The Modern University’s Greatest Failing
In 2006, I clipped a “Non Sequitur” cartoon that captured perfectly the mystique that surrounds our nation’s universities. The cartoon pictured a professor ensconced in a cubicle surrounded by an…
Is There Really a Rape Culture on Our Campuses?
Many people believe that the nation’s college campuses have become hotbeds of sexual assault. In June, after a student at Stanford University was convicted of rape but given a light…
The High Cost of Cultural Amnesia
Famed literary critic George Steiner once said that cultural knowledge allows one to “resist” and that “no one can make a zombie of you if you carry [cultural knowledge] inside…
The Burden of Uncle Sam’s “Generosity” Towards College Students
It was a bad idea for the federal government ever to get into the business of financing college with its various grants and loans, but at least in the old…
College Officials, Take Note: We’re Watching You
The Gallup Organization and Inside Higher Ed co-hosted a conference in Washington on September 15. They called it “Not Out of the Woods: Colleges, Diversity and Affirmative Action after a…
The Education Department Gives ITT the Death Penalty
Foremost among the criticisms of the way our administrative law system works is that bureaucratic agencies get to act as lawmaker, judge, jury, and executioner all rolled into one. That…
Academic Freedom in an Age of Political Correctness
In 2010, a seemingly insignificant event in a far-off land caught my eye. The Israeli academic world was having a fracas over the actions of “post-Zionist” faculty that raised important…
No, the Clinton Plan Won’t “Fix College”
Hillary Clinton’s higher education policy ideas have been taking a lot of criticism. Here, for example, is an analysis by economics professor Gary Wolfram, published in May by the Pope Center.…
The Education Trust Falls for the Chivas Regal Effect
One of the pillars of our education establishment, The Education Trust, recently published a report that’s meant to pressure colleges and universities with large endowments into spending more of their…
The University of Chicago’s Support for Free Speech Sparks Opposition
Last month, just before the new academic year began, the University of Chicago’s dean of students, John Ellison, sent a letter (reproduced in this piece) to all incoming students. It…