Month: August 2022

Don’t Ignore Shakespeare’s Dick

August 9, 2022
By Eric Clifford Graf

Miseducation and the Law in America, Part I “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” – Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2 America is litigious. Many will roll our eyes at the thought of the creatures that make it that way. Jokes learned in childhood deprecate them in titanic […]

Woke Trophy Hunting

August 8, 2022
By Robert Weissberg

The woke mob’s attack on academic heretics can be likened to hunting. Most hunts attract scant attention, often no more than shooting squirrels with a .22. Blocking the reappointment of a visiting instructor at Smallville Community College who mis-gendered a student is an example of this low-level hunting. But of far greater consequence is what […]

Helping Gen Z Do Science: Cultivating the Written Word

August 6, 2022
By Gregory J. Rummo

I remember as a college freshman seeing a cartoon taped on the door of one of the physics labs in Cornelia Hall at Iona College. It showed a student complaining to his professor, saying, “I really understand the material, I just can’t do the problems.” It’s not rocket science to understand why GenZers are struggling […]

Climate Warrior to the End: A Tribute to Patrick J. Michaels

August 5, 2022
By David R. Legates

Patrick J. Michaels, Ph.D., was an outspoken ecological climatologist, former Virginia State Climatologist, and erstwhile president of the American Association of State Climatologists. For thirty years, he was a research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia. He was a contributing author and reviewer of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change […]

Student Loans Cost Taxpayers $645 Billion More Than We Were Told

August 4, 2022
By Andrew Gillen

Among the debates over federal student loans, two of the most important are: 1) should student loans be used to subsidize college? and 2) are student loans subsidizing college? Should Student Loans be Used to Subsidize College? Regarding the first debate, scholars have long pointed out that there is a role for government facilitation of […]

Pride and Prejudice: Don’t You Dare Upend the “Race-Conscious” Status Quo

August 3, 2022
By Wenyuan Wu

Last week, both Harvard and the University of North Carolina (UNC) filed their response briefs with the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS), which is now considering two lawsuits against the institutions’ admissions processes by Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA). In the responses, the defendants categorically deny claims of racial discrimination in undergraduate admissions, pledge their […]

Academia Needs Builders, Not Burners: What Charlie Kirk Gets Wrong About Higher Education

August 2, 2022
By Peter Wood

American higher education is in crisis, but persuading students to avoid it won’t fix the underlying problems. Charlie Kirk’s new book, The College Scam: How America’s Universities Are Bankrupting and Brainwashing Away the Future of America’s Youth (Winning Team Publishing, 2022), is based on the faulty premise that America can survive without higher education. No […]

Moving Forward: On Building New Institutions

August 1, 2022
By David Acevedo

I recently began a series of articles assessing the various ways out of our current academic quagmire. In the first piece—or perhaps more accurately, the zeroth piece—I urged conservative commentators to stop spending all of their time pointing out the rather obvious double standards, contradictions, and hypocrisy within the higher education establishment, and to instead […]

Help Wanted: Only the Woke Need Apply

"After hypocritically ranting about the threat to 'academic freedom' posed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s higher education reform proposals, the faculty and administration at the University of Texas–Austin appear poised to end the remaining vestiges of free expression and free inquiry at our institution. The university’s 'Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion' (DEI) policy – which already requires that those seeking hiring and promotion demonstrate political commitment to critical race theory and radical gender ideologies – will now be 'sharpened,' apparently to include mandatory 'diversity' statements from job applicants. " - RealClearEducation, 8/9/22

Online Leaders: Fully In-person Students Will Be Outliers

"It's not that chief online officers expect that fully online education will dominate; they see a blended future, in which both exclusively face-to-face and exclusively online students will be outliers by 2025. Instead, most students will take courses based in classrooms that have significant digital components, or classes delivered mostly online that have residential components." - Inside Higher Ed, 8/9/22

A Novel Plan to Reduce Student Debt

"In the reversal of Roe v. Wade (1973) and the discontinuation of the intrusive 'Lemon Test' in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, we have seen the Court return to its proper place as an interpreter of the law, rather than a cultural arbiter. But the work is not yet done. In this new era of judicial restraint, a logical next step would be to revisit Griggs v. Duke Power Company (1971), a decision which artificially increased the need for a college degree — one of the root causes of our current student debt crisis." - Law & Liberty, 8/8/22

Covid Vaccine Mandates Heighten School Inequity

"Most Covid restrictions in the U.S. have long since ended, but the school districts in New Orleans and the District of Columbia are mandating Covid vaccines for children to attend school in person this fall. ... If school began today and the mandates were strictly enforced, at least two-thirds of black adolescents in Washington and almost half of all children in New Orleans wouldn’t be allowed in the classroom." - Wall Street Journal, 8/8/22

Families should be allowed to direct federal pandemic aid

"Public K-12 schools received a total of $189.5 billion in federal pandemic aid. Unlike the grants provided to college students, none of this money was given directly to families to be used to help their children recover from the substantial learning loss that resulted from the pandemic. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) is seeking to change that and allow families of K-12 students to have direct access to federal pandemic aid, as was the case for college students." - The Hill, 8/8/22

The Packaging Is the Problem

"In a seemingly quinquennial occurrence, higher education finds itself on the defensive. A global pandemic kicked off the latest soul-searching, existential crisis in higher education. Despite largely meeting the pedagogical and technological challenges of switching from in-person to remote instruction during the middle of an academic term, questions about the value and future of higher education abound. Why haven't colleges and universities already offered all of their courses online? What is the value of a degree in today's world? Why do colleges and universities continue to adapt so slowly?" - Inside Higher Ed, 8/8/22

Va. Gov. Youngkin faces second suit over teacher tip line

"Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin is facing a second lawsuit over his administration’s repeated refusals to release records related to an email tip line he set up for parents to report school employees who teach 'divisive' subjects. Nonprofit ethics watchdog group American Oversight and the law firm Ballard Spahr filed the suit Monday in Arlington County Circuit Court. The suit seeks documents that show how Youngkin (R) and his staff used the tip line, including how they responded to tips submitted." - Washington Post, 8/8/22

Diversity-Office Funding Wastes UNC-System Resources

"Colleges and universities nationwide are quickly adopting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) ideologies, and the UNC System is no exception. In recent years, this has led to DEI-inspired task forces, departments, and hirings, and DEI has become embedded in all 16 of the schools’ strategic plans." - James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, 8/8/22

It’s Time to End Higher Ed’s Gimmicky Sales Tactics

"Private-public partnerships — arrangements in which college projects or services are outsourced to for-profit providers — have been all the rage in American higher education for some time. ... The latest trend in this space is colleges’ entering into opaque tuition-sharing agreements with for-profit “online program management” companies like 2U, Academic Partnerships, and Pearson to offer distance-education programs. Initially trumpeted as an innovative model to expand access and drive down costs, the programs have seen a spate of recent media stories that paints a far less favorable picture: College-OPM partnerships are Faustian bargains that drive up tuition costs and reduce educational quality." - Chronicle of Higher Education, 8/8/22

College leaders appear at White House to discuss Dobbs fallout

"Many college leaders objected in June after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned the longstanding right to abortion established by Roe v. Wade in 1973. ... Monday’s appearance at the White House gave higher ed sector leaders a new stage to discuss the way the decision is reverberating on campuses as the fall term gets underway." - Higher Ed Dive, 8/8/22

Should we be easy on students after the pandemic? Maybe not.

"Many think the disastrous educational effects of the pandemic mean we should let up on our kids, at least for a while. That’s one of several reasons many schools are reducing homework and making good grades easier to get. Could that be the wrong approach? The College Board has compiled data indicating that students should be given more of a challenge, rather than less." - Washington Post, 8/7/22