Speeches offer Bush Higher Education Plan
CHAPEL HILL — Though most of the State of the Union address Feb. 2 dealt with reforms to Social Security and spreading freedom throughout the world, President Bush also focused attention on his higher-education goals.
During his fifth State of the Union address, Bush advocated increasing Pell Grant funding as well as providing more funding for workforce training initiatives for community colleges. Both proposals were ways, Bush said, “to make our economy stronger and more dynamic.”
Edwards’ new gig:
The Dionne article anticipated last week’s big Edwards news. He now has an issue: the alleviation of poverty. Dionne doesn’t write that Edwards has no idea about how to accomplish it; instead, as he graciously puts it, Edwards is “planning to set up a center to study ways to alleviate poverty.” That would be UNC’s new Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity, of which Edwards will be director.
Despite the landmark Supreme Court ruling, race preferences continue to roil
RALEIGH — In June 2003, the Supreme Court heard two cases concerning racial preferences in Michigan higher education, Gratz v. Bollinger (on preferences used by the University of Michigan) and Grutter v. Bollinger (on preferences used by its Law School). The Court ruling against outright racial preferences in admissions while ruling in favor of considering race in admissions so long as it is used as only one of “pertinent elements of diversity.”
Wrestling with Title IX
For more than 30 years, Title IX of the Education Amendments has been heralded as the reason for the increase in the number of women’s athletic programs across the country and providing opportunities for women like Mia Hamm to compete on the college level.
While Title IX has provided more opportunities in athletics for women, it has done the opposite for men. A federal guideline intended to prevent discrimination among the sexes in education has done just the opposite in college athletics. Title IX requirements have been used to cut athletic opportunities for men, while at the same time increasing opportunities for women.
Students have a new resource to help them know their rights on campus
RALEIGH — The new year has presented “academic freedom” with a grave new threat. The Foundation for Individual Liberty has published its Guide to Free Speech on Campus. The guide gives a shot in the arm, however, to academic freedom.
Ten who failed to make a difference in 2004
End-of-the-year columns are usually replete with the old chestnut of honoring people who “made a difference” the expiring year. Heck with that. Let’s recall instead those who memorably inserted themselves into things to no avail. This column is dedicated to people everywhere who now seek comfort in the thought that but for them, their embarrassing setback would have really been a disaster.
The haunting fear that someone, somewhere in the classroom, may be conservative
Remember H.L. Mencken’s famous jest about Puritanism? “The haunting fear that someone, somewhere is happy.” Apply it to F.H. Buckley’s observations that “The modern Puritan devotes himself to political rather than religious duties” and that this Puritanism “is particularly pronounced in the academy.” Does that not explain this spectacle of self-righteous UNC professors carping about mockery and fearing political infidels in the classroom?
The Top 10 Nuttiest Campus Events in N.C. for 2004
Professors agree that conservatives are dumb; UNC-CH warmly welcomes “Sexuality Studies” and “Latina/o Studies” but balks (barks?) at Western Civilization; a lecturer discriminates; Duke holds a pro-terrorism conference; the School of the Arts does an “Enron” dance; and UNC-CH bravely takes rights and money from a three-member Christian group.
Nothing different between Pope Foundation and other UNC donors
CHAPEL HILL – One of the main criticisms being leveled against a proposed Western Civilization program at UNC-Chapel Hill is that the program would possibly be funded by a conservative philanthropy.
UNC-Chapel Hill leaders approached the John W. Pope Foundation about funding the proposed program. If the Foundation agrees, it could mean a $12 million donation for the school.
No, really – this column is reason to turn down several million dollars?
RALEIGH — A monthly column of mine is under fire by a handful of loud leftists at the University of Chapel Hill. The bunch, which includes a few professors (a very few, let it be said), are arguing that my column is acceptable grounds upon which the university’s College of Arts and Sciences must desist in their efforts to propose a program in Western Civilization that would win an outside grant worth several million dollars.