Why teachers will — and won’t — discuss Buffalo grocery store shooting
"Teachers are once again grappling with how to address with their students racially motivated killings in America, this time that at a Buffalo supermarket where 13 people were shot — 11 of them Black — and 10 died. A White teenager, who police said wrote an online document citing the 'great replacement' theory, has been charged with and pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the shooting. The racist theory says that non-White immigrants are being brought into the United States to eliminate Whites. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), the No. 3 House Republican, and other GOP lawmakers have at one time or another echoed the racist idea." - Washington Post, 5/16/22
Making Their Arguments Against Affirmative Action
"Thirty-four briefs were filed, most of them last week, urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse its past support for affirmative action in college admissions. The briefs could be cited in the Supreme Court’s decision, expected next year, on the admissions systems at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. No college or university filed a brief, although the deadline for briefs in favor of Harvard and UNC is more than a month away. Many colleges and higher education associations are expected to weigh in at that time." - Inside Higher Ed, 5/16/22
‘Faculty Should Be Outraged’
"Soka University of America is accusing its only queer professor of color, Aneil Rallin, of exposing students to 'deviant pornography' and 'vaguely pedophilic' materials in a class called Writing the Body. A faculty committee at the California campus will consider the case later this week. It will then make recommendations about disciplinary action—up to dismissal—to the same interim dean who charged Rallin using those terms. Rallin says the accusations are based on complaints from three students who took Writing the Body in the fall and from one student outside the course." - Inside Higher Ed, 5/16/22
Financial aid administrators call for student loan system reforms
"The federal government’s student financial aid system has long come under fire, drawing a range of accusations: the U.S. Department of Education is lax in monitoring loan servicers, loan forgiveness is difficult for borrowers to secure, students are shepherded into plans that make little sense for their financial circumstances. ... In light of these discussions, the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, along with a cadre of 21 higher education organizations, developed recommendations to improve the federal loan system. More than two-dozen resulting suggestions range from how to streamline loan plans to how to better oversee servicers." - Higher Ed Dive, 5/16/22
Multiculturalism Is Anti-Culture
"The destruction inflicted by multiculturalism is not accidental. It is not an unanticipated byproduct of otherwise good intentions. The destruction is the point of multiculturalism. It attacks culture as a means to foster 'inclusion,' bringing about greater 'social justice,' a goal that can only be achieved by eliminating the hierarchies, privileges, and coercive force that necessarily serve as the binding agents for every culture." - The American Conservative, 5/16/22
Harvard ends undergrad teaching program, tells students to get a master’s instead
"Aspiring teachers at Harvard University will no longer be able to just obtain an undergraduate certificate under a recent decision by the Ivy League school. Harvard announced the end of its Undergraduate Teacher Education Program and said students could obtain a Master’s in Education from the Graduate School of Education’s new Teaching and Teacher Leadership program. ... The decision comes after low enrollment and a $40 million donation in February to create scholarships for students in the new TTL program." - The College Fix, 5/16/22
Texas A&M Weighs Sweeping Changes to Library
"The Texas A&M University system is working on a plan that would make sweeping changes across its 10 libraries. Those changes, still being discussed, would include asking librarians to relinquish tenure or transfer to another academic department to keep it. ... as administrators have suggested additional changes, including to employee classification, faculty members have pushed back, arguing that proposed structural changes to the library system will do more harm than good." - Inside Higher Ed, 5/16/22
Colleges must improve their data use for racial equity efforts
"A major concern is that universities will back away from their commitments because a predominant view of racial inequality in society and by organizations is that it is mainly the result of bad actors with bad intentions. Such institutional tunnel vision on interpersonal interactions can present a false sense of progress. Data, and better uses of it, can play a more central role in monitoring and sustaining higher education’s commitments to racial equity and justice amid mounting political pressures to provide responses and justifications for such decisions. Incorporating data further into decision-making in this political climate is critical to upholding the commitments made over the past two years." - Higher Ed Dive, 5/16/22
Oberlin College Appeals To Ohio Supreme Court In Gibson’s Bakery Case
"On May 13, 2022, Oberlin College and Meredith Raimondo filed an appeal in the Ohio Supreme Court, after losing their appeal from the massive trial verdicts. ... Whether the Ohio Supreme Court decides to hear the case is discretionary under the factors listed above. Historically the court has agreed to hear only about 10% of the Jurisdictional Appeals filed. Since Oberlin College does not have a right to have the Ohio Supreme Court hear the case, it filed a Memorandum In Support of Jurisdiction. ... Of all the documents I’ve seen in this case, Oberlin College’s Memorandum In Support of Jurisdiction may be the most tendentious, bordering on mendacious." - Legal Insurrection, 5/15/22
Remaining monolingual is a surefire way for America to fall behind
"We encourage parents to make language instruction for their children a priority. Employers should partner with schools, colleges, and universities to support the training and recruitment of graduates with foreign language skills. Colleges and universities, many of which have no language requirements or require just a year of instruction, should consider encouraging or even requiring students to graduate with fluency in a foreign language. ... After all, in an increasingly interconnected, highly competitive, multilingual world, remaining monolingual is a surefire way for America to fall behind." - The Hill, 5/15/22
I applied to Cal Davis as an adult. I was newly divorced. I was a virgin when I married her and not one when she divorced me and took my children (with the court’s secular blessings). So what !
For what possible reason would any university ever need to compile data of this type?
All true, but it would seem the solution should be simpler than the one provided by judicial wrangling and lawyerly appeals to Constitutionality.
Don’t answer the questions.
Stop. Don’t pass GO; don’t collect your class registrations. Just say NO.
The fact that any head-up-butt governing body might feel self-righteously empowered to ask personally intrusive questions does not mean that any of those questions will or should be answered (or answered honestly). Even with the nominally threatened ‘stick’ of no-class-registration hanging above the students’ heads, every student so challenged can and should simply say NO (and ‘Hell No!’ would be more than appropriate).
No — I’m not answering. It’s none of your business. It’s not the business of the University. It’s nobody’s business but my own. The truth of my sexual experience is owned exclusively by ME, not you. (Appropriately followed by a suggestion as to where such questions should be firmly lodged)
So let the callow fools who called for such idiot things then disallow class registration for all 3,460 incoming freshmen. Let the school try to explain to the 3460 families that little Suzie’s acceptance did not translate into class registration because little Suzie refused to reveal her sexual past to a gaggle of Heepish University Administrators who really, really (picture a roomful of Dirty Old Men & Women) REALLY wanted to know what Suzie got up to in the back seat of her Daddy’s car after Homecoming.
So refuse — probably the best option — OR simply lie. That works too. How many sexual encounters have I had over the last whatever? I dunno. Maybe 961 (if you count yesterday afternoon). How many people have been involved in my sexual adventuring? Gosh, I’d guess, conservatively maybe 8 per encounter so that gives me 7688 (not counting the audiences, of course). Continue in that vein. And yes, I have written and notarized consent from all 7688 (and their mothers), so there!
The fact that our Universities — formerly known as ‘institutions of Higher Learning’ — have embraced this insultingly invasive insanity does not mean anyone else needs to so follow. So don’t!
It’s a very grown-up thing to do!
Yes, and cats are so much more fun than sheep. That’s what I might put down if I had to complete such a ridiculous questionnaire!
A mountain out of a molehill. First, the so-called “Campus Reform” article is over five years old, and is posted on the site of the Leadership Institute, and the author is not listed as of their staff. A great deal has changed in five years, in Title IX instruction and just about everything else in this society. I suspect the “course” (even “workshop” grants these types of instruction too much dignity) is long gone, replaced by several “new” interpretations of institutional liability. Second, we really are talking about liability here, no more, no less. That USC seems poorly adjusted to managing its liabilities (the place is perennially reaping scandals); no less than the apparent intrusiveness of its inquiries into student behaviors, may rise to the level of our concern, but I am content to let the market determine that, just as I am willing to allow them their rights in property to admit whom they consider worthy. I am not saying excess “schooling” under the aegis of Title IX is either welcome or warranted, but it does reflect the contest of interests and values. Students uninterested or unwilling to cooperate can walk away.
Instead of just filing suits to retain civil rights, every student should be filing civil damage lawsuits and even class action suits for billions. Damage the schools’ finances significantly and this crap will stop immediately.
You raise an interesting point — there are kids raped in high school. Being forced to sit through a couple hours of this video could provoke a suicide — with political liability.
Likewise, once USC knows something, it becomes liabile for negligence. Hence student overdose deaths — once USC knows the kid is doing drugs, ummmmm….
This is worse than it appears — they are building a psych file on each student. Worse, HIPAA doesn’t apply — all STUDENT medical records come under FERPA so the answers can be shared with the entire admin.
It can be used to create ‘watch lists’, to sentence students to re-education training, and worse.
Has anyone told FIRE about this?