I attended an estate sale for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and a wave of unreality washed over me. It was bizarre to rummage the home of a recently deceased stranger, inspecting her various trinkets and belongings, hoping to strike treasure or find a deal. I watched others, who seemed to be … Continue reading “The Wisest of Counselors: The Western Canon and Those Who Would Defend It”
Many English departments are now beginning to offer courses on graphic novels, which integrate text and visual imagery. Graphic novels are increasingly studied alongside traditional literature, in some cases supplanting more standard text-based curricula. For example, one course at UNC Chapel Hill titled “The Visual and Graphic Narrative” can be taken to satisfy the literary … Continue reading “Graphic Novels Are Trending in English Departments, and That’s a Problem”
The Martin Center has been covering the Kafkaesque case of Marquette University professor John McAdams since it first broke several years ago. Professor Howard Kainz first wrote about it in “Firing Professor McAdams: When a Catholic University Collides with Political Correctness.” He explained the substance of the problem between the university and McAdams, which was … Continue reading “Court Ruling in the McAdams Case: A Body Blow to Free Speech and Tenure”
If you’ve spent much time on a college campus you’ve probably heard the claim that conservatives are anti-science. If you’re a liberal who doesn’t interact with many conservatives, you might have believed it. If you’re conservative, you probably felt frustrated and misrepresented. This view of conservatives as anti-science has been broadcast beyond the college campus. … Continue reading “Tribal Politics Is Turning Us Against Each Other—and Science”
During Barack Obama’s administration, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights was staffed with “progressives” who were intent on pushing federal policy in ways that advanced their visions of what education should accomplish and how schools must treat students. But as the former president himself observed, “elections have consequences” and we are seeing them in … Continue reading “Why the Woman Appointed to a Top Education Department Post Is Under Fire”
Many readers probably have read about the New Wave of free speech suppression that has swept across campuses in the last several years. It comes on the heels of the previous era of speech codes that reigned from the late 1980s through the first decade of the 2000s. In 2005, I published the Independent Institute … Continue reading “Free Speech Is More Threatened Than Ever and We Must Respond”
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has signaled that she might be a force for good when it comes to scaling back Obama-era Title IX expansion. This would be a welcome change. Such regulatory buildup has raised higher education costs and allowed the federal government to encroach more and more into areas such as campus … Continue reading “Secretary DeVos Could End Title IX Overreach on Campus”
Recently, several states have adopted policies that ostensibly make college education free to their residents, but with strings attached to this benefit. The most famous program is undoubtedly New York’s. Under the “Excelsior Scholarships” plan recently signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo, state residents who come from families with annual incomes under $125,000 won’t … Continue reading “Attaching Strings to “Free” College Education Makes No Sense”
Student intolerance and opposition to free speech have been gaining momentum. What began as isolated incidents at the University of Missouri and Yale University in fall 2015 quickly spread to other universities, leading to individuals being targeted for simply expressing their opinions. Recent rioting that prevented a speech by Milo Yiannopoulos at UC Berkeley, and … Continue reading “NC Joins Growing List of States Seeking to Protect Campus Free Speech”
The term “microaggression” was coined in 1970 by Harvard professor Chester Pierce, who declared that “Every Black must recognize the offensive mechanisms used by the collective White society, usually by means of cumulative proracist microaggressions, which keep him psychologically accepting of the disenfranchised state.” His phrase lay dormant until 2007, when a number of professors … Continue reading “Microaggressions Put Under the Scholarly Microscope”