Michelle Goldberg complains in the pages of The New York Times about how it is the left wing that is currently a victim of cancel culture—thanks to the right, which is trying to destroy “critical race theory.” Sounding alarm at the global counter-movement, she writes that Critical race theory, the intellectual tradition undergirding concepts like white privilege … Continue reading “The Backlash to Critical Race Theory Is on The Way”
Boarding schools and charter schools have been “feeder schools” to the Ivy Leagues for decades. Feeder schools are high schools where many or most students go to higher education institutions, often the most prestigious schools like the Ivy League. Many parents believe that they should send their children to elite private schools to guarantee their … Continue reading “Did You Know? The Role of Feeder Schools in Elite Higher Ed”
North Carolina State University students need to be taught about how to be “inclusive,” according to the school’s chancellor and top administrators. Last June, NC State Chancellor Randy Woodson released a statement decrying individual and systemic racism and revealed the university’s plan to roll out mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion training for students, faculty, and … Continue reading “Diversity Training Comes to NC State University”
Public higher education was once America’s great enabler, permitting young people from lower-class backgrounds to attend college for very little money and to rise as far as their abilities and drives would take them. That may no longer be the case, according to economists James Koch and Richard Cebula. In their 2020 book, Runaway College … Continue reading “Why Don’t Governing Boards Rein in College Costs?”
In a new law that will change the direction of higher education in the United Kingdom, the British government is drafting the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, which might require universities to defend free speech and freedom of expression. The British political system lacks the First Amendment protections for free speech like the American … Continue reading “Did You Know? The UK Wants Free Speech on Campus”
The college campus has become a battleground between the United States and China. Donations, research funding, and international students give colleges a much-needed financial and enrollment boost, but the connection to the Chinese government can also threaten academic freedom and, on some occasions, national security. Fundamentally, universities exist to serve students and the public interest, … Continue reading “Security Concerns with China Limiting Student Learning”
An ill wind has buffeted higher education in the year of the plague. Workers have been laid off, the ranks of the professoriate have shrunk, and enrollment declines across the industry threaten the long-term finances of all but the most prestigious institutions. While the pain has not been as deep as some experts feared, a … Continue reading “Did You Know? The Higher Ed Bureaucracy Won the Pandemic”
Last week, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees came under fire for “viewpoint discrimination” over its decision not to offer tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones, who will join UNC’s Hussman School of Journalism in July. An anonymous source reported that the decision was “a very political thing.” But politics needn’t have come into … Continue reading “It’s Not About ‘Politics’—The Brouhaha over Nikole Hannah-Jones”
The University of North Carolina system includes 16 universities, from large campuses with high research activity to small liberal arts institutions. They differ in many ways, from location to student body to the classes they offer. They also differ in state funding—from $7,760 per student at Appalachian State University to $31,969 per student at the … Continue reading “Did You Know? Not All UNC Students Get the Same Funding”
The 1960s were a turbulent period for academia, and we are still struggling with the repercussions of that turbulence today. Indeed, today’s “woke” campus is in many ways the result of policies, patterns, and practices initiated in that period and its immediate aftermath in the early 1970s. It may therefore be useful to look at … Continue reading “University Decline: Hofstadter’s Warning Has Been Ignored”