There’s something central to every political community about death. As a result, you must deal with death if you’re going to lead. At the extreme, you have to order other people to shed their blood—and perhaps the blood of still others—for the city or country’s sake. Such was the perspective that Pericles brought to the […]
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There are a host of shady dealings between President Joe Biden and foreign interests—at least according to a 300-page impeachment report released by the House Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means Committees on August 19. These committees allege that Biden committed “impeachable offenses” by using his public positions to obtain financial benefits from foreign sources. While Biden’s […]
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The Biden-Harris administration’s pursuit of student loan forgiveness has moved from persistent to relentless and can now only be described as reckless. To briefly recap, the administration announced its first plan back in 2022, which the Supreme Court ruled was illegal in 2023. Their second plan, a loan forgiveness scheme disguised as a loan repayment […]
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As a country, in celebrating resistance, we have lost sight of the important difference between resistance and resolution. For example, even before Donald J. Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2017, plans were afoot to thwart his agenda. Those plans coalesced under the hashtag #Resistance, and included marches, demonstrations, plots for electors to ignore state election […]
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Last week, the shopping period for my classes at Sarah Lawrence College (SLC) was disrupted on Zoom by a “Divestment Coalition” of campus groups, including the Sarah Lawrence Socialist Coalition and the Sarah Lawrence Review. The coalition announced a “boycott” of all my courses for the 2024-25 academic year, labeled me a “staunch advocate of Israel’s right to […]
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Given the power that trustees of a college possess, one must ask why trustees are so negligible a factor in the institution’s operations. Trustees oversee matters of personnel, finance, curriculum, athletics, building construction, and overall mission—or at least that’s what they are supposed to do. Of course, they aren’t the only voice, but they are the final voice on many […]
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Editor’s Note: The following article was originally published by Cato Institute on September 3, 2024. With edits to match MTC’s style, it is crossposted here with permission. Note, this post updates last month’s post. The biggest changes from last month include: The Supreme Court has let the Eighth Circuit’s pause on the SAVE plan remain in place. Reworked the student […]
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“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule it. Power is what all messiahs really seek: not the chance to serve. ” – H.L. Mencken, Minority Report You don’t have to agree with all Mencken’s views to appreciate the poignant message of power hunger corrupting good intentions […]
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For months, the Massachusetts Governor’s allies plotted to strip citizens of their arms. Legislators said they sought only to enhance public safety. But they labored as far from the public eye as possible. Then revealing, “debating,” and passing their legislation in the space of one day, they hurried it to the Governor for signature. The […]
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In June, more than 100 deans signed a joint letter calling for law schools to support constitutional democracy by teaching students to disagree respectfully and engage across ideological divides. As around 40,000 new law students begin their professional education this fall, it is fair to question whether law schools have demonstrated a commitment to this […]
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When members of the U.S. Supreme Court return from their three-month vacation this October, they will hear several major education-related cases. Issues on the docket include Biden’s income-driven student loan repayment plan, school choice, a memorandum on parental behavior, race-based school admission, displaying the Ten Commandments in classrooms, the Bible as a teaching tool, and two […]
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Academic boycotts targeting ideas, individuals, and institutions deemed problematic are no longer just in vogue for faculty. This illiberal and anti-intellectual tactic has now been adopted by students—presumably taking a cue from faculty and administrators—to cancel faculty who hold views they disagree with. I encountered this personally during the most recent course interview week at […]
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While the Biden administration has at least nine plans to forgive student loans, some are much bigger than others. And the two biggest have now run into legal buzzsaws. The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) eventually threw out its first plan in 2022. The second plan introduced a new income-driven repayment plan called SAVE, which, in practice, […]
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Between August 25 and August 27, 1774, the First North Carolina Provincial Congress met in New Bern, North Carolina. There they passed resolutions that they would not import any goods from Britain, including slaves, until the Intolerable Acts were rescinded. They also selected delegates for the First Continental Congress, which would meet the next month. […]
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The continuing changes at the New College of Florida (NCF) have involved the concept of techne. It’s coursework that promises to connect students to real-world opportunities. What might techne mean, either at NCF or elsewhere? Recall this claim from my suggestion for the NCF Mission Statement: “No college does more to increase your odds of getting […]
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The National Association of Scholars (NAS) mourns the loss of Adam Andrzejewski, the visionary Founder and CEO of OpenTheBooks. Adam was a friend to the National Association of Scholars. He inspired our vigorous use of freedom of information requests to pry important information from public universities that are often reluctant to divulge facts that belong […]
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Dedicated to my father, Lee, on his 96th birthday—my first philosophy teacher “By speculating upon causes, we could solve no difficulty about origin and purpose. Our real business is to analyze accurately the circumstances of phenomena, and to connect them by the natural relations of succession and resemblance.” Comte, Positive Philosophy (tr. Martineau, 1858) “Most […]
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I scanned the first message I received in my Columbia University MA English group chat. Bookmarking my copy of Ayn Rand’s We the Living, a novel about the ills of post-Revolutionary Russia, I recoiled. Reviewing the text, sent by a researcher of “imperial conspiracy” in a “postcolonial context,” I felt my vision blurring. This couldn’t […]
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For learning and discovery communities to flourish, there has to be a diversity of ideas that are explored and debated, with multiple perspectives discussed civilly by veteran scholars—the faculty—as well as inquisitive young learners—the students. While campuses in recent years have obsessed over what are intellectually relatively unimportant dimensions of diversity, such as the skin […]
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As anti-Israel protests convulsed American campuses in the spring semester—likely to reappear soon in the fall—one might be forgiven, judging from the headlines, for thinking that the Ivy League and a handful of major state universities constitute the entirety of American higher education. Not infrequently, even commentators on these events hailed from the same set […]
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When I began my academic career, my colleagues regarded the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) as the great proponent and bulwark of academic freedom. The senior colleague I admired most—a gentleman and scholar, the embodiment of what it meant to be a professor—was a long-time member. My, how times have changed. Yes, the AAUP […]
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Although our national motto, E Pluribus Unum, appropriately reflects how diverse peoples have melded together to form a tribe that we call “Americans,” that does not negate the fact that there are numerous different ways we carry out the business of life across our vast land. That is especially true regarding the provision of higher […]
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“Tú sola comprendiste que el hombre y el tigre se diferencian únicamente por el corazón.” —Horacio Quiroga, Juan Darién (1920) At an event at Stanford Law School last year, Associate Dean Tirien Steinbach shut down Federal Judge Kyle Duncan’s speech because his ideas hurt people’s feelings. More recently, officials in the United Kingdom have indicated […]
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I teach at an Ivy League university. I can’t count how many colleagues have told me that they “just give everyone an A.” This mindset doesn’t belong to just one instructor, department, discipline, or generation. I do not “out” any one or two particular people when I describe my experience with grade inflation. It’s happening […]
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With colleges and universities reopening in a few short weeks, I want to remind fellow faculty that educating students is one of the most important tasks they are charged with performing. For faculty to provide a responsible college education today, we professors must help our students learn how to find and then embrace the truth […]
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Billy Beane revolutionized the game of baseball by determining which factors improved the performance of players. The book Moneyball details how he strategized to develop winning players rather than accept the untested school of thought prevalent at the time. When Beane came on the scene, most of those involved in decision-making in the sport judged potential […]
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A new academic year is upon us. With that, new faculty and graduate students will be delving into research applications, especially through the largest higher education funder of scientific research: the National Science Foundation (NSF). This year, those applying for research funds will have to consider whether their projects “may impact tribal resources or interests,” […]
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In a bizarre incident in California, a seven-year-old girl found herself banned from drawing, suspended from recess for two weeks, and forced to apologize after presenting a drawing to a black classmate. What sparked such controversy? In her colorful creation, she boldly wrote “Black Lives Mater [sic]” (BLM) at the top and, beneath it, sketched […]
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The rising cost of college has dissuaded many from pursuing a degree and caused millions more to go deep into debt. One important factor contributing to this trend is the amount many institutions spend on intercollegiate athletics. About twenty large universities, such as Penn State and the University of Alabama, have successful football teams that […]
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Depending on which side of the political aisle you choose, “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” better known as DEI, stands for very different things. For the far-left, who have largely coopted and infected their less radical comrades, it is something inherently good and imbued in America’s DNA. In response to increasing demands for dialing down DEI […]
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