Month: September 2021

King, Kendi, and the Good People of Guilford, Connecticut

Editor’s Note: This essay originally stated that the population of Guilford, Connecticut is “just over 77,000.” The population is, in fact, around 22,000. We have edited the piece accordingly. Like many readers of Minding the Campus, I am despondent over the corruption of K-12 education in America. It seems to have inherited all that is […]

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In Review: Philip Dwyer and Mark Micale’s “The Darker Angels of Our Nature”

Cancel culture has harassed Harvard professor Steven Pinker on more than one occasion. Not long ago, the witch hunters demanded the removal of Pinker as a fellow from the Linguistic Society of America. What was his crime? Pinker had the nerve to point out that modern Western Civilization is not the bogeyman social justice warriors […]

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Six Thoughts on Biden’s Free Community College Plan

Details are starting to emerge about the Biden administration’s plans for free community college. According to a story in Inside Higher Ed by Alexis Gravely, the key details include: States that opt-in must set community college tuition and fees to $0 and must maintain current spending on community colleges. To offset the loss of tuition, […]

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Vaccines in Food? UC Riverside Announces New Research on mRNA Veggies

One of the most alarming developments in the current COVID vaccine war appears in the form of a relatively harmless-looking September 16 press release from the University of California at Riverside (UCR). The press release begins, “The future of vaccines may look more like eating a salad than getting a shot in the arm. UC […]

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1776 Unites Curriculum Highlights the American Character

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by RealClearWire on September 17, 2021 and is crossposted here with permission. Teachers looking for a history and civics curriculum that focuses on America’s promise of securing liberty for all have a new resource: the 1776 Unites curriculum. A creation of 1776 Unites, an initiative of the Woodson […]

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In Defense of Liberal Culture

Kabul’s rapid collapse upon the withdrawal of U.S. troops teaches us at least two things about culture. Firstly, different cultures undergird vastly different forms of government. After 20 years of direct U.S. influence in regime-building, Afghanistan has failed to establish its own democratic government, largely due to illiberal political and civic cultural norms. The 20-year […]

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Why Professors Are Canceled

The cancellation of professors is overdetermined, that is, caused by multiple influences all contributing to the end result. Anne Applebaum reviews some prominent cancellations in her lengthy account in The Atlantic, entitled “The New Puritans.” Here are some of the contributing circumstances: One is that the targets tend to be successful, high-ranking, and often popular, […]

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I Support Affirmative Action. Do You?

The North Carolina General Assembly is considering a new bill (Senate Bill 729) which seeks to outlaw racial discrimination and racial preferences in public affairs. The bill’s language is identical to similar proposals in California, Washington, Michigan, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Arizona, Colorado, and Idaho, which states: The State shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment […]

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The False Justification for Anti-Racism and ‘Social Justice’

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The Epoch Times on September 8, 2021 and is crossposted here with permission. All “anti-racism” and “social justice” writings and campaigns are predicated on the claim that certain races and sexes are being treated unfairly. The only evidence presented to support this assertion is statistical disparities between different […]

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Fact-Checking the Fact-Checkers: An Open Letter

Editor’s Note: This open letter is republished with permission from its authors, Dr. Ronan Connolly, Dr. Willie Soon, and Dr. Michael Connolly, who with other authors recently published the article, “How much has the Sun influenced Northern Hemisphere temperature trends? An ongoing debate.” Their paper was picked up by several news outlets, including The Epoch […]

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Education Department Fibbed About Student Misconduct Rates, Emails Show

A recent lawsuit illustrates yet again that the Biden administration makes false claims without evidence. On June 4, the Biden administration issued a notice calling for new federal policies about school discipline, in light of the fact that “students of color” are disciplined more often than “their White peers.” It cited a controversial report by […]

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The Hard Bigotry of No Expectations: Part II

A scorched-earth campaign by Woke “anti-racists” is laying waste to America’s education and future. Part II offers a sobering update on the rapid progress the Left has made, as well as some thoughts as to why this has happened. Far-Left progressives are rapidly eliminating all disparate racial outcomes, regardless of merit. At an accelerating pace, […]

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A Hero’s Journey: On the Passing of a Colleague

As a new academic year begins, one hero’s journey has ended. Recently as I checked my email, I was stunned and saddened to see that one of my longtime work colleagues had died in a tragic auto accident. I had worked with this person for the past twenty-three years, and while other colleagues and friends […]

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My Father’s Library

The modern West is unique in being grounded not in a specific land or property, but in a theory of property. A couple, actually. What used to be well-known as the Classical Liberal theory of property—stretching back to Locke and Hobbes—holds that property is the first line of defense of the individual against a potentially […]

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The Culture War Against the Little Man

The L.A. Times’ Attack on a Volunteer County Board of Education A few weeks ago, the Los Angeles Times editorial board published a scathing editorial criticizing the Orange County Board of Education (OCBE), two weeks after its special board meeting on ethnic studies and critical race theory (CRT). The editorial accused the OCBE and its […]

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A Comment on COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates

Editor’s Note: The following is a public comment sent by Professor David Richardson to the leadership of his community college system, the State Center Community College District in central California. It has been lightly edited for readability. Board of Trustees, College Presidents & Chancellor, Thank you for allowing me to offer a public comment on the […]

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