Replacing Standards with Sympathy
Higher education once stood for rigor, accountability, and personal responsibility. But grade inflation and diluted curricula have already eroded the pretense of academic excellence. Now, a new initiative at the…
Posts tagged with
“academic freedom”
A Bold Bluegrass Initiative
Kentucky’s recent passage of House Bill 4, which eliminates “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programs at public universities and colleges, represents a crucial step toward restoring meritocracy, academic freedom, and intellectual…
The Weak Case for Unrestrained Academic Freedom
Debates about the shape and limits of academic freedom are virtually constant in institutions of higher education, but they have recently become a matter of widespread discussion in the general…
Duke University Press Stays Woke
I recently came across an alarming 2014 article on academic freedom in the Harvard Crimson. “Let’s give up on academic freedom in favor of justice” was the subtitle. The author…
Universities’ Stalinesque Procedures Are Silencing Unpopular Professors
At one time, most Americans (and virtually all academics) would have agreed with the famous saying, often attributed to Voltaire, “While I disagree with what you say, I will defend…
Let’s Hear It From the Faculty
Like many readers of this site, I pay a lot of attention to stories about the latest outrages on our college campuses. All too often, we are told about attempts…
Professors’ Self-Censoring Has Consequences
In a recent Inside Higher Ed/Hanover Research survey, over 90 percent of college professors from public, private, two-year, and four-year universities said they strongly or somewhat agree that academic freedom…
Florida’s Much-Needed General-Education Reform
Florida administrators are revising general education in universities and colleges. Perverse incentives have diluted and politicized general-education courses at the expense of foundational knowledge. Since universities will not fix themselves,…
Educators: Beware the Certainty Trap
Despite what headlines often suggest, when it comes to tackling controversial issues on college campuses, the biggest challenge isn’t constraints on academic freedom. It’s not restrictions placed on free speech,…
From Retaliation to Reform
You have undoubtedly heard about cases where intolerant administrators target professors who fail one of the ideological litmus tests that increasingly characterize higher education. Such instances have become commonplace, perhaps…