Politicization

Higher education’s fundamental mission is the discovery, preservation, and transmission of truth. This endeavor requires unfettered freedom of expression and conscience. The following articles expose illiberal tendencies on American campuses and highlight ways to increase the diversity of the ideas being taught, debated, and discussed on campus.

The Humanities Man the Barricades Against Growing Criticism

Oct 19, 2015 ·

Heightened skepticism regarding the value of the humanities and liberal arts is not just the result of external factors that are outside of higher education’s control, such as economic malaise or policymakers’ job-centricity. Internal problems related to debased curricula and hyper-politicization, for instance, may be more harmful to the future of the humanities. Unfortunately, at a recent event sponsored by UNC-Chapel Hill’s Program in the Humanities and Human Values of the College of Arts and Sciences, university leaders failed to acknowledge those problems, much less take ownership of them.

Mastery, Not “Creativity,” Should Come First in Arts Education

Oct 16, 2015 ·

At issue, of course, is the fact that the purpose of the traditional music education to prepare students to participate and collaborate in “the performance and analysis of European classical repertory” at its highest levels. The “broader reality” to which they subscribe is reflected in the modern tendency to see that emphasis as not only a slight to those who will fail to achieve those ends, but as a real offense to those who, like the Task Force on the Undergraduate Music Major, reject that purpose and the primacy of the European classical canon itself.

Political Activism Comes to the American Conservatory

Oct 15, 2015 ·

As we replace, for the sake of politics or expediency, the teachers who quietly loved and maintained the classical music tradition with those who have made a career of loudly condemning or refuting it, the discipline will be chipped away from the inside by a myriad of tiny careerists and ideologues happy to attack or cheapen the long and living tradition of Western classical music for the sake of a petty promotion or a hearty pat on the back.

The Existential Crisis of the American Music School

Oct 14, 2015 ·

Since at least the 1920s, America has done a fine job of nurturing its budding classical musicians within a large and well-funded network of conservatories that function either as independent institutions or else as colleges within larger universities. The grand venture of transplanting the pinnacle of European artistic achievement into the fertile soil of the New World has been a spectacular success. So can we say, then, that all is well in the world of higher music education on this side of the pond? Perhaps surprisingly, almost everyone you ask today will answer that question with a “no,” for all the wrong reasons.

Election 2016: Where the Democratic Candidates Stand on Higher Education

Oct 7, 2015 ·

Higher education has already become an important issue in the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primary race. It should receive considerable attention in the first primary date, scheduled for October 13 on CNN. In general, Democrats have been more specific and more vocal about their higher education plans than the Republicans. This is nothing new; higher education has long been a favored interest group and source of power for Democrats.

Free College for All Is Not the Best Way to Expand Access

Oct 2, 2015 ·

“Free college” makes for a neat sound-bite in Democratic primaries. But turning higher education into another middle-class entitlement isn’t going to improve outcomes, isn’t going to promote economic mobility, and isn’t going to encourage the kind of structural reforms that are long overdue.

Actually, You Can Discharge Student Debts and the Feds Want to Make It Easier

Sep 30, 2015 ·

It is common knowledge that students who have amassed large college debt burdens cannot discharge those debts through bankruptcy. That “knowledge,” however, is not really the case—the laws are written to permit discharge of student loan debts in some cases. And, with the federal government pushing for broader interpretations of those laws, they are now an incentive for students to amass debt and then dump it on the taxpayers.

UNC-Chapel Hill’s Defense of Controversial 9/11 Course Doesn’t Hold Up

Sep 21, 2015 ·

Given that the included content is overwhelmingly anti-American, that the course omits some of the most essential perspectives, and that the professor is a hard-left ideologue, the only proper conclusion can be that the course was crafted to present a biased picture. It is time for the Trustees of UNC-Chapel Hill to step up and end this politicized abuse of the curriculum. And in doing so, establish themselves as the voice of reason, since the administration seems incapable of proper judgment in many curricular matters.

Affirmative Action Actually Hurts Campus Race Relations

Sep 18, 2015 ·

The Supreme Court held, in the 2003 case Grutter v. Bollinger, that it is permissible for universities to give some students preference in admission on the basis of their race. That decision was a serious mistake and it is time to correct it. Grutter’s essential premise is that a racially diverse student body leads to educational benefits for all students. The Court accepted that proposition—but it should not have. There is good reason to doubt that the claimed benefits of diversity in the classroom are even genuine, much less compelling.