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
“identity politics”
The Benefits of DEI? Not So Much
The Trump administration is, for the first time since the emergence of the full-blown DEI regime in higher education, looking closely at what that movement has produced and where it…
Students Don’t Want Political Statements From Administrators
Over the last several years, we have seen many colleges and universities make aggrieved statements in response to current events, from the election of President Trump to the death of…
The Neo-Tribes of Anthropology
Anthropology’s main purpose is to teach us about others—other cultures and people from other times. The study of the other was meant to show us human diversity and similarities. This…
Divide and Conquer: Radicalizing Military Education
From late 2017 to 2018, three scholars wrote and submitted to academic journals 20 fake papers focused on gender and sexual identity—what the authors call “grievance studies.” Seven journals published…
A Florida Bill to Promote Fairness on Campus
Earlier this week, the Florida legislature passed a bill that may become a model for the nation. House Bill 931, sponsored by State Representative Spencer Roach, requires universities to host…
Rescuing “Virtue and Talents” Amidst the War on Tests
On March 28, 2022, Stuart Schmill, Dean of Admissions and Student Financial Services at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced the school’s plan to restore the consideration of standardized…
The Long Decline of the University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania was an excellent school when I was an undergraduate there in the mid-1960s. The politics were polyglot, reflecting an era when the professional classes and even…
A Frenemy on the Left: Robert Boyers on The Tyranny of Virtue
I have long been fond of saying that there are colleagues for whom I would be delighted to vote if they sought my support for service on a university committee,…
From Hiring to Admissions, Universities Seek Ideological Conformity in Applicants
Are you a freshly-minted Ph.D. holder interested in becoming a tenure-track computer science professor at UNC-Chapel Hill? First, you’ll have to submit a “diversity statement” describing your “commitment to diversity.”…