Most businesses and the general public had a brutal year in 2020—perhaps with the notable exceptions of Zoom and toilet paper manufacturers. Universities suffered as well, with enrollment drops and … Continue reading “The Trouble with Faculty Hiring Booms in a Politicized Time”
Macalester College is a small (2,000-plus students), highly regarded, and very selective liberal arts college in St. Paul, Minnesota. It is proud of its liberal reputation and international outlook, and … Continue reading “Macalester College: Liberal Arts or Monoculture?”
Academic postmodernism is no stranger to the idea that classical Enlightenment values such as reason, equal treatment, and individual agency should be cast aside for the sake of racial and … Continue reading “Identity Politics Versus Basic Logic: Should Colleges Offer Affirmative Action for the Female Majority?”
“Class discussions trend towards group-therapy sessions,” wrote Toni Airaksinen in 2016 for Quillette. At the time, she was studying at Barnard College and described moving from an initial infatuation with … Continue reading “Gender Studies’ Value Is Under Question—And for Good Reason”
By now, most followers of the higher education press have heard of the “grievance studies” or Sokal Squared hoax. In this incident, a team of three researchers successfully published several … Continue reading “What the Hoax Papers Tell Us about the Decline of Academic Standards”
Editor’s Note: Roger Ream gave the following lecture at the Martin Center’s annual policy banquet on October 24th. It appears here in abridged form. It is an honor to be … Continue reading “Preserving the Values of a Free Society in Higher Education”
“‘Diversity and inclusion’ is the moral benchmark of our time… Every corporation, college, and government agency, along with a growing number of bowling leagues and bait-and-tackle shops, has an Office … Continue reading “Diversity and Inclusion of Identity Groups Often Means Uniformity and Exclusion of Ideas”
The chickens have come home to roost at Duke’s Divinity School. Protesting students claim the school is insufficiently diverse. More needs to be done, they say, to combat racism, transphobia, … Continue reading “Duke Divinity School’s Race to the Bottom”
Academics often point out that diversity is good, in part, because it brings different perspectives and experiences to the table. I agree. In fact, this is one reason many argue … Continue reading “Colleges Are Rejecting Our Common Humanity and the Science That Reveals It”
UNC-Chapel Hill has launched Carolina Conversations, an initiative designed to provide forums for students to discuss sensitive topics. UNC-CH will do this in three ways: sponsor regular large-scale town-hall-style forums called My Carolina Voice, smaller gatherings called Carolina Pulse, and My Chance, a process whereby students can apply for school funding for “grassroots interactions.”