Supremely Naive: The Impact of Southworth on the “Marketplace of Ideas”
In 2000, the Supreme Court ruled in Board of Regents v. Southworth that using mandatory student fees to fund student organizations and speakers does not violate the First Amendment rights of those who disagree with the content. The Court’s decision, however, was premised on the idea that university officials would be “viewpoint neutral” in allocating funds—that they would not let the process be used to promote or silence any political perspectives. The Court was dreadfully naive about the state of affairs on campus. Its deferential attitude toward universities and the assumption of good faith speaks to a generation gap between what the justices experienced as students and what today’s students encounter.
Subsidizing Higher Ed Makes It More Costly; It Also Makes Incomes More Unequal
Federal student aid programs were expected to have nothing but good economic and social consequences for America. Instead, however, they are simultaneously making higher education more costly (that is, soaking up more of our limited resources) and, owing to “credentialitis,” making the distribution of income more unequal.
The Hidden Costs of Tenure
In effect, tenure is a barrier to entry in the academic job market that makes it difficult to replace poorly performing faculty with better alternatives.
Freshman Orientation: Conform or Be Cast Out
At UNC-Chapel Hill’s freshman orientation, I learned that free speech, so fundamental to the academy, is only permitted to those who toe the "progressive" line.
Freshman Reading Choices 2015: Welcome to Groupthink U.
Unfortunately, colleges often use their summer reading programs not to help students make the leap to the higher standard of scholarship that should be demanded of them at the collegiate level, but to expose them to books that may influence them to adopt the political agenda of the left.
Critical Thinking, or the “Expectation of Confirmation”?
With so many more Americans going to college than in the past, you would think that anti-intellectualism would be a distant, rapidly fading memory. But you’d be mistaken argue Mark Bauerlein and Adam Bellow, editors of a sharp new book The State of the American Mind.
Gene Nichol’s “Poverty Fund” Is About the Politics, Not the Poverty
The reopening of UNC–Chapel Hill Law School’s Center on Poverty, Work, and Opportunity as the “North Carolina Poverty Research Fund” by law professor Gene Nichol shows great contempt for the UNC system Board of Governors, the state legislature, and the people of North Carolina. It also may be illegal.
An Independence Day Special: Can the Republic Survive Higher Education’s Influence?
Tomorrow is the day we celebrate our nation’s founding—and the first time that a nation was deliberately founded on reason and the rule of law instead of on accidents of history. The central question of this article is “how are the founding and related topics treated in today’s academia?” It is a matter of crucial importance, since academia’s treatment of the nation’s history and fundamental ideals influences the future.
Universities Are Not Economic Saviors, So Let’s Stop Pretending That They Are
To hear some policymakers talk, one would think colleges and universities exist mainly to enhance economic growth rather than to educate.
Why the College Board’s New Standards Would Make Teaching History Even Worse
People are right to be skeptical of the College Board’s new Advanced Placement U.S. History standards. They accelerate the trend toward making American history mainly about race, class, and gender grievances. Events are included only if they can be framed that way.