Contra the “McDonaldization” of Higher Education
The term “McDonaldization” was coined by sociology professor George Ritzer in 1993. He meant for it to describe “the industrial process of rationalization that [was] expanding beyond industry into the…
Segregated Student Housing: Exclusion in the Name of Inclusion
Irwin Holmes was in his living room, a laptop computer in front of him, a pile of reading materials stacked next to him, and his wife seated nearby when he…
How Higher Education “Studies” Men
In 2013, Stony Brook University (part of the SUNY system) revealed plans for a new “Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities.” Since I’m a Stony Brook grad, I…
Higher Education’s Diversity Obsession: A Bad Bargain
The obsession with diversity is so widespread among American colleges that it has become a normal part of campus life. Just what “normal” looks like is revealed in a new…
How to Fight the ABA’s Anticompetitive and Discriminatory Practices
Recently I urged top law schools to stand up to the excesses and abuses occasioned by the ministrations of the American Bar Association (ABA). These schools could band together and…
When College Sports Lean Pro, Students and the Public Pay
Last week marked the latest chapter in the biggest college sports scandal in history. Administrators and athletics officials from UNC-Chapel Hill appeared before the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions in Nashville,…
Millennials and the Anti-Capitalistic Mindset
The great intellectual debate of the 20th Century was between capitalism and socialism, wrote Robert Heilbroner in a 1989 New Yorker article. Seeing the collapse of Soviet Communism (socialism with totalitarian power), he…
No, Professor, Words Are Not Violence
The excuse we have often heard for raucous campus protests over the last few years is that they are justified as a way of countering the “violence” of speakers like…
Should American Degree Programs Borrow from Their European Counterparts?
According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, in the previous two decades over 31 million students have dropped out of college shortly after beginning their coursework. There are many…
From College Indoctrination to Corporate Intolerance
A day after an internal email by a Google employee was leaked to the press, a combination of ideological intolerance and scientific illiteracy led Google to fire James Damore for…