It’s Time to Mandate Merit
In an August City Journal piece, my former colleague John Sailer wonderfully quoted an anonymous professor: “Every day, the universities wake up and break the law.” Just about every faculty-hiring…
Articles by David Randall
Black Americans Are Discarding “College for All”
The largest changes in college enrollment by black students have nothing to do with Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023), which banned affirmative action (“diversity”) in undergraduate admissions. SFFA…
Hoosier State Slash and Burn
The Indiana Commission for Higher Education, Indiana’s public-university-system leadership, has announced that the state’s public colleges are responding to a new state law by eliminating or merging more than 400…
Shaping Souls to Stay Afloat
Artificial Intelligence (AI) looks to upend higher education—all education—in no end of ways. The advantage it gives to cheaters by itself is upending the practice of teaching. But AI poses…
“No” to Killing the Department of Education
Federal statutes require the United States Department of Education (ED) to fund race discrimination at postsecondary institutions through laws such as § 1059e. Predominantly Black Institutions, § 1059g. Asian American and Native…
Don’t Dismiss Early-College Options
The College Board has dumbed down its Advanced Placement (AP) examinations. That’s the message from Steven Mintz, professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin, in a letter…
How Would Project 2025 Impact Higher Ed?
Candidate Trump has disavowed the document (seriously or not). The former president may well lose the election. Nevertheless, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is a serious outline for governance in…
To Address the Irreproducibility Crisis, Invest in Digital Archiving
“Millions of Scholarly Articles Are Not Being Archived,” says the article title, and the initial impulse is to roll one’s eyes and think cynical thoughts. Given the quality of scholarship…
How the AHA Killed Viewpoint-Neutral Teaching
The October 7 Hamas mass-murder of Israelis highlighted the academics around the world who have a soft spot for Jew-killers, as well as how their bigotry’s gotten into everything they…
Duke Doesn’t Need “Economic Diversity”
The New York Times is on a tear about “economic diversity.” It’s got a naughty-and-nice list, defined by the number of students with Pell Grants, and it’s stapled a scarlet…