How the Best of Intentions Created Today’s Academic Disasters
Today’s assault on intellectual excellence in the academy will eventually end. Hopefully, an investigation will then commence on its causes, and all the usual suspects will be rounded up. This…
Did You Know? Post-Roe, UNC-Chapel Hill Has Struggled to Stay Neutral
One of the most important principles for preserving a spirit of inquiry, discovery, and discussion on university campuses is institutional neutrality. This means that, while individual faculty are free to…
UNC’s Free-Expression Survey Elicits Both Fear and Hope
North Carolina’s public universities have a problem with free expression, and it mostly doesn’t come from censorious administrators or biased faculty members. Instead, it’s the students themselves who muzzle free…
The Origins and Impact of Racially Divisive Curricula
In the fall of 2021, it appeared that Virginia’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Terry McAuliffe, would rather easily defeat his Republican challenger, Glenn Youngkin. But the election turned dramatically once a…
How UT-Austin Administrators Destroyed an Intellectual Diversity Initiative
By now, only the most dishonest or intentionally ignorant observers deny the existential crisis facing higher education. Universities no longer even maintain the pretense of dispassionate rational and free inquiry,…
In Princeton’s Contempt for Justice, Shades of Duke Lacrosse
Presidents of prestigious universities often make outrageous decisions inconsistent with such bedrock values as freedom of expression and providing the accused with traditional American due process. The shameful manner in…
Remembering Title IX Abuses
Recently, Title IX has been in the news because of the Biden administration’s promised (and, as of yesterday, delivered) rejection of much-needed Trump-era reforms. As we are approaching the 50th…
Birds of Paradise: The Moral Poverty of Faculty Freedom Fighters
Carl Dobsky’s brilliant, fiery painting “Birds of Paradise” has been the focus of attention at his recent exhibitions, because it accurately and effectively captures the zeitgeist of contemporary American life.…
Why Johnny Can’t Relax
Alarming rates of depression and anxiety in college students are drawing headlines. A recent study reports that 41% of college students show symptoms of depression, and nearly three-fourths have experienced…
Don’t Write a Blank Check to Your Alma Mater
When persons of means contemplate death, the question of where to leave their financial assets becomes acute. If they are higher education graduates, their former campuses have “advancement teams” ready…