Revisionist attempt to erase history

In December, UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser retired the Spencer Bell Award after questions were raised over the award’s “integrity.” A January 12 article in The Daily Tar Heel explained the decision by citing a December 3 letter from the Chancellor. “Some esteemed women on our campus—women who I think could be considered for the Bell Award—were asked if they would accept it if it were offered. Their answer was ‘no.’”

That was enough to dump an award going back more than a century.

Cornelia Phillips Spencer is best known for her efforts to reopen UNC after reconstruction. Upon hearing that the University would reopen in 1875, Spencer ran to the University bell tower and rang the bell in an effort to inform others of the good news. Hence the title: Spencer Bell Award.


O’Dell speaks to NBC 17

Note: Here is a copy of an interview of North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics teacher Carol O’Dell. The interview was part of the NBC 17 program “At Issue” and was conducted by moderator Donald Jones and Donna Martinez of the John Locke Foundation. The topic of the interview was O’Dell’s assertions that NCSSM is declining academically. O’Dell was informed by school administrators that her contract would not be renewed mainly because she has been critical of the school’s apparent academic decline. NCSSM officials declined a request by NBC 17 to appear on the program. The interviewed aired December 19, 2004.


Tuition Waivers Challenged

CHAPEL HILL – A report released by the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy today challenges the merits of the tuition waiver program at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, while shedding light on academic and administrative concerns at the school.


Despite the landmark Supreme Court ruling, race preferences continue to roil

RALEIGH — In June 2003, the Supreme Court heard two cases concerning racial preferences in Michigan higher education, Gratz v. Bollinger (on preferences used by the University of Michigan) and Grutter v. Bollinger (on preferences used by its Law School). The Court ruling against outright racial preferences in admissions while ruling in favor of considering race in admissions so long as it is used as only one of “pertinent elements of diversity.”


Wrestling with Title IX

For more than 30 years, Title IX of the Education Amendments has been heralded as the reason for the increase in the number of women’s athletic programs across the country and providing opportunities for women like Mia Hamm to compete on the college level.

While Title IX has provided more opportunities in athletics for women, it has done the opposite for men. A federal guideline intended to prevent discrimination among the sexes in education has done just the opposite in college athletics. Title IX requirements have been used to cut athletic opportunities for men, while at the same time increasing opportunities for women.


In defense of mockery as criticism

Democritus, the “laughing philosopher,” was described by Laurence Sterne as “trying all the powers of irony and laughter to reclaim” the town of Abdera, “the vilest and most profligate town of Thrace.” Meanwhile, some UNC-Chapel Hill faculty members complain about the mockery of the Pope Center.



The haunting fear that someone, somewhere in the classroom, may be conservative

Remember H.L. Mencken’s famous jest about Puritanism? “The haunting fear that someone, somewhere is happy.” Apply it to F.H. Buckley’s observations that “The modern Puritan devotes himself to political rather than religious duties” and that this Puritanism “is particularly pronounced in the academy.” Does that not explain this spectacle of self-righteous UNC professors carping about mockery and fearing political infidels in the classroom?


Conservatives Make Valid Points

In the December 4 issue of The Washington Post, a column by Ellen Goodman entitled “Those Poor College Conservatives” claims conservative protests about the makeup of university faculty lacks substance. Goodman expresses her bafflement by exclaiming, “The only ones who take the universities as seriously as universities take themselves are activists on the right.”


A dickens of a protest at UNC

What if the petty, snarling villain in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol were Bob Cratchit? What if Ebenezer Scrooge had tried from the beginning to help the hobbling young Tim, but Bob threw his money back in his face? What if the other Cratchits sat mute in fear of Bob as he said, “Bah! You don’t believe as I do, Mr. Scrooge! Sometimes you criticize my work! To me your money is tainted!”

Here’s what: You would have the situation now playing out at UNC-Chapel Hill.