on the backs of these individuals, that what can be imagined can be achieved, that you must dare to dream, but that there’s no substitute for perseverance and hard work …” – FBI Special Agent Dana […]
Read More