Abortion Decision Takes Aim at College Students
"While the content of Friday’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade is not a surprise, it is devastating. Those of us in the California higher education community support reproductive rights, and at this critical juncture we must pause and reflect upon what this means for women and their right to educational access nationwide. As mothers and as educators, we understand what is at stake. These data are clear." - Inside Higher Ed, 6/29/22
5 proposed Title IX rule changes colleges should know
"The department’s draft rule contains some DeVos-era elements, but would largely dismantle the current regulation. It would give colleges flexibility to decide whether to hold a live hearing to assess sexual assault claims rather have the type of hearing be mandated, for instance. Below, we outline five key provisions of the department’s plan that colleges will likely need to understand." - Higher Ed Dive, 6/29/22
The Red State University Blues
"Across the country, elected officials in red states are seeking to impose their political views on public universities. Even as they decry liberal cancel culture, they’re leveraging the threat of budget cuts to scale back diversity initiatives, sanitize the teaching of American history, and interfere with university policies and appointments." - Chronicle of Higher Education, 6/29/22
Arizona's New Law Funds Students, Not Just Government-Run Schools
"It's good to watch your state lose its lead as a school choice innovator not because it's backsliding, but because other states are making it easier for families to pick education options for their kids. It's even better when your state reclaims the lead through increased freedom. Last week, my state of Arizona did just that with the passage of a law expanding the use of education savings accounts (ESA) that let education funding follow students to their families' preferred learning environments rather than locking them into one-size-fits-some government institutions." - Reason, 6/29/22
The ‘Difficult’ Name Penalty
"Prior studies have found evidence of name-based discrimination in hiring. But while such research often used fake applications to examine how would-be employers responded to names distinctively associated with a particular race or gender, one new preliminary study looks at name fluency: how long it takes to a pronounce an applicant’s name." - Inside Higher Ed, 6/29/22
China’s Academic Soft Power
"In his Art of War, the Chinese military theorist Sun Tzu (544-496 B.C.) noted the value of adaptability and formlessness when seeking advantage in different terrains. Two of Sun Tzu’s maxims, that warfare, like water, has no 'constant condition,' and the need to defeat an enemy without fighting, characterize Beijing’s subversion of American higher education." - American Greatness, 6/28/22
Will the Fall of ‘Roe’ Change the College-Going Landscape?
"The Supreme Court’s decision on Friday to overturn Roe. v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the cases that defined abortion as a constitutional right, will negatively affect many students’ ability to attend and finish college in the years to come. Research shows that women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are more likely than other students to take breaks from their studies to care for children. Less well-known, though it has been speculated about, is the impact the ruling will have on students’ — and staff and faculty members’ — choice of college." - Chronicle of Higher Education, 6/28/22
Persistence rates rose last fall but didn’t reach pre-pandemic levels, report finds
"Student persistence and retention rates rose for the fall 2020 cohort of first-time students but have yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels, according to a new report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Of the 2.3 million first-time college students in fall 2020, 75% returned to higher education by fall 2021. A majority, 66.4%, stayed or earned a credential at the same college, while 8.6% returned to class at a different institution." - Higher Ed Dive, 6/28/22
Excelsior Scholarship’s fine print limits recipient numbers, report finds
"Red tape and fine print are significantly limiting the number of students who receive New York’s Excelsior Scholarship, a free college program that covers two- and four-year institutions, a report from the Urban Institute found. ... The Excelsior Scholarship has relatively stringent eligibility criteria, including a post-graduation residency requirement, that policymakers might seek to avoid if they are looking to serve the most students possible, researchers concluded." - Higher Ed Dive, 6/28/22
New student housing slows from pace seen in 2010s
"Private developers are slated to deliver just 26,000 new student housing beds near universities across the country in fall 2022, a pullback from the 40,000 to 50,000 pace seen in the 2010s, according to data and analytics firm RealPage. ... 'The pandemic’s impact on permitting and funding coupled with other challenges … have resulted in construction tapering off at many schools,' Carl Whitaker, director of research and analysis, market analytics at RealPage, said." - Higher Ed Dive, 6/28/22
Several issues deserve to be discussed separately:
1. Did Sandusky actually perform anal rape on a pre-adolescent boy in 2002? What he did in other cases is irrelevant to the truth or falsity of the charges in this case.
2. Did McQueary observe this as it was occurring or did he mistakenly confuse a physical encounter with a rape? Or did he exaggerate nine years later what he saw in 2002?
3. Was what McQueary did in 2002 morally and legally appropriate? According to his own account, he didn’t appear to take very drastic action at the time.
4. What did McQueary tell Joe Paterno and the two University officals in 2002 as compared with what the three of them remember his telling them? Memory is notoriously fallible even after ten minutes. In order to believe the account of the three University officials, we don’t have to believe that McQueary lied; his memory of the events might simply be incorrect.
5. Grand juries are well known to indict innocent people because they are influenced strongly by evidence provided only by prosecutors. (The accused person does not have an opportunity to present his case to the grand jury.) Remember that the Duke lacrosse players were indicted by a grand jury for rape at the prodding of a prosecutor who was later disbarred for improper behavior in the case.
Jackson Toby
Professor of Sociology Emeritus
Rutgers University
This argument that Paterno was unfairly fired presupposes that there was a single incident–the 2002 one–that Paterno did or did not act upon. But the grand jury report, as the media coverage of this has made clear, indicates that there were multiple incidents known to the athletic staff as occurring at the football facility. It becomes increasingly difficult to defend Paterno if his failure to act was not on the 2002 incident but in permitting Sandusky to remain hanging around the place after his retirement in 1999 when the stories kept coming up. Paterno probably did run a very first class program. But he didn’t deal with the creepy former staff member about whom stories kept circulating. That’s the failing. Sometimes you have to let your friend go when they are doing things that you don’t condone.