One of higher education’s enduring questions is about the proper role of faculty. The debate is growing hotter, as increased activism by some faculty is causing pushback from many quarters. A week ago, the Martin Center published an article by Fabio Rojas in which he described the proper role of a faculty member as one … Continue reading “Defining Faculty Roles: Scholarship Only, Activism on Your Own Time”
The college campus is increasingly a focal point for shaping social norms, largely a result of rising college attendance; only five percent of the generation that came of age in the 1930s were college graduates, as opposed to roughly a third of millennials. Sometimes, however, this shaping is not always an improvement. In recent years, … Continue reading “The Dictatorship of the Offended”
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, homophobia, and associated evils. All this despite a campaign by the administration to achieve these very aims in the course of which a distinguished faculty … Continue reading “Duke Divinity School’s Race to the Bottom”
Let’s imagine that you felt a lump in your body and went to the doctor. Once you sat down in the examination room, the doctor came in and said, “Hello, it’s nice to see you. I am sorry, but I haven’t had time to examine your medical records. I’ve been busy. I went to protest … Continue reading “Defining Faculty Roles: Scholarship First, Activism Second”
Tenure used to provide faculty members with solid protection against all but criminal behavior. But now it is proving no match for weak excuses for firing professors who administrators want to be rid of. Marquette University’s termination of political science Professor John McAdams for speaking his mind about a younger faculty colleague’s handling of a … Continue reading “Bad Language Gets a Tenured Female Professor Fired for ‘Sexual Harassment’”
The #MeToo movement began with accusations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein but rapidly became a rallying call for women everywhere to tell their own stories of sexual harassment. #MeToo has touched upon professional sports to K-12 education; from politics to theatre. Unsurprisingly, its presence is being felt on campus too. Universities have long been concerned … Continue reading “When the #MeToo Movement Hits Campuses”
At a time when the majority of American college students are female—currently 57 percent of all students—higher education’s conversation surrounding women’s rights is largely dominated by modern feminist ideology. Roughly 63 percent of female students identify as feminists, and while no similar statistic is available for female faculty or staff members, most likely an even … Continue reading “Campus Feminism: The Real War on Women”
Editor’s Note: This is a condensed version of a speech Dr. Otteson gave at a January James G. Martin Center luncheon. Our topic today is the importance of intellectual diversity on campus. I doubt there is anyone here who does not believe in the importance of intellectual diversity on campus, so I would like to … Continue reading “Intellectual Diversity and Academic Professionalism”
As I watched the antics of the hooded “Antifa” mobs at Berkeley and other large universities last year, I thought that I’d missed something in my many years as a college professor. Unlike Milo Yiannopoulos, Ann Coulter, Charles Murray, and other dissenters from the leftist academic consensus, I had never been assailed by raging anti-fascist … Continue reading “Sorry, Students, but I Have Never Espoused Racism or White Supremacy”
When students (and others) disrupt events where speakers are trying to make arguments they dislike, they say that their conduct is justified. Most commonly, the disrupters maintain that they are merely preventing “hate speech,” which allegedly doesn’t enjoy the protection of the First Amendment. Therefore, they are perfectly free to keep such speakers from being … Continue reading “The ‘Right’ to Disrupt Free Speech on Campus Doesn’t Exist”