Nowhere is “cancel culture” more deeply entrenched than in academia; it was commonplace there long before the actual phrase was coined to describe the current social media phenomenon. The gears of academia keep grinding away dissenting opinions, despite occasional paeans offered in the name of academic freedom. Those who propose uniquely original ideas can face … Continue reading “We Need to Talk About Bruce”
Two recent British policy briefs on academic freedom and university reforms provide some broad suggestions applicable to colleges, British or otherwise. Policy Exchange, a center-right think tank, published “Academic Freedom in the UK: Protecting viewpoint diversity,” which highlights the disappearance of the conservative professor on campus. CIEO, a left-of-center think tank, published “Saving Britain’s Universities: … Continue reading “Did You Know? Two British Reforms America Should Copy”
Long the vanguard of liberal change, the American university now leads the appeasement of a hardened authoritarian China. The interest in promoting a broader community of scholars has given way to a toxic combination of business interests, the inability of college leaders to recognize their failure in influencing Chinese education, and their unwillingness to see … Continue reading “Universities Appease China, Ignore Human Rights Abuses”
When a political science lecturer at UCLA read to his class Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and showed clips from a documentary on racism, he found himself in hot water. The reason: Both the letter and the documentary included the N-word. Many students complained, which in turn pitted UCLA against the … Continue reading “UCLA’s Discrimination Office Targeting Professor Threatens Academic Freedom”
Academic freedom is under assault by people who want to control research and speech. One of their strategies exploits the gatekeeping functions of journal editors to censor unpopular ideas. The leading open-access journal in the field of intelligence research, the Journal of Intelligence, has a policy listed on its website since 2018 that states, “The … Continue reading “Misusing Editorial Power to Censor Unpopular Research”
How much of academia is infiltrated by activists? Some conservatives claim that “neo-Marxism” and its sister paradigms like feminist pedagogy, post-structuralism, and post-modernism have long infected certain departments in the humanities and social sciences. Those paradigms have now spread to more disciplines and funding committees. However, conservatives have been slow to explain how activist departments … Continue reading “‘Witches’ and ‘Viruses:’ The Activist-Academic Threat and a Policy Response”
Humorless, intolerant leftist academics are a force to be reckoned with on many college campuses, and a new case at the University of North Texas (UNT) pushes the envelope. After earning his PhD in mathematics from Baylor University in spring 2019, Nathaniel Hiers found employment at UNT. He began teaching full-time as an adjunct faculty … Continue reading “Math Professor Mocks a Leftist Belief and Gets Fired”
In March 2018, the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees adopted new rules that fatally undermine academic freedom. We authored this piece for the Martin Center explaining the damage the amendments would inflict on higher education in the state. Unfortunately, the Board of Trustees ignored our warning, a warning reiterated by numerous other faculty and … Continue reading “Professors Fight to Save Free Speech on Campus and Academic Freedom in Arkansas”
As more students have headed to college and a degree is seen as a way to shape students as workers and as citizens, higher education’s mission has become more important. Its leaders, and their personal beliefs, have become more contentious, too. In recent months, many conservative thinkers have publicly debated how to reform higher education—or, … Continue reading “Reforming Higher Education: A Reading List”
On 30 April 2019, St. Edmunds College, University of Cambridge, rescinded a fellowship to the outstanding young researcher Noah Carl, who self-identifies as a conservative. The rescinding was unjust, and it came after a sustained and equally unjust campaign of leftist protest and demonstration against Dr. Carl. The campaign was unjustly supported by leftist press … Continue reading “A Witch Hunt Comes for a Nonconformist Professor”