How Colleges Themselves Bring About Racial Protests

Jul 5, 2017 · Joanna Williams · 3 Comments

This academic year has been punctuated by a series of high-profile campus protests. Many student grievances have, as in previous years, centered on claims of racial injustice. If next academic year is to be about education rather than protest, faculty and administrators must explore the role they play in both politicizing college life and racializing … Continue reading “How Colleges Themselves Bring About Racial Protests”

Students Tear Down Anti-Socialism Display, but UNC Charlotte Won’t Investigate Nov 11, 2019
Universities may not target unpopular speech on campus often, but when they fail to protect it, the results are similar to officially silencing speech. A recent example of this lack of effort to protect comes from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where an anti-socialism display was destroyed on campus within a day after … Continue reading “Students Tear Down Anti-Socialism Display, but UNC Charlotte Won’t Investigate”
A Complicated Debate: Have States Been Disinvesting in Higher Education? Nov 8, 2019
“Two days. Two reports citing the same data. Two different conclusions.” That is how Rick Seltzer described the near-simultaneous release of two studies looking at state funding in Inside Higher Ed. The first study was written by myself for the Texas Public Policy Foundation and found that state disinvestment is a myth. The second study, … Continue reading “A Complicated Debate: Have States Been Disinvesting in Higher Education? “
Did You Know? Regret Comes with Taking Student Loans Nov 7, 2019
A recent report from Payscale showed that a majority of college graduates regretted their college decision. Out of the 250,000 students surveyed, about 12 percent had some regret the major they picked. The biggest regret, though, came from borrowing student loans. While that regret is consistent among generations, millenials are the first ones to regret … Continue reading “Did You Know? Regret Comes with Taking Student Loans”

Students Tear Down Anti-Socialism Display, but UNC Charlotte Won’t Investigate Nov 11, 2019
Universities may not target unpopular speech on campus often, but when they fail to protect it, the results are similar to officially silencing speech. A recent example of this lack of effort to protect comes from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where an anti-socialism display was destroyed on campus within a day after … Continue reading “Students Tear Down Anti-Socialism Display, but UNC Charlotte Won’t Investigate”
The Totalitarian Impulse in the Title IX Racket Oct 30, 2019
Until 2015, I believed that the Obama administration’s “Dear Colleague” letter, which called for universities to significantly broaden their interpretation of Title IX protections, was merely a way to address the so-called “rape crisis” on American campuses. I doubted the narrative that colleges had rates of sexual assaults that were comparable with warzones, but this … Continue reading “The Totalitarian Impulse in the Title IX Racket”
Outnumbered: Academia’s Tilted Ideological Landscape Oct 28, 2019
The fact that conservatives are outnumbered on college campuses isn’t groundbreaking news. The amount of ink that’s been spilled recounting the left’s stronghold on the academy and the threats that such ideological imbalance poses to rigorous academic inquiry—not to mention the perverse effects it wields on the culture—has been enough to fill volumes of journals, … Continue reading “Outnumbered: Academia’s Tilted Ideological Landscape”

Students Tear Down Anti-Socialism Display, but UNC Charlotte Won’t Investigate Nov 11, 2019
Universities may not target unpopular speech on campus often, but when they fail to protect it, the results are similar to officially silencing speech. A recent example of this lack of effort to protect comes from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where an anti-socialism display was destroyed on campus within a day after … Continue reading “Students Tear Down Anti-Socialism Display, but UNC Charlotte Won’t Investigate”
An Anti-Free Speech Conference in Greensboro Nov 4, 2019
Scholars gathered October 24 and 25 at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro to discuss free speech—and focused on its alleged pernicious effects. The takeaway was that the problem is not enough free speech in public, but too much free speech in public. The conference, “Finding Expression in Contested Public Spaces,” featured a keynote … Continue reading “An Anti-Free Speech Conference in Greensboro”
Blinding Themselves: The Cost of Groupthink in Social Psychology Nov 1, 2019
The social sciences have a problem: If their scholars think too much alike, they will be blinded to the flaws and gaps in their research. Rather than explaining how individuals in society act and think, academics can sometimes slip blinders on themselves and the public. Polling shows broad agreement within some disciplines. For instance, recent … Continue reading “Blinding Themselves: The Cost of Groupthink in Social Psychology”

Students Tear Down Anti-Socialism Display, but UNC Charlotte Won’t Investigate Nov 11, 2019
Universities may not target unpopular speech on campus often, but when they fail to protect it, the results are similar to officially silencing speech. A recent example of this lack of effort to protect comes from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where an anti-socialism display was destroyed on campus within a day after … Continue reading “Students Tear Down Anti-Socialism Display, but UNC Charlotte Won’t Investigate”
A Complicated Debate: Have States Been Disinvesting in Higher Education? Nov 8, 2019
“Two days. Two reports citing the same data. Two different conclusions.” That is how Rick Seltzer described the near-simultaneous release of two studies looking at state funding in Inside Higher Ed. The first study was written by myself for the Texas Public Policy Foundation and found that state disinvestment is a myth. The second study, … Continue reading “A Complicated Debate: Have States Been Disinvesting in Higher Education? “
Did You Know? Regret Comes with Taking Student Loans Nov 7, 2019
A recent report from Payscale showed that a majority of college graduates regretted their college decision. Out of the 250,000 students surveyed, about 12 percent had some regret the major they picked. The biggest regret, though, came from borrowing student loans. While that regret is consistent among generations, millenials are the first ones to regret … Continue reading “Did You Know? Regret Comes with Taking Student Loans”