Debt Relief Heads to Supreme Court
"The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether the Biden administration’s plan to forgive up to $20,000 in federal student loans for eligible Americans is legal. ... Oral arguments in the case will be held in February as part of the court’s current session; meanwhile, the injunction remains in place, according to the court’s announcement Thursday." – Inside Higher Ed, 12/2/22
An American Law School, Then and Now
"50 years ago, I was a first-year student at the University of Texas School of Law. Then, it occupied about the same place in the hierarchy of American law schools that it does now: not at the very top but in the top 10 percent. Yet it is a profoundly different school today." – James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, 12/2/22
Can ‘Dirty Money’ Pollute Climate Scholarship?
"Higher education climate and sustainability initiatives have proliferated in recent years, buoyed by eager donors with deep pockets and aspirations of averting climate catastrophe. This renaissance is also reigniting a debate over the consequences of accepting funding for climate research from fossil fuel companies ... " – Inside Higher Ed, 12/2/22
Applying to College, and Trying to Appear ‘Less Asian’
"Asian Americans are a hugely diverse, complicated group, and students don’t fit into cookie-cutter stereotypes. But in the high-stakes competition for spots at elite colleges, in which so much of an applicant’s life must be boiled down to 500 or so words, many Asian American students are acutely aware of what not to be." – New York Times, 12/2/22
As enrollment falls and skepticism grows, some colleges are cutting prices
"Bright fall hues and neatly manicured lawns frame redbrick buildings and a white wooden church steeple on a peaceful New England main street with a view of the White Mountains in the distance. It’s an unlikely setting for a high-stakes gamble that could help drive dramatic change to a contentious issue: how, and how much, Americans pay to get a higher education." – Washington Post, 12/2/22
Grand Canyon U Loses Lawsuit Against Education Department
"A federal district judge in Arizona ruled Thursday that the U.S. Department of Education acted lawfully when it denied Grand Canyon University’s request to be considered a nonprofit institution under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965." – Inside Higher Ed, 12/2/22
Biden's gender transition proposal cements school-to-clinic pipeline
"In July, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) published a proposal for new rules under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. If passed, the rules would, among other things, ramp up the pressure on school districts to adopt policies that will facilitate students’ gender transitions, even without the knowledge or consent of their parents." – Fox News, 12/1/22
Naval Academy Withholding Diplomas from Unvaccinated Midshipmen, Lawmakers Say
"Representative Greg Steube (R., Fla.) blasted the U.S. Naval Academy on Thursday after one of his constituents claimed she has been told she needs a Covid-19 vaccine to graduate. 'Think about spending four years of your life in college and then not even being able to get a degree for the work that you’ve done,' Steube said ... " – National Review, 12/1/22
Michigan State trustee resigns over transparency, Title IX concerns
"Michigan State University trustee Pat O’Keefe resigned Wednesday, alleging a lack of transparency around the way the board and university handled personnel and Title IX cases. In his resignation letter, O’Keefe raised concerns over the university’s choice to fire Sanjay Gupta, who was dean of its business school before being ousted after allegedly failing to report a sexual misconduct incident." – Higher Ed Dive, 12/1/22
Colleges Turn to Segregation to Solve Racial Ills
"What was once discarded as an embarrassing remnant of the Jim Crow era has now become de rigueur on college campuses, returning in the form of 'affinity groups,' racially separate housing arrangements, and segregated theatrical performances." – National Review, 12/1/22
Yiannopoulos is what in Britain is called a “wind-up merchant”. He doesn’t mean half of what he says. He just says things to provoke humourless American SJWs. But as commenters above point out, it wouldn’t matter if he did mean it, or even if he really was a white supremacist. The authorities should defend freedom of speech, and the police should shoot those opposing it.
John Leo feels the need to insult Yiannopoulos two times. Why? I imagine that insulting the guy is necessary to get a hearing from administrators who are inclined to suppress speech from people who don’t agree with them.
Look, this guy is a provocative and entertaining speaker who makes people think – people who live in the academic bubble, detached from reality. Lots of students need to hear this kind of guy, particularly the students who shout him down with nonsensical slogans.
One solution that I have been considering at my blog is the enforcement, not simply of free speech rights, but the rules of decorum, on college campuses. While I understand the objections, it seems to me that an argument against protests on the same the day of a controversial speaking event could be made. On grounds of showing an *invited* speaker the community’s “hospitality”, one could ban gatherings of people large enough to obstruct the proceedings, and even signs voicing disapproval.
Relevant protests that seek to have the event cancelled could be allowed on the days prior to the actual event. There is something odd to me about describing university students as “feral” (unfortunately it does seem apt at times). It should be sufficient to insist on student IDs for people on campus, hanging around the venue, and then to threaten to discipline them for “conduct unbecoming” if their behavior becomes a threat to letting the event go forward.
The idea of having to protect a speaking event on a university campus with a police force is just weird. The conditions under which such force is necessary could be prevented from gathering if we enforced decorum.
“So the violent rioters overwhelmed the insufficient force of municipal and campus police and canceled the speech.”
No they didn’t. The police were told to hide inside a building and allow the terrorists to assault women and freedom of speech at will. See this interview with one of the victims:
The police wouldn’t allow victims of pepper-spraying into the building to receive medical treatment. The police were in effect accomplices of the rioters.
Milo is not obnoxious to many who enjoy his speeches, nor is your opinion regarding him relevant.
The only thing that is relevant is whether he breaks the law – no.
And whether his detractors break the law – yes.
And that he should be allowed to speak.
nobody arrested ?? nobody arrested ?
Milo— far right?
Good god, Leo, I can’t take you seriously. FDR sent citizens to internment camps, and I bet you have never called him a ‘far-right’ president, but you smear a free speech advocate because he gives the left the vapors, exposing their fascist/far right/ctrl-left tendencies.
You are now on my ‘ignore’ list.
If I were in Berkeley, had a concealed carry permit, some thug in a black balaclava swung a long pipe at me, I drew my weapon, and shot him dead, would I have broken the law?
I wouldn’t recommend testing the law too hard on that.
No – check out what happened when Yiannopoulos spoke at the University of Washington. Unfortunately, it’s more difficult to get a carry permit in California.
Milo isn’t “far-right.” More like alt-center. His political positions are quite mainstream, including limiting immigration and skepticism about feminism. He simply expresses his ideas in a humorous and campy way.
And do as the University of Chicago does: expel the barbarians, or as many of them as you can.
Having extensive experience of both campuses, I can tell you that the security issues Berkeley faces (with radical activists, not campus crime) are incomparably more serious than at Chicago.
Here’s another thing to do: set up cameras and use them and the security force to identify every protester they can. Anyone who is a student who participates in violence should be expelled – and that should be announced before Milo returns.
…and if any of the “feral young” turn out to be students of the “university”, expel them. Immediately and irrevocably.
We’ve come a long way, and not in a positive direction, when a fellow who stands up for classically liberal societal values and is branded “far-right” even by nominal conservatives.
‘Cancel’ is totally the wrong word here.
Silence, muzzle, block, obstruct, shutdown all work.
‘Cancel’ implies some legitimacy to the effort, such as ‘the university administration canceled the speech’, or the College Republicans, or Milo himself…
Thugs have no ability to ‘cancel’ anything.
Couple of Fire trucks to cool off the hot heads would work too.
Until mobs of violent protesters start pouring in. Berkeley has plenty of experience of that, mostly decades ago. It gets you a total campus shutdown, plus occupation of the city by the national guard.
1. Milo Yiannopolous is not far right or any other nonsense. He is a libertarian. Anything to the right of Jane Fonda is a Nazi to anyone on the left.
2. There is no such thing as hate speech. Milo Yiannopolous is exactly what the very hippies running college campuses of yesteryear were: an advocate of those who have a different world view than the bigots who run the diversity departments and most college classrooms do today.
3. Remove my tax dollars from these indoctrination centers and transfer it to trade schools and alternative education, since Berkely has a 47% rate of graduates actually getting jobs from the shitty degrees at that riot training facility.
4. Those students who were beaten and pepper sprayed should sue the school for MILLIONS of dollars and put out of business the diversity departments and administrative neanderthals who encourage and support and act out of these publicly funded institutions.
5. It doesn’t matter what Milo was going to talk about, he has a first ammendment right not to be prevented from a bunch of cowards in black masks using violence and temper tantrums to get their point across, while the campus police LET it happen. It is insane and just nuts. Are Libertarians and Conservatives going to have to start packing their concealed weapons and pepper spray just to go to a speech. Picking off this human debris one by one would be a public service in my opinion.
Nailed it.
There is some evidence that the rioters are not students but an outside group being directed and probably funded by others. The FBI should take an interest in who these people are and who is organizing and supporting them. This looks like a RICO case.
Letting fascist thugs win is gutless and beyond excuse — it’s aiding and abetting, and it obviously sets the stage for more of the same.
“Even if it is the obnoxious Milo Yiannopolous”?
No, ESPECIALLY if it is the obnoxious Milo Yiannopolous.
I say F* Berkeley. Let the anarchists have it. They’ve been a hotbed of fascist thought for years. Build a fence around the campus, don’t let anyone out.
Milo is only “far right” if you’re so far left that someone who champions free speech and points out the current fascistic derangement of the campus Left is somehow “right wing.” Which evidently you do.
Milo is “obnoxious because he speaks very bluntly and confrontationally about the very blunt and confrontational rhetoric of the SJW Left, none of whose spokespersons would be banned or violently confronted when attempting to speak on a campus.
You’re right the campuses must do more than give lip service to free speech. But the overwhelmingly far left ideology that rules most campuses, which you seem to share given your characterization of Milo, is not just a problem of bad manners or hypocrisy. It has become essentially a fundamentalist religion that never questions itself and tolerates no dissent or even questioning.
Come on you don’t REALLY believe that they are for free speech?
They knew what was coming, it had happened before, the rioters provided the excuse and the admin provided the cancellation.