Macalester College is a small (2,000-plus students), highly regarded, and very selective liberal arts college in St. Paul, Minnesota. It is proud of its liberal reputation and international outlook, and touts as past faculty vice presidents Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale, as well as undergraduate Kofi Anan, previous head of the United Nations. Macalester boasts … Continue reading “Macalester College: Liberal Arts or Monoculture?”
A certain anger at society seems to pervade the academy today. Hardly a week goes by without hearing about outraged students either demanding recompense for some perceived injustice or attempting to shut down an invited speaker. Between professors who spread neo-Marxist ideologies, administrators who enforce an extreme political correctness on campus, and peer pressure to … Continue reading “A Psychological Profile of the New Campus Activist”
The dominance of registered Democrats to Republicans in academia is becoming more and more apparent. In the sample provided by Mitchell Langbert of the National Association of Scholars, 39 percent of academic departments have no Republican faculty member. He also found that the mean ratio of Democrats to Republicans is 10.4 to 1 after examining … Continue reading “Did You Know? Democrats Dominate Professorships”
One of the most peculiar claims to gain currency in higher education holds that academia has become captive to nefarious monied interests on the political right. Writings in this genre almost always hail from scholars on the left, and attribute a variety of problems in the academy—both real and imagined—to the ulterior-motived influence of conservative … Continue reading “The Purely Imaginary ‘Rightward Transformation’ in Higher Education”
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Edmund Burke The continued employment of an unhinged, violent anarchist as a lecturer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill says a whole lot about the university system’s standards when deciding who should influence the next generation. … Continue reading “UNC-Chapel Hill: A Sanctuary Campus for Antifa on the Taxpayer’s Dime”
Back in 2010, I wrote a piece for the Martin Center entitled Bad Sociology, Not Law bemoaning the marginalization of common law doctrine in the American law school curriculum. My point then was that, increasingly, law students were just learning about legal doctrine in their classes rather than being called upon to master the prevailing legal doctrine itself … Continue reading “Law School Teaching Going Off on Ideological Tangents”
The University of North Carolina at Asheville recently announced with great pride its plans to divest part of its endowment from investments based on “fossil fuels” (such as natural gas, oil, and coal). At a June 21 meeting, the Board of Trustees voted to shift $5 million of its $50 million endowment from the non-profit … Continue reading “UNC-Asheville Should Divest Itself from Irresponsible Political Posturing”
Americans celebrate their independence today, but liberty is still threatened in higher education. As college campuses become a battleground over free speech, disinviting speakers has been a common tactic across the country to control what can be said. What is surprising, however, is just how many of these disinvitations come from left-wing student groups. Since … Continue reading “Did You Know? Students on the Left More Likely to Disinvite Speakers”
Many colleges assign “common readings” to incoming students as an intellectual experience outside the classroom to set the bar for the academic rigor that professors expect of students. This tradition is most students’ first taste of the university. This well-meaning tradition, however, has become highly politicized and the quality of reading has significantly decreased over … Continue reading “Common Reading Programs: Political Fluff for Freshmen”
The federal government currently holds around $1.5 trillion in outstanding student loans—up from “only” $500 million in 2007. Undoubtedly, the federal government—and taxpayers—have an enormous stake in higher education and bureaucrats in the Department of Education see their role as protecting the system against “bad actors.” During the Obama years, the Department was dominated by … Continue reading “Attacking the For-profit Sector Helps Neither Students Nor Taxpayers”