Harvey Silverglate and Greg Lukianoff are speaking at a Manhattan Institute book forum on January 23. If you’re interested in attending, please call Debbie Ezzard at (646)839-3370.
Read More
Here’s a statistic that should make every college teacher cringe. From 1976 to 2010, the rate of high school students graduating with an “A” grade–point average doubled. They didn’t increase their work load, and their test scores didn’t rise correspondingly, but their teachers gave them the highest grade possible again and again. The impact of […]
Read More
As a staffer with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the early 1970’s, would-be Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. penned his historic, if awkwardly titled, memo, “Attack on American Free Enterprise System.” In that August 1971 “confidential memorandum,” to the Chamber’s board of directors, Powell called for an unprecedented effort on behalf of […]
Read More
Need any further evidence of the insularity and obtuseness of the academic left – of its stubborn and unreflecting conviction of its own virtue and superiority, its breathtaking incomprehension of and condescension toward those who don’t share its ideology? Me neither. Nonetheless, a new book entitled Becoming Right: How Campuses Shape Young Conservatives (Princeton University […]
Read More
A pop quiz: Where might a student most likely research the following topic: “The Perversion of the American Dream: Deconstructing Media Portrayals of Sex Workers through Analysis and Real Narratives”? At Smith, perhaps? Possibly Brown? Actually, Phillips Andover, one of the country’s oldest and most august prep schools, recently sponsored a student project in this […]
Read More
From the National Association of Scholars One of the distinguishing features of America from the founding throughout our history has been classlessness. In recent years, especially since 2009, there has been a relentless assault by the progressive left on what it considers the unfair income distribution between the rich and others, propounded particularly in academia […]
Read More
Kudos to NAS, for a thoroughly-researched–and deeply troubling–report regarding instruction of U.S. history at Texas’ two flagship public universities, the University of Texas and Texas A&M. The overall finding: U.S. history faculty members at both institutions, and especially at the University of Texas, are dominated by advocates of race, class, and gender. As a result, […]
Read More
Over the past several weeks, I’ve penned several posts examining the transformation of how U.S. history is taught, and studied, in higher education. The two clear patterns: (1) a decline in U.S. historians who study topics deemed “traditional”; and (2) a “re-visioning” of many of those who continue to study “traditional” topics to make their […]
Read More
The Book of Genesis alludes to seven years of plenty followed by seven lean years of want. For American higher education, the last forty years (roughly) have been years of plenty, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that many lean years lie ahead. Perhaps there won’t be any more fat years. The latest piece of […]
Read More
Ron Unz’s cover story in the December American Conservative — “The Myth of American Meritocracy” — has generated an extraordinary level of commentary in popular magazines, op-ed pages and Internet blogs. The article deals with the many non-meritocratic practices in the admissions policies of America’s most elite universities, especially the eight Ivy League institutions. The […]
Read More
Today’s Wall Street Journal has an excellent article by Father John I. Jenkins, president of the University of Notre Dame, entitled “Persuasion as the Cure for Incivility.” In it, he argues that Americans need to get out of the terrible habit of “arguing” with people who disagree with them by demonizing and vilifying them. He’s […]
Read More
Just when you thought it safe to read about higher education without encountering more toxic fallout from the University of Virginia Board of Visitors’ firing and forced rehiring of President Teresa Sullivan last June, there is now more such fallout. In early December, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), dissatisfied […]
Read More
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that a faculty grievance committee at the University of Southern California has called for the reconsideration of a recent decision to deny tenure to Mai’a K. Davis Cross, an assistant professor of international relations whom the Chronicle states “is of Native Hawaiian and Asian ancestry.” She claims her denial […]
Read More
Since the early years of the 20th century, America has boasted the world’s finest universities, but that rosy picture is fading. The lower quality of American college graduates, the shift of foreign students to Asian and European schools and the slippage in the global rankings of American universities signal a serious decline — this at […]
Read More
As 2012 wound down, one piece of higher-ed news drew attention to a subject that matters to many college students: unpaid internships. On December 20, Charlie Rose’s production team agreed to pay a maximum of $250,000 to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by former interns. Led by Wesleyan alumna Lucy Bickerton, the group claimed that Rose […]
Read More
In the January 2013 issue of First Things, Professor Patrick Deneen contends that the decline in the study of great books is to be found in the very arguments within the great books themselves. While these arguments do exist, their role and the extent of their influence, is difficult to assess. Admittedly the reflexive use of […]
Read More
Almost every day you’ll find new evidence that the United States has vastly oversold higher education. The evidence du jour is in the Wall Street Journal of January 3, a piece by a young lawyer named Chris Fletcher. In it, Fletcher points out that, according to an estimate by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the […]
Read More
The Modern Language Association reports a depressing statistic: the estimated number of jobs offered this year for professors of English will drop 3.6 percent from last year. The main issue here is that for the first time in 20 years foreign language openings will exceed those in English, but the actual decline of English jobs is […]
Read More
In July, relying on the findings of the university’s own report penned by former FBI director Louis Freeh, the NCAA imposed sanctions against Penn State, citing senior administrators’ mishandling of the allegations against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky and the football culture that caused these administrators to look the other way. At the time, […]
Read More
The Common Core has many flaws, but its writing standards stand out as an intellectual impossibility for average middle grade students. Their architects didn’t link them to appropriate reading benchmarks. Last November I saw the results of NYC teachers’ attempts to address these writing standards. Their students had clearly tried to figure out how to […]
Read More
As American higher education begins its 378th year, we can rejoice that our universities have several strengths, but lament their growing number of weaknesses. The beginning of a new year is a good time to reassess the system. Let us begin with the strengths: A large portion of adult Americans have had higher education experiences, giving the […]
Read More
Members of the academy usually display their anti-American sentiment by promoting multiculturalism. Rarely, however, does their critique involve the Constitution itself. To be sure, one can reasonably argue that Supreme Court justices have overstepped their authority or mistaken various clauses. However, Georgetown University professor Louis Michael Seidman wonders whether we should obey the Constitution at […]
Read More
Two recent stories from the Associated Press and the Chronicle of Higher Education report a disturbing consequence of race-oriented college admissions. More and more Asian American high school students believe that the admissions process is geared against them, and as a result an increasing number do not record their race as “Asian” on the application form. Both pieces begin with […]
Read More
Professor Jonathan Zimmerman has sent Minding the Campus a brief response to Ronald Radosh’s critique of his recent Christian Science Monitor op-ed on “affirmative action for conservative professors.” Here it is: I’m grateful for Ron Radosh’s kind words, but I’m also confused by his argument. He takes history professors to task for their ideological blinders, […]
Read More
By Ronald Radosh Last week, Professor Jonathan Zimmerman of New York University wrote a surprising op-ed in The Christian Science Monitor, “US Colleges Need Affirmative Action for conservative professors.” Describing himself as a “devout Democrat” as well as a “frequent O’Reilly critic, ‘ he found himself agreeing with the Fox News channel’s host that “Universities […]
Read More
A team headed by former North Carolina governor (and Davidson professor) James Martin has released its long-awaited report regarding academic misconduct in the UNC Department of African and African-American Studies. Heavy on euphemism and delicate language, the reports sidesteps troubling questions about both the role of athletics at UNC and how an academic department at a […]
Read More
Adolph Reed, who professes political science at Penn, has a snarky OpEd in the New York Times today, “The Puzzle of Black Republicans.” Professor Reed is puzzled why any blacks would vote for Republicans, and why anyone thinks it’s newsworthy that a “token” black has just been appointed to the Senate from South Carolina, “the […]
Read More
People reading Frank Macchiarola’s obituary today will, no doubt, be struck at the variety of his achievements. Frank, who wrote for this site, was widely regarded as the most successful New York Schools Chancellor, but he was also a success as a Law School Dean, Chair of Charter Commissions, CEO of the NYC Partnership and […]
Read More
As Abby Thernstrom once remarked, our colleges and universities “are islands of repression in a sea of liberty,” so we always look forward to the annual report of FIRE to see what all those busy college repressers are up to. FIRE has good news and bad. Good news: For the fifth year in a row, the […]
Read More
The left cannot get enough of the late Howard Zinn. The radical professor’s A People’s History of the United States consistently holds a place in the top 15 of the 100 bestselling political books on Amazon‘s “blue,” liberal side. The million mark in sales has long been passed, an outstanding figure for a work of […]
Read More