Half a century ago, our colleges and universities were liberal in their orientations and policies. Generally, they treated students and staff as individuals who were judged by their academic achievements and potentials. (Where they existed, the exceptions were numerically minor: children of alumni and athletes.) Students and staff were free to associate with one another […]
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America’s students will get a lot of pass/fail grades during the coronavirus pandemic. The University of Pennsylvania, Lehigh University, and Haverford College have allowed students to choose whether to be graded pass/fail for classes this semester. Duke University announced, “all spring courses at the university will default to a satisfactory/unsatisfactory grade scheme.” The Massachusetts Institute […]
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The latest racket in higher education, evident at my alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin, is the disturbing proliferation of “social justice” as a degree program, a course topic, an academic emphasis, and even as a prerequisite in campus job descriptions. “Social justice” is a seemingly innocuous term with no established definition. Many […]
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The humanities have become such a minor activity on college campuses that it is almost unimaginable that 30 years ago a change in a humanities course was a national controversy. That’s what happened, though, when an article appeared in The New York Times on Jan. 19, 1988 with the headline “In Dispute on Bias, Stanford Is Likely to Alter Western Culture Program.” […]
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Suppose you’re the editorial-page editor of a college newspaper, contemplating the big news on campus: protesters have silenced an invited speaker and gone on a violent rampage. Should you, as a journalist whose profession depends on the First Amendment, write an editorial reaffirming the right to free speech? If that seems like a no-brainer, you’re […]
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Several years ago, I was a visiting professor at a large public university beyond the Mississippi. Early on, I introduced myself to a few of the colleagues in the department, some of whom proved to be vigorous liberals unhappy with the social state of things on campus. One of them said to me as I […]
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Social-justice ideology is turning higher education into an engine of progressive political advocacy, according to a new report by the National Association of Scholars. Left-wing activists, masquerading as professors, are infiltrating traditional academic departments or creating new ones—departments such as “Solidarity and Social Justice”—to advance their cause. They are entering the highest rung of college administration, […]
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There is a common cultural dynamic in which competition among members of a social or political movement for the prestige of ideological purity and group leadership leads to more and more extreme substantive positions. Examples are countless: Christianity, based on a Jewish Messiah and his Jewish Apostles, soon enough came to disparage Jews who did […]
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Many college professors and administrators are eager to turn their students into ideological clones of themselves in hopes of ensuring that the U.S. will have the kind of governmentally controlled, collectivistic society they desire. Sometimes their “success” in that becomes spectacularly evident, such as the furious, vitriolic attack by the Oberlin College community against a […]
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When I first took up my teaching post in 1968, a bright undergraduate said to me, “North American culture is the most corrupt in the world.” I was rather shocked to hear this, having just returned from a year of ethnographic research in the Middle East, where arguably there are many more serious problems. The […]
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A 2019 report by the Knight Foundation on the state of collegiate student expression made the troubling conclusion that “students largely agree that the political and social climate on college campuses prevents some students from saying what they really believe because they’re afraid of offending their classmates.” The data revealed that 68% felt silenced because […]
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Today, many people, in the U.S., Canada, and the rest of the West, have rejected liberal democracy in favor of “woke” identity politics and cultural Marxist “social justice.” Following the Marxist vision of society as a division of classes, with the oppressed victims struggling against the privileged oppressors, identity politics has expanded the class struggle […]
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I keep being invited to talk about free speech on college campuses and every time I’m invited I make the same point: that this isn’t about free speech and this is only tangentially about college campuses. This is about a breakdown in the basic logic of civilization, and it’s spreading. College campuses may be the […]
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It is not news that “social justice” ideology, supported by its pillars of “diversity,” “inclusion,” and “equality of results,” has replaced liberal democratic culture in our government, university, and business offices. Instead of being treated as individuals, people are treated according to the racial, gender, sexual preference, and ethnic categories that they belong to. Instead […]
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Colleges and universities can be relentless in pursuing their graduates for donations. They publish alumni magazines with glowing accounts of their faculty, students, and alumni, sponsor “Alumni Weekends” to show off new buildings and hear success stories, and of course, mail out regular solicitations with convenient return envelopes for donations. Although I have donated in […]
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In higher education, disgraceful scandals and major embarrassments once arrived one by one. Now, they appear in clusters, like epidemics we should have been expecting. Take the University of Tulsa, suddenly in the grip of a “strategic plan” aimed at marketing the university to students who are career-oriented and lured by the idea of fighting […]
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From supporting shout-downs and intimidation of conservative speakers to denying due process to students accused of sexual assault, stories regularly emerge that chronicle the liberal lopsidedness and lack of true viewpoint diversity among campus administrators. It is widely known that these omnipresent administrators – mid-tier staffers who occupy dozens of offices including diversity and inclusion, […]
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It is getting awfully hard to be a humanities professor. Or rather, it’s getting hard to be a humanities professor and still maintain the heady confidence in the fields that the faculty had 20 years ago. The daily grind of teaching, research, and service haven’t much changed, especially for tenured professors who aren’t touched by […]
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}In the U.S., coastal progressive Democrats and conservative Republicans from “fly-over country,” are at each other’s throats. At least half of Americans despise their politically incorrect President. The results of elections are no longer accepted; “resistance” is proclaimed, and the aim is to overthrow those who have been elected, along with the Constitution and the […]
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Two-thirds (66.3%) of English departments responding to a survey indicated that the number of undergraduates majoring in English is either lower or sharply lower. Only 8.7% reported an increase in the number of majors; none reported a sharp increase. That’s the abysmal finding of a survey of English departments issued last month by the Association […]
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We notice that Harvard University is now offering a “social justice certificate,” based on 16-course credits over 18 to 36 months at a cost of $10,800. “Explore theoretical and practical questions of economic, political, and social rights through a variety of lenses,” says the pitch on the Harvard site. “Through this liberal arts graduate certificate, […]
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I didn’t really want Jordan Peterson to provide me with 12 Rules for Life. It was enough that Professor Peterson defied the transgender advocates at the University of Toronto who wanted him to adopt nonsense pronouns to address his students. It was heartening to see Professor Peterson stand his ground against that obnoxious guardian of […]
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Several correspondents send me links to “must read” articles every few days. High up on the list since February 9, has been Andrew Sullivan’s New York Magazine article, “We All Live on Campus Now.” Like most “must reads,” Sullivan’s article is a blazing reassertion of what most people already know. Its claim, as Pope defined […]
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When people watch videos and TV footage of college students screaming at professors and blocking doors to lecture halls, they wonder where the rancor and intolerance come from. A story recently in The New York Times identifies one origin. It’s called “Children’s Primers Court the Littlest Radicals,” and it covers a new trend in children’s […]
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Culture wars over “social justice” have been wreaking havoc in many communities, including universities and science fiction fandom. The ordeal of Northwestern University film professor Laura Kipnis, hauled before a campus gender equity tribunal for publishing a critique of academia’s current obsession with sexual misconduct, has brought the backlash against “political correctness” to reliably left-of-center venues such as Vox. But this is […]
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