In 2013, Stony Brook University (part of the SUNY system) revealed plans for a new “Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities.” Since I’m a Stony Brook grad, I was quite interested in this development. Would the new Center do anything to enhance the school’s reputation for scholarship? I didn’t think it would, but … Continue reading “How Higher Education “Studies” Men”
The obsession with diversity is so widespread among American colleges that it has become a normal part of campus life. Just what “normal” looks like is revealed in a new book based on extensive interviews with “whites” and “students of color” at Harvard University and Brown University, The Diversity Bargain: And Other Dilemmas of Race, … Continue reading “Higher Education’s Diversity Obsession: A Bad Bargain”
Recently I urged top law schools to stand up to the excesses and abuses occasioned by the ministrations of the American Bar Association (ABA). These schools could band together and follow the lead of the journalism schools at Northwestern and Berkeley, which dropped their accreditor, the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, … Continue reading “How to Fight the ABA’s Anticompetitive and Discriminatory Practices”
Last week marked the latest chapter in the biggest college sports scandal in history. Administrators and athletics officials from UNC-Chapel Hill appeared before the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions in Nashville, Tennessee. At issue was whether the bogus classes UNC athletes took between 1993 and 2011 should be considered “impermissible benefits.” The Committee is expected to … Continue reading “When College Sports Lean Pro, Students and the Public Pay”
The great intellectual debate of the 20th Century was between capitalism and socialism, wrote Robert Heilbroner in a 1989 New Yorker article. Seeing the collapse of Soviet Communism (socialism with totalitarian power), he proclaimed “the triumph of capitalism.” A socialist most of his career, Heilbroner explained: “Less than 75 years after it officially began, the contest between capitalism … Continue reading “Millennials and the Anti-Capitalistic Mindset”
The excuse we have often heard for raucous campus protests over the last few years is that they are justified as a way of countering the “violence” of speakers like Milo Yiannopoulos and Charles Murray. To prevent them from speaking is, according to this line of argument, using mere sound to eliminate the actual harm … Continue reading “No, Professor, Words Are Not Violence”
According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, in the previous two decades over 31 million students have dropped out of college shortly after beginning their coursework. There are many reasons for this trend, including rising higher education costs and entering students’ lack of academic preparation and focus. Another reason, however, is that many students … Continue reading “Should American Degree Programs Borrow from Their European Counterparts?”
A day after an internal email by a Google employee was leaked to the press, a combination of ideological intolerance and scientific illiteracy led Google to fire James Damore for “perpetuating gender stereotypes.” On the day he was fired, Quillette.com published several brief essays by academics on the science of sex differences, mostly vindicating his … Continue reading “From College Indoctrination to Corporate Intolerance”
A university president recently addressed his campus community about an incident that had shaken his Wisconsin school. “The last few days have been painful ones for many members of our community, as they have also been for me,” wrote Lawrence University’s Mark Burstein. “The event and its aftermath have left many students wondering whether the … Continue reading “This University President Can’t Take a Joke”
From Evergreen State College in Washington to Yale University in Connecticut, campaigns to punish or fire professors accused of thinking or saying things outside the bounds of political correctness seem to crop up with disturbing regularity. Often, we’ve seen these attacks coming from students, faculty, and administrators on the Left. Sometimes, however, conservatives have similar … Continue reading “Everyone’s Offended: Campus Intolerance Can Come from Liberals and Conservatives”