Reforms We’re Cheering For in 2025
Each year at this time, the staff of the Martin Center share our higher-ed-reform dreams for the coming 12 months. Will all of our wishes come true? Probably not. Nevertheless,…
Posts tagged with
“political correctness”
Have Left-Leaning Students Begun Supporting Free Speech?
According to a recent Axios poll, Republican and Democratic college students agree that campuses must broaden free speech “even if there’s some risk of violence.” Moreover, roughly 77 percent of…
“White Logic” and “Jew Physics”
When we think of “Newspeak,” the fictional language invented by George Orwell for his dystopian novel 1984, we typically think of powerful authoritarian governments manipulating language for the advancement of…
Is College a Cult?
Higher education is in a bad way these days. One encounters many metaphors for its current state. It’s a bubble, about to burst. It’s a pyramid scheme. A college degree…
From “Inclusion” to “Belonging”
The manipulation of language is an ongoing strategy for disrupting the traditional values and beliefs of American society. Across the broader Western world, cultural revolutionaries wage a relentless campaign to…
The Education of a Classically Liberal Educator
I began teaching at the university level in June 2018, while I was still a graduate student at George Mason University. This upcoming year, I’ll begin a tenure-track assistant professorship…
A Donor-Intent Controversy at Middlebury College
An unusual donor-intent controversy at Middlebury College has sparked more than the typical public attention. In September 2021, college officials announced that they had removed the name of former Vermont…
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…
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.”…
The Limits of Free-Speech Dogma: Questioning Decades-Old Conservative Wisdom
“My most ‘illiberal’ claim is that all societies necessarily have standards. Even the freest of speech regimes has limits.” This is the claim of Michael Knowles in Speechless: Controlling Words,…