One of the most peculiar claims to gain currency in higher education holds that academia has become captive to nefarious monied interests on the political right. Writings in this genre … Continue reading “The Purely Imaginary ‘Rightward Transformation’ in Higher Education”
In 1996, Alan Sokal, a professor of physics, submitted a hoax article to Social Text, a journal of postmodern cultural studies, which published it. Last year, in what became known … Continue reading “The Diversity Distortion”
Inane occurrences on college campuses tend to parachute into national news headlines every week or two. Those glimpses, however, cannot do justice to the reality of the collegiate atmosphere. To … Continue reading “A Much-Needed Satire of College Has Arrived”
Many if not most professors and higher education leaders enjoy pontificating about their high-minded ideals in contrast with the grubby, self-interested world outside of academia. What few people have done … Continue reading “Exposing the Moral Flaws in Our Higher Education System”
Abigail Stewart and Virginia Valian are senior psychologists at the University of Michigan and Hunter College, respectively. As an opponent of group preferences and double standards to achieve diversity among … Continue reading “A Lame Case for Diversity”
Ever since Justice Powell’s lone opinion in Bakke allowed the camel’s nose of “diversity” under the anti-discrimination tent, controversy has raged over preferential treatment awarded to college applicants of certain … Continue reading “From Diverse Professors to Professors of Diversity”
There’s no question: our country is in the grips of a free speech identity crisis. And that struggle is playing out nowhere as vividly as on American college and university … Continue reading “A Third Way on Campus Speech”
The number of part-time and nontenure faculty continues to rise on campus as university officials try to cut costs. So does their dissatisfaction over wages and benefits, which is stirring … Continue reading “With Colleges Shifting to Adjuncts, Teaching Quality May Suffer”
If you want to see one example of why a new populism has emerged in American universities in the last 10 years, take a look at a statement issued last … Continue reading “Faculty in Denial about Own Role in Decline of Humanities”
I became interested in academic accountability within the university because I had no choice: the lack of accountability I experienced at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington obligated me … Continue reading “Faculty Accountability Is Terrible—Even Students Have Better Standards”