“Everything goes when anything goes all of the time.” —Paul Westerberg Alexis de Tocqueville noted in Democracy in America (1835/40) that upon the advent of written constitutions and electoral politics, the aristocracies of the Western world had to rediscover their purpose. He saw the United States as the most acute example of a society in […]
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Thomas Jefferson wrote A Summary View of the Rights of British America in 1774, basically the first draft of the Declaration of Independence. That’s how he got to the drafting Committee of Five for the Declaration in 1776. Fine job you did in 1774, Thomas; why don’t you write another version now? Back in 1774, […]
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Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from the author’s book Lies My Liberal Teacher Told Me: Debunking the False Narratives Defining America’s School Curricula. It is posted here with permission. One central left-wing myth, underlying many other beliefs, is that the United States is a “McCarthyite” society prone to “Red Scares.” The belief props […]
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Recent polling by College Pulse for the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) reveals that college-aged Americans are abysmally ignorant of our rich historical heritage and knowledge of our most important civic institutions. An implication is that the colleges neglect to instruct students to remedy that scandalous deficiency. While that is no doubt correct, […]
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Men and women are increasingly diverging politically, a notably pronounced trend on college campuses. College-aged men—a shrinking demographic—have become more conservative, while college-aged women have moved into the liberal camp. Young women are more likely than their male counterparts to vote, care about political issues, and participate in social movements and protests. A cursory look […]
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Editor’s Note: The following article was originally published by the College Fix on July 22, 2024. It is crossposted here with permission. Professors say they’ve seen growing academic interest in magic, occult Universities are offering a variety of classes on witchcraft and magic this fall, including courses that will examine tarot cards, create spellbooks, and analyze why people accuse […]
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Since I left the Clinical Mental Health Counseling Masters Program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK), I’ve been forced to confront the alarming truth that the entire field of psychology is under the sway of a dangerous ideology distilled from postmodern philosophy and critical theories. This ideology disguises its authoritarian objectives using the camouflage […]
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Virginians made the rejection of the Intolerable Acts revolutionary. The Intolerable Acts were outrageous abrogations of American liberty. Massachusetts was their primary target, but sympathy began to spread beyond its borders. The Orangetown Resolutions showed how small-town New Yorkers could commit themselves to solidarnosc with Boston. But the most important acceders were the Virginians. Virginia […]
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“The arts, taken as a whole, quietly govern the metaphysical heritage of our Western tradition.” Hans Georg-Gadamer, Theory, Culture and Society “Words are the gods living within a convention, but tones are the daemons.” Goethe, 25 February 1870, Cosima Wagner’s Diary, 1: 193 Music thrives across our nation’s universities because the students themselves create it. […]
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Editor’s Note: The following article was originally published by the National Association of Scholars on July 16, 2024. It is crossposted here with permission. The attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, by a 20-year-old man from suburban Pittsburgh has riveted the nation’s attention. I have no wish to clutter the […]
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Editor’s Note: The following article was originally published by Tribune Chronicle on July 13, 2024. It is crossposted here with permission. As the years pile up and experience grows, many folks find opportunities to share tips and guidance for those who are coming up behind them. It’s the way of the world, of course, that adults take […]
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At an exhilarating four-hand piano house concert in Tucson, two noted recording and performing artists, Dana Muller and Gary Steigerwalt, played a signature piece by Maurice Ravel (1875 – 1937), La Valse: Poème Chorégraphique composed in 1919-1920. Later, in a discussion with the audience, the pianists noted that they followed the faster tempo set by […]
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Should we be worried about the power psychology professions have in our everyday lives and the direction of the field? In researching “Trusting the ‘Experts’ is Risky Business,” I came upon the news of an Indiana family who lost custody of their transgender teen even when there was no finding of abuse. The U.S. Supreme […]
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In April, I published a tiresomely long explanation of why the newly popular idea of “institutional neutrality” is a dead end. My essay, “The Illusion of Institutional Neutrality,” took up so much space because I wanted there to be at least one easily available account of where this idea came from, why it was about […]
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Author’s Note: This excerpt is from my weekly “Top of Mind” email, sent to subscribers every Thursday. For more content like this and to receive the full newsletter each week, sign up on Minding the Campus’s homepage. Simply go to the right side of the page, look for “SIGN UP FOR OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER, ‘TOP OF MIND,’” and […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Liberty Unyielding on July 6, 2024 and is crossposted here with permission. It has been edited to fit Minding the Campus’s style guidelines. The Education Department is pressuring colleges to restrict speech that denounces pro-Palestine protesters or denigrates Jews or Palestinians—such as speech calling pro-Palestine protesters “terrorists”—under the rationale that such speech […]
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Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from an article originally published by The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal on July 10, 2024. It is crossposted here with permission. An empirical study of what is being taught and learned in university sociology courses around the country would be challenging to carry out. But American sociology provides […]
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In recent interviews with 2aDays, University of Illinois-Springfield (UIS) student-athletes have accused head golf coach Michael Leotta of severe misconduct, exposing a troubling pattern of abuse and systemic failure within the university’s athletic department. These revelations reflect broader issues in collegiate athletics and underscore the urgent need for reforms to protect student-athletes. Former athletic director […]
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The spring of 2024 witnessed the startling reemergence of anti-Semitism on the quads of many leading universities. Rather than admissions policies that quietly barred Jews from campus in the early twentieth century for fears of “overrepresentation,” the present paroxysms are on florid display. Camps were erected, students assembled with signage, makeshift libraries, and teach-ins that […]
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As an integrationist, multiculturalist, and white man married to a highly educated black woman and the father of two biracial children, I deplore racism in all its forms—systemic, overt, and covert, from any race or color. Racism must be condemned universally, regardless of its source. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared during World War II, “We […]
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Shaun Harper, a Professor at the University of Southern California (USC) and Provost Professor of Education and Business, was recently featured in a Chronicle of Higher Education article titled “Can Shaun Harper Save DEI?” As a recent USC retiree, I read the article and reviewed materials from the USC Race and Equity Center, which Harper […]
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Editor’s Note: This is part II of “Social Dualism and the Problem of Archaic Inequality.”If you have not yet read part I, find it here. Undoubtedly, some individuals who inhabit the marginal regions between two national coalitions can learn to jump between their points of view. Most of us, however, remain isolated, as if on […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by College Fix on July 2, 2024. It is crossposted here with permission. Only about 6 percent of Truman Scholarship winners are conservative or aligned with center-right causes, according to 10 years of data from The College Fix. But why this might be remains a source of disagreement. The advisor for the Truman Scholarship […]
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University of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum recently made headlines for allegedly preventing images of Nigerian Igbo masks from being displayed in their online catalog because these masks, according to the Igbo people, should only be seen by males. The museum’s director, Laura Van Broekhoven, who was hired in 2016, denied these claims, stating that: [T]he […]
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The Supreme Court’s recent Chevron ruling, while rightly focusing on central issues like presidential immunity, also brought a potential boon for American higher education. This decision, which I believe holds promise for the future, has yet to be fully grasped by the higher education establishment. Specifically, in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the Court invalidated […]
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It was an immortal day dedicated to liberty. Stalwart patriots met on July 4, 1774. 1774? Yes. Two years before we declared our independence, the residents of Orangetown, New York subscribed to the Orangetown Resolutions. The Resolutions stated, in part: 1st, That we are and ever wish to be, true and loyal subjects to his […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Cato Institute on July 1, 2024 and is crossposted here with permission. Note, this post updates last month’s post. The biggest changes from last month include: Update on the lawsuits regarding the SAVE plan to reflect the court injunctions. Update on the prospects of the SAVE and HEA plan in light of […]
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It will come as no news to anyone other than Rip Van Winkle that anti-Israel protests recently occurred on university campuses nationwide. Columbia University, Yale, Harvard, Berkeley, and other institutions of higher learning all hosted such demonstrations. One would expect these events to demonstrate a great understanding of the Middle East, especially with professors of […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by RealClear Education on June 25, 2024. It is crossposted here with permission. MIT’s announcement that it will no longer require prospective faculty members to submit “diversity statements” is good news for American higher education. Academic institutions around the world should follow MIT’s example. “Diversity statements”, a one or two-page essay about the […]
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by College Fix on July 1, 2024. It is crossposted here with permission. A pro-Israel group is raising concerns about foreign countries’ donations to American universities. About one in four foreign dollars donated to American universities in the past four decades have come from Arabic countries, many of whom are […]
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