In 2011 two of New York City’s prized taxi car medallions sold for $1 million dollars apiece. In June 2013, another went for $1,050,000. These high prices weren’t terribly surprising, since taxi drivers can only legally pick up passengers if they possess medallions. Some are beginning to think of college degrees in similar terms. As […]
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Since the UNC athletic/academic scandal has faded, the hottest topic in the realm of higher education has been the so-called “gainful employment” regulations released by the Department of Education at the end of October. An avalanche of articles have been written exploring the issue involved, namely the large percentage of students who graduate from occupational […]
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Science students generally receive an abysmal education in the humanities. Having recently published an article on science education in Public Discourse, I was especially sensitive to comments by Gilbert Meilaender in The New Atlantis, “Who Needs a Liberal Education?” After stating the importance of historical development in the humanities, Meilaender writes, “But a physics undergraduate […]
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Has Stanford Law stopped discriminating? I realize this is a loaded question, but it is inescapably prompted by research, published in the Journal of Legal Studies, that suggests “ways to close the gender gap in law schools.” Stanford law professors Mark Kelman and Daniel Ho examined 15,689 grades assigned by 91 instructors to 1,897 Stanford […]
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I’d like to add this to Peter Augustine Lawler’s legislative agenda: As long as university officials take race and ethnicity into account in admissions decisions, a bill requiring publication of the use of such preferences is necessary. Such a bill would require universities that receive federal funding to report annually in detail on whether and […]
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The Republicans’ massive victory on all levels of American politics requires them to be more than anti-Obama or anti-progressive. They must implement policies that will contribute to the flourishing of all of American life. “Reform conservatives”–such as Ramesh Ponnuru and Yuval Levin–have taken the lead in showing that Republicans have to do more than cut […]
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As part of its ongoing series on “Inequity In Silicon Valley,” USA TODAY published a long and questionable article Monday, “How To Close The Tech Diversity Gap,” reporting on a conference at the Stanford Law School the paper co-sponsored with Stanford last week. The Rev. Jesse Jackson was much in evidence, both in spirit and […]
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In the mid-1990s, the MacArthur Fellows Program, commonly referred to as the “genius grants,” appeared to be captured by the multicultural, race-and-gender left. But the program director that embraced the radical left, Catharine Stimpson, left the MacArthur Foundation in 1996 after only four years. Her successor, Daniel Socolow, severely restricted the fellowships going to liberal […]
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The Federalist Society last Saturday sponsored a symposium at Yale Law School that discussed “Achieving Intellectual Diversity” on law school faculties. On one of the panels, I said that as a student at Yale law 1977-1981 (with a year off to work for the Republican National Committee) it was a good time to be in […]
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When Patrick Witt published his op-ed on what was done to him in a sexual assault hearing at Yale, he had to know that the critics would emerge from the woodwork. And so they have. The New York Times continues to stand behind its botched reporting on the case, which even the Times’ public editor […]
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At the invitation of the Alabama chapter of Eagle Forum—Phyllis Schafly’s pro-family conservative organization—I flew to Birmingham last week to give a talk on the Common Core K-12 State Standards. Alabama was one of only a few states I had never set foot in. When I mentioned that to an elderly gentleman I met at […]
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Perhaps the highest-profile victim of the war on campus due process, former Yale quarterback Patrick Witt, has spoken out publicly for the first time. In an op-ed for the Boston Globe, Witt, now a student at Harvard Law School and prompted by the law school faculty’s speaking out against Harvard’s new policies, wrote that Yale’s […]
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Stanford student Elisabeth Dee, class of 2016, one of the organizers of a demonstration called “Carry that Weight” where students were urged to carry a pillow or mattress around for a day to symbolize the burden placed upon survivors of sexual assault, has called on the school to actively reduce the burden of proof required […]
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Two years after MOOCs grabbed higher-ed headlines and recession-battered students began calling for cheaper college options, what do professors think of online education? According to Inside Higher Ed’s 2014 survey of faculty attitudes on technology, they’re cautiously becoming more hopeful about its success, if education consists in conveying information. But they’re increasingly skeptical about its […]
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The latest alarming numbers on campus sexual assault come from a Massachusetts Institute of Technology survey which supposedly shows that 17 percent of female undergraduates have been sexually assaulted during their time at the school. Writing in The Washington Post, columnist Catherine Rampell has invoked these findings as a rebuke to those who have criticized […]
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Put yourself in the shoes of the admissions director at a selective, highly respected college with a narrow academic focus – science, math, and engineering. How could you improve the likelihood that the students you’ll offer admission to will be the best of the many who applied? You already look at SAT and ACT scores, […]
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The Daily Pennsylvanian reports that Penn is moving full speed ahead to weaken due process protections when campus tribunals handle sexual assault claims—and only when they handle sexual assault claims. The DP notes that students accused of sexual assault will no longer be judged by a jury of their peers, and instead will face a […]
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This is an edited version of a paper delivered at a recent conference on “What Is a Liberal Education For?” at St. John’s College in Santa Fe. Dr. Agresto is a former president of St. John’s. *** The liberal arts are dying in America, and they are dying in large measure because the public is […]
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I’ve written frequently about the unfair, guilt-presuming processes that colleges and universities from Harvard to Occidental use when deciding sexual assault cases. But a second trend has occurred largely outside the public eye. As they have “reformed” their sexual assault procedures, colleges and universities also have increasingly instituted training programs for members of these disciplinary […]
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Bryn Mawr College, a good liberal arts college where I adjunct taught a few years back, recently got the kind of press no college wants: two southern students displayed a Confederate flag, leading to days of demonstrations. One protester had written on her arm “I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO QUESTION IF I BELONG HERE. I WILL […]
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