Don’t Feed Academia’s Wasteful Practices
The truth is most college donations make very little impact, at best. On occasion, they are used to produce a bad impact. But that doesn’t mean giving to higher education is necessarily bad or irrelevant. In fact, if done properly, it can be exceedingly valuable.
Keeping Free Speech Alive on Campus
I urge all North Carolinians to make a commitment to preserving individual rights on college campuses. Currently, my organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, is working nationally on a campaign to encourage universities to adopt the University of Chicago’s new free speech policy statement. This statement promises “all members of the University community the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn,” and recognizes that “it is not the proper role of the University to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive.”
No Conservatives Need Apply
My career at West Liberty University came to a screeching halt this fall. My department has been terminated and I’m looking for a new job. The reason why this occurred boils down to nothing more than political animosity.
Sociology Needs More Diversity – Intellectual Diversity, That Is
It seems to me that as a discipline, we sociologists have lost sight of the difference between hypotheses to be researched and conclusions to be defended. We tend to confuse identity politics with social theory, and mistake partisan advocacy for serious scientific analysis.
In Fisher II, the Supreme Court Should Look at Reality, Not Pretense
On December 9, the Supreme Court heard arguments on a crucial case dealing with racial preferences in college admissions, Fisher v. University of Texas. It would be ideal if the Court would recognize that the University of Texas has been unable to show any legitimate academic justification for its racial preference regime. Its “educational benefits” claims are empty.
Why “Mismatch” is Relevant in Fisher v. Texas
Affirmative action is before the Supreme Court again this week, as it rehears arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas. Perhaps the most important question about racial preferences is one that’s not directly raised by the case: do they even work? Do they help underrepresented minorities to achieve their goals, and foster interracial interaction and understanding on elite campuses? Or do large preferences often “mismatch” students in campuses where they will struggle and fail?
Gender Indoctrination: Not Just for Four-Year Colleges
Community colleges focus more on practical subjects than theoretical ones, reducing the chances of their pushing a political agenda. But such schools’ lack of blatant indoctrination is coming to an end, due to recent actions taken by the federal Department of Education. Individual schools should attempt to mitigate the damage rather than force it down our throats.
Erasing the Past Will Not Improve the Future
The rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013, along with the massacre of nine black churchgoers last summer in Charleston, South Carolina, created racial hysteria and gave rise to an anti-intellectual movement that has now extended to American campuses. Its promoters want to purge society—and our universities—of historical relics and symbols that they say glorify white supremacy and perpetuate racism.
Campus Unrest Exposes the Folly of Higher Education’s Social Justice Offensive
Common threads running throughout the latest campus upheavals include attacks on principles of free speech and a willingness on the part of school officials to mollify students and cede control to leftist protesters. Given higher education’s track record, however, both developments are unsurprising.
Feds Plan to Use Accreditation to Produce More Degree Holders
America’s national obsession with raising our “educational attainment” level leads politicians and bureaucrats to focus on the silliest of things. Lately, that has been college accreditation.