It is perfectly reasonable for the public to think that colleges and universities are filled with progressive activists. Campuses are overflowing with liberal messaging, from banners to large-scale displays advocating for so-called “justice” and “equity.” Even off campus, media coverage of controversies at Oberlin College and my own Sarah Lawrence College belies any notion of […]
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The link between higher education and economic growth is well established: build the schools, attract smart students, and behold, a booming economy. There is, however, a less obvious but equally important link: build the schools, attract smart students, these smart students marry each other and eventually have super-smart children, and the economy will flourish for […]
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In her majority opinion in the 2003 Supreme Court case Grutter v. Bollinger, in which the court decided on the narrow tailoring of race considerations in admissions, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor argued against perpetual race-based affirmative action: We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to […]
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The latest brouhaha in higher education arose when New York University fired an organic chemistry professor teaching huge numbers of students, Maitland Jones, Jr. The headlines are revealing: “Top Med School Putting Wokeism Ahead of Giving America Good Doctors” proclaimed a column written by Dr. Stanley Goldfarb (former dean of the University of Pennsylvania School […]
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One of the most important aspects of critical thinking is asking questions to clarify an argument, so as to uncover its underlying assumptions. This is the foundation of the Socratic method. “What is justice?” in Plato’s The Republic comes to mind as one of the most important examples of how continual questioning increases understanding. Although asking […]
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The legal industry, and the law academy in particular, are in a high state of contention concerning one of their most protected traditions: the Law School Admission Test, or LSAT. The American Bar Association (ABA) that regulates our law-school industry is thinking of doing away with it. This exam is among the most heavily weighted […]
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The Supreme Court and American Values This article is about a Supreme Court decision—actually, a companion set. These decisions haven’t happened yet, but I can fantasize, imagine, wish, desire. In a nutshell, I would like to see these decisions affirm equal protection under the law in much the same way that a similar decision affirmed […]
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It’s important to grasp Thucydides’s realism in The War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians (late 5th century BC). He shows the ways of the world, aspects of events nobody can control, and real motives behind expressed ones. Sometimes, however, Thucydides spies trends that can be managed or which signal an advantage to one side. […]
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Editor’s Note: “Assessing the REAL Reforms Act” is a Minding the Campus symposium that is closely analyzing the Responsible Education Assistance through Loan (REAL) Reforms Act, a bill recently introduced by Representatives Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Elise Stefanik, R-NY, and Jim Banks (R-IN). The bill “offers commonsense and fiscally responsible reforms to benefit students and borrowers […]
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Almost every university in North America has committed to what is called “social justice,” which is the implementation of identity politics through the mechanisms of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Identity politics divides everyone into one of two categories: evil oppressor or innocent victim. Through official mandatory policies, universities have transformed academic culture from a quest […]
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“It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” Proverbs 25:2 (ESV) In Europe, at the turn of the twentieth century, great advances were being made in atomic theory. In 1904, the British physicist and Nobel laureate Sir Joseph John Thomson, who had discovered the […]
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Descriptions of today’s campus politics often use a mental-health vocabulary: “crazy,” “insane,” “lunatic,” etc. This terminology is employed for literary purposes to highlight the disconnect between campus life and the “real world.” No one believes that it reflects clinical assessments by certified professionals of actual students and faculty. Nevertheless, this literary vocabulary may contain more […]
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I have taught about the economic history of the United States and Europe over the last seven decades, beginning in the 1960s and extending into the 2020s. I believe all educated Americans should have a decent understanding of American economic exceptionalism, how over the course of four centuries the area known as the United States […]
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Science versus Sentimentality “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate!” Thus spake prison guard Strother Martin in the movie Cool Hand Luke, and so it is now between the woke and their opponents. In a recent dispute over affirmative action that got some publicity, one party affirms that, despite her best efforts, she has […]
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The Sweet Affair has proven that the historical profession is inhabited by ideological bullies and their craven victims. James Sweet, ingenuous president of the American Historical Association (AHA), stated the obvious truth that the 1619 Project and other such exercises in woke history are “presentist”—cherry-picked fabrications designed to promote a radical agenda. The woke Twitter […]
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Editor’s Note: “Assessing the REAL Reforms Act” is a Minding the Campus symposium that is closely analyzing the Responsible Education Assistance through Loan (REAL) Reforms Act, a bill recently introduced by Representatives Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Elise Stefanik, R-NY, and Jim Banks (R-IN). The bill “offers commonsense and fiscally responsible reforms to benefit students and borrowers […]
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Last month, the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) hosted a Black, Latinx and Native American Family Orientation. After facing allegations of racial segregation from Christopher Rufo and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), UCSD’s Office of the Chancellor promised that “[a]ll students and their families are welcome to attend, subject to space […]
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It’s by now a commonplace story: State universities in “red” states, where most of the voters and legislators dislike progressive ideology, are being infiltrated by administrators and faculty who insist on implementing radically leftist policies and courses. Earlier this year, for example, the Martin Center published this article by Jonathan Small on the ways that […]
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Leave it to a self-proclaimed Christian, who also is a practicing homosexual, to pen an apologetic for ‘queer theology.’ That is exactly what Dr. Patrick S. Cheng attempts to do in his book titled Radical Love. Cheng’s credentials to pen such an apologetic are quite admirable. He is an attorney and a Ph.D., and he […]
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Pope Pius V once said that “All the evils of the world are due to lukewarm Catholics”—this could not be truer. Now more than ever, our onetime Christian culture resembles a modern Sodom and Gomorrah. We see this today in the godlessly abhorrent secular movie release Bros (2022)—a Universal Pictures film touting sexual deviance between […]
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