“The reason that university politics is so vicious is because stakes are so small,” former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once restated Sayre’s law in this famous quip on competition in academia. That was the 1970s when scholarly debates about communism and Marxism had little influence on government policies at the height of the Cold […]
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The release of data on incoming freshmen this fall was watched keenly in light of last year’s Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard decision that effectively outlawed race-based affirmative action policies in college admissions. As the data have been released, the picture is mixed. Some schools have seen the expected results: a larger proportion of […]
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I graduated from a small state teacher’s college in 1963, majoring in physical sciences and math. While I was not privy to overall grade distributions there, I know that Cs, Ds, and failure were not uncommon. This was simply a fact of life and was understood by all. I later became interested in spatial science, […]
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In the summer of 2023, the University System of Georgia (USG), led by Chancellor Sonny Perdue, announced a new directive: all institutions must remove “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) statements from hiring documents. During an August meeting at Kennesaw State University’s (KSU) Coles College of Business, Dean Robin Cheramie relayed this change, sparking a moment […]
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MREs (Meals Ready-to-Eat), BDUs (Battle Dress Uniforms), and TDYs (Temporary Duty): Three-letter acronyms (TLAs) describe routine aspects of military life. These catchy labels can also reference broad epistemological contexts. They are quick and convenient, allowing users to purport to understand more than they actually do. Unfortunately, they are often misunderstood and obscure more than they […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by the National Association of Scholars on September 6, 2024, and is cross-posted here with permission. The original article includes audio acquired by the National Association of Scholars that describes allegations of coverup. Allegations of a “coverup” of widespread “discriminatory hiring” erupted at the University of Washington in June, according to audio acquired by […]
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Last week, the shopping period for my classes at Sarah Lawrence College (SLC) was disrupted on Zoom by a “Divestment Coalition” of campus groups, including the Sarah Lawrence Socialist Coalition and the Sarah Lawrence Review. The coalition announced a “boycott” of all my courses for the 2024-25 academic year, labeled me a “staunch advocate of Israel’s right to […]
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The National Association of Scholars (NAS) joined the Heritage Foundation for a panel discussion, “Unveiling DEI: Examining Its True Impact on Higher Education,” on August 20 in Washington, D.C. A recording of the full event, which featured Jay Greene, Heritage senior research fellow; Scott Yenor, professor of political science at Boise State University and Washington […]
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Depending on which side of the political aisle you choose, “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” better known as DEI, stands for very different things. For the far-left, who have largely coopted and infected their less radical comrades, it is something inherently good and imbued in America’s DNA. In response to increasing demands for dialing down DEI […]
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In 2008, the voters of the United States elected their first and, to date, only President of color, Barack Obama. We were told at the time that his elevation to the highest office in the land would herald a new age of race relations in our nation. The country would no longer be defined by […]
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It’s time that leftists take their heads out of the sand. Whites are not the only group of people that can be racists. Black racism—racism against whites by blacks—is real, and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) makes it worse. From birth through the first grade, I lived in Chicago Heights, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. […]
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Since I left the Clinical Mental Health Counseling Masters Program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK), I’ve been forced to confront the alarming truth that the entire field of psychology is under the sway of a dangerous ideology distilled from postmodern philosophy and critical theories. This ideology disguises its authoritarian objectives using the camouflage […]
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Should we be worried about the power psychology professions have in our everyday lives and the direction of the field? In researching “Trusting the ‘Experts’ is Risky Business,” I came upon the news of an Indiana family who lost custody of their transgender teen even when there was no finding of abuse. The U.S. Supreme […]
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Shaun Harper, a Professor at the University of Southern California (USC) and Provost Professor of Education and Business, was recently featured in a Chronicle of Higher Education article titled “Can Shaun Harper Save DEI?” As a recent USC retiree, I read the article and reviewed materials from the USC Race and Equity Center, which Harper […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by RealClear Education on June 25, 2024. It is crossposted here with permission. MIT’s announcement that it will no longer require prospective faculty members to submit “diversity statements” is good news for American higher education. Academic institutions around the world should follow MIT’s example. “Diversity statements”, a one or two-page essay about the […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The Columbus Dispatch on June 13, 2024. It is crossposted here with permission. American higher education is in trouble. In Ohio, enrollment in universities is lower today than a decade ago, and in just the last few months Notre Dame College and Eastern Gateway Community College announced they were closing. Nationally, often violent, anti-Israeli campus protests this spring […]
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Author’s Note: This excerpt is from my weekly “Top of Mind” email, sent to subscribers every Thursday. For more content like this and to receive the full newsletter each week, sign up on Minding the Campus’s homepage. Simply go to the right side of the page, look for “SIGN UP FOR OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER, ‘TOP OF MIND,’” and […]
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The National Association of Scholars has recently unearthed a revealing document from the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD): its “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accountability” (DEIA) evaluation form, which details the district’s religious-like dedication to wokeism. Like Catholics in the confessional, all faculty and academic staff must bare their souls for their transgressions against DEIA—“Oh […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by City Journal on June 3, 2024. It is crossposted here with permission. In the fall of 2021, the University of Oregon psychology department petitioned the school to hire an “Assistant Professor with a dedicated research focus in diversity/inclusion-related . . . clinical issues.” The department claimed that its proposal […]
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Forty years ago, when I was an undergraduate in the California State University system, it was pounded into my admittedly mushy brain that one of the mortal sins in academia was not giving someone else credit for their work. If a student failed to cite or improperly cited someone else’s work, whether it be statistics, […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was updated on June 1, 2024, to correct an inaccuracy regarding Sarah Lawrence College’s 2024 graduation ceremony. Initially, it was stated that graduating students were seen in an Instagram post chanting “from the river to the sea” during the commencement address. Instead, students held anti-Israel signs, and the chanting, initially thought […]
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“If critics have a problem with the goal of diversity, they should say so,” writes law professor Stacy Hawkins in a vigorous counterattack against critics of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) mandates. Well, here I am. Hawkins notes that even some DEI critics acknowledge the value of racial and ethnic diversity. But they are wrong: […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Brutal Minds on May 14, 2024 and is crossposted here with permission. American higher education is, in its best incarnation, both a place and an endeavor where rigorous and demanding instruction occurs for America’s best and brightest students in a passing-on of the best that has been thought, written, and […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The College Fix on May 17, 2024 and is crossposted here with permission. Columbia University’s Earth Observatory has its own DEI director and two supporting administrators as part of its 6,756 administrator army. The office currently includes Associate Director for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Vicki Ferrini, Senior Manager for Academic […]
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While students and professors are entitled to protest any Israeli policy they want, intimations of Jew-hatred violate campus norms of diversity and inclusion (D&I)—as the E in DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) seems to be slipping out of fashion. These violations have become so rife and have been punished so lamely that they mock pledged […]
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What’s been happening on elite campuses this spring is quite simple. Protesters have enacted “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI). They’ve put into practice the DEI corollary known as “silence is violence.” The message is clear: Jews are not welcome short of performing the “silence is violence” pantomime. Protesters are engaging in red-guard-like behavior under the […]
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With its closing of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) offices and mass dismissals of DEI bureaucrats, Texas brings down the curtain on one of the most shameful, expensive, and destructive higher education vanity projects of this century. This cancerous DEI bureaucracy was imposed on campuses nationwide by radicals who strong-armed cowardly administrations in the summer […]
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In 2021, Middlebury College in Vermont decided to rename a Christian chapel originally named after former Vermont Governor John Mead due to Mead’s historical advocacy for the eugenics movement. A family lawsuit led by the Estate’s Special Administrator, former Vermont Governor Jim Douglas, alleges that John Mead gifted the funds to construct the chapel specifically […]
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Stacy Hawkins, a former vice dean and law professor at Rutgers Law School, recently wrote an article for the Chronicle of Higher Education. The article’s subtitle reads, “If critics have a problem with the goal of diversity, they should say so”—I’ll come to the main title later. As one of these critics, I’ve been vocal […]
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Closing “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) offices around the country is a powerful step in halting the illiberal and divisive harm-centric monoculture that has taken over higher education. However, there remain far too many student-facing administrative offices that seek the same goals. Whether in residential services or student life offices, administrators wield significant power and […]
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