Articles

Articles

Jul 18, 2003 ·

Education Dept. ‘further clarifies’ Title IX enforcement

Several months have passed since a federal commission urged changes to how the government enforces Title IX of the Education of Amendments. Several years have passed since the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights last issued a Clarification of OCR’s policies to determine compliance with the measure. On July 11, in a “Dear Colleague” letter, OCR issued what Gerald Reynolds, assistant secretary for civil rights, termed a “Further Clarification of Intercollegiate Athletics Policy Guidance Regarding Title IX Compliance.”

Jul 12, 2003 ·

Policymakers mull proposals that would cut NC citizens’ access to UNC

Two ideas under discussion in North Carolina would make it more difficult for illegal residents of the state to be admitted to the University of North Carolina.
The first is a bill before the state Senate to extend in-state tuition rates to illegal immigrants and other noncitizens. Senate Bill 987, currently before committee, would amend the General Statutes to extend resident tuition status to any “individual who (i) has attended school in North Carolina for at least four consecutive years and (ii) has received a high school diploma from a school within North Carolina or has obtained a general education diploma (GED) issued in North Carolina.”

Jun 20, 2003 ·

Obscenity for Fun or Salvation

This spring Bill O’Reilly, host of Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor,” devoted several segments to the obscene goings-on in a human sexualities class at the University of Kansas. Viewers were told how Prof. Dennis Dailey showed “highly explicit” material including nude images of little girls, said he understood how some could be pedophiles, held a “wheelchair sex day” in class, showed pornographic films, compared one photograph of a female’s spread genitals to the Virgin Mary, and also made obscene gestures to students who demonstrated offense.

Jun 13, 2003 ·

Human Capital Contracts: An Attractive New Way to Pay for College

A report from the Cato Institute suggests an alternative method for paying for higher education. As the need for new methods of finance is growing with the rapidly rising costs of higher education, and as student loans are beset with defaulting and graduates dealing with the uncertainty over being able to make fixed loan payments, the report argues, human capital contracts should be an attractive alternative.

Jun 6, 2003 ·

Another Dud for UNC’s Summer Reading Program

Last year, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s summer reading program managed to stir up controversy and even litigation by choosing Michael Sells’ book Approaching the Qur’an as the book incoming freshmen were expected to read. The problem with that book, which overlooks Islam’s propensities toward intolerance and violence, was not that it was promoting religion, but that it was a waste of the students’ time. This year’s choice is no better, and arguably it’s worse. Incoming freshmen are assigned to read Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.

May 30, 2003 ·

To Please U.S. News & World Report, UNC Wants to Cut In-State Enrollment

The latest raspberry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to the state’s hoi polloi is that their kids aren’t good enough to fulfill Chancellor James Moeser’s vision of achieving “the best public university in the nation.” Thus UNC-CH wants to cut the proportion of students it enrolls from NC.

May 23, 2003 ·

UNC’s Federal ‘Overhead’ Left Untouched — For Now

Last year, 15 universities comprising the University of North Carolina system (excluding the N.C. School of the Arts) received $123.6 million in what are known as “overhead receipts” from federal research grants. That money, which the UNC system prefers to call “facilities and administrative receipts,” is money given on top of the actual grant amount that is intended to defray the administrative and institutional costs in conducting the actual research.