My exchange with a student of Jane Christensen’s

Following is my e-mail conversation with someone who identified himself as one of Jane Christensen’s students at N.C. Wesleyan College (some background for those who need it). I provide it because I think the student’s progression in the exchange rewarded my optimism for him.




Caveat emptor, suckers

House Bill 1183 would give the children of illegal immigrants the privilege of attending UNC schools and community colleges in N.C. for in-state tuition. Looks like yet another talking point used to sell us on the $3.1 billion bond referendum for higher education in 2000 could turn out to be a big fat whopper.




UNC faculty really did seek openness on the Edwards deal

The letter, for which we at the Pope Center cannot vouch and which could be an expedient hoax, begins: “WE THE UNDERSIGNED FACULTY are writing to express our concerns about the ongoing secret negotiations between high-level university administrators and John Edwards regarding the ‘poverty’ center.”


Edwards’ new gig:

The Dionne article anticipated last week’s big Edwards news. He now has an issue: the alleviation of poverty. Dionne doesn’t write that Edwards has no idea about how to accomplish it; instead, as he graciously puts it, Edwards is “planning to set up a center to study ways to alleviate poverty.” That would be UNC’s new Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity, of which Edwards will be director.



Despite the landmark Supreme Court ruling, race preferences continue to roil

RALEIGH — In June 2003, the Supreme Court heard two cases concerning racial preferences in Michigan higher education, Gratz v. Bollinger (on preferences used by the University of Michigan) and Grutter v. Bollinger (on preferences used by its Law School). The Court ruling against outright racial preferences in admissions while ruling in favor of considering race in admissions so long as it is used as only one of “pertinent elements of diversity.”