Student Free Speech Suffers a Defeat
Since launching its Stand Up for Free Speech project in 2014, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has had a great deal of success in defeating college officials…
Articles by George Leef
Professors Should Write Books That Seek Truth, Not Inflame Passions
The academic enterprise is supposed to be about truth. Those who are entrusted to teach are expected to convey knowledge to their students, not their opinions. And when academics write…
Meet the Professor Who Has Been Punished for Denouncing Tenure
For most professors, the quest for tenure is an all-consuming obsession. It confers security against job loss and cements your position at the college or university. With tenure, you’ve “made…
Duke Assails Free Speech So It Can “Protect and Value Diverse Perspectives”
American college campuses are becoming more and more like the old communist states where people enjoyed freedom of speech—but only so long as they didn’t question some aspect of the…
Can the Feds Do Something to Protect Campus Free Speech? Should They?
That free speech on college campuses is under attack cannot be denied. We find invited speakers being disinvited or shouted down, “bias incident” reporting systems that encourage students to complain…
Court Ruling in the McAdams Case: A Body Blow to Free Speech and Tenure
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…
Why the Woman Appointed to a Top Education Department Post Is Under Fire
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…
Attaching Strings to “Free” College Education Makes No Sense
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.…
Microaggressions Put Under the Scholarly Microscope
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…
If We Can’t Repeal the Higher Education Act, Let’s Improve It
The United States got along nicely for its first 176 years without any federal legislation on higher education. (A good reason why there was no such legislation is the absence…