Book Reviews
University practices, innovations, and controversies make for great books. The following articles explore the latest in book-length higher-ed commentary, identifying what’s worth reading, what isn’t, and everything in between.
Bad Legal Education Puts America in Jeopardy
It is worrisome that “progressive” activism has managed to infiltrate so much of American higher education, but wildly politicized sociology and English departments can do us only marginal damage. Few…
Is Standardized Testing Good or Bad?
Should colleges and universities—especially those regarded as elite—use the scores students earned on standardized tests in making admissions decisions? That has been a heated subject of debate for several decades.…
Is Higher Education Inevitably Stuck in the Past?
A common refrain among observers of American higher education is that it changes at a glacial pace—if even that fast. The structure of our colleges and universities serves largely to…
How Academic Elites Are Undoing Centuries of Progress
Professor John Ellis has been a critic of our higher-education system for many years. His book The Breakdown of Higher Education (which I reviewed here) masterfully analyzed the perverse trends…
The Clash Between Academic Freedom and Antisemitism
Academics who cherish free speech have been pushed into a corner by the rapid rise of anti-Zionist and antisemitic rhetoric and action on our campuses. The concept of free speech…
A Black Scholar Who Opposes the “Diversity” Mania
The conventional wisdom among “progressives” is that black Americans must be given preferences in college admissions, hiring, and government contracting because the nation is so suffused with racism that they…
How We’ve Gone from Institutions of Higher Education to Conformity Colleges
Many Americans realize that our higher-education system is decaying, its standards in decline while costs continue to rise. Is this situation like a tooth with a cavity that can readily…
How and Why Are American Minds Being Canceled?
Colleges and universities keep telling us that they teach “critical thinking” skills, but in reality they are deeply complicit in the destruction of the ability to think at all. They’re…
What Happens When Schools Abandon Merit?
America’s educational institutions used to adhere to objective standards of excellence. Students and faculty members had to strive and were rewarded (or not) according to their performance. What their background…
A “Progressive” Analysis of Higher Education’s Problems
There have been quite a few books written incorporating the “ivory tower” shorthand for American higher education. The latest is by Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch—After the Ivory Tower Falls. …