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Searching for White Supremacists on the Moon: How the Democrats’ New Moral Panic Could Backfire

June 9, 2021
By W. Alexander Bell

In light of President Biden’s first joint address to Congress and continued commitment to the Jan. 6 commission, it has now become abundantly clear that the Democrats are adopting the playbook of the woke (or regressive) left. Unlike the old left, which was more concerned with workers’ rights and ending discriminatory policies, the woke-regressives—born in […]

Critical Race Theory and Common Sense

June 7, 2021
By Ernest J. Zarra, III

There is a peculiar theory that has its basis in Marxism and that hails from early-twentieth-century Germany. The theory first manifested itself in the United States in the 1970s. Critical Race Theory brings with it the idea that all whites are racists, whether they are aware of this or not. The labeling of a group […]

A Visit to the Woke Bookstore

June 5, 2021
By Alexander Riley

Your local university bookstore, bringing Woke culture to a backward small town near you It was just Commencement Weekend at the central Pennsylvania liberal arts college where I teach. COVID restrictions looked to be in serious retreat around town, as families were excitedly milling about on the main drag, many mask-free, and the whole area […]

Charles Darwin: Victorian Genius

June 3, 2021
By Elizabeth Weiss

Charles Darwin’s works, including The Descent of Man (1871), withstand the test of time. Darwin got a remarkable amount about the mechanics of evolution, our African origins, the links between humans and the rest of the natural world, and evolution’s impact on our current conditions right. He did this with practically no human fossil record […]

Redefining Words to Obscure Facts

June 2, 2021
By Philip Carl Salzman

These days, theories are formulated, conclusions drawn, and policies shaped not by the accumulation of relevant evidence, but by redefining words, which determines the desired outcome. Let us begin with examples from the discourse surrounding the Palestine-Arab-Iran-Israel conflict. The “Science for Peace” letter, titled “Canada must condemn the violence in Gaza and the West Bank […]

Why the Trans Issue is Much Bigger than Bathrooms, Sports, and Fragile Feelings

May 31, 2021
By W. Alexander Bell

With news that a transgender powerlifter will likely be competing in this year’s Olympics, questions are once again being raised about how allowing biological men into female spaces could affect the integrity of athletic competition and women’s safety. Many pundits on the left see this as a non-issue; there simply aren’t that many transgender athletes, […]

An Anti-Antiracism Manifesto

May 29, 2021
By Ray M. Sanchez

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” Actual, true racism is discrimination or prejudice based on outward perceived or real ethnic or racial attributes. It is nothing more. Discrimination and prejudice based on outward perceived or real ethnic or racial attributes has occurred and does occur in America, as […]

‘White Fragility’ Is a Racist Concept

May 27, 2021
By Philip Carl Salzman

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The Epoch Times on May 17, 2021, and is crossposted here with permission. Like “black criminality,” “Jewish shrewdness,” “Italian mafiosity,” and “Irish drunkenness,” “white fragility” is a racist concept. Identifying a particular derogatory characteristic, or even a positive characteristic, with a racial or ethnic group, as if it accurately […]

The Screwed-Up Emails: Part II

May 25, 2021
By David Richardson

Editor’s Note: The following is the second in a series of satirical articles loosely inspired by C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters. To read Part I, click here. PART II: THE YEAR 2029 OC (Old Calendar) Prologue: In the year 2024, after Congress created the new states of Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin […]

Free Community College Will Only Make Things Worse

May 24, 2021
By Robert Weissberg

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Intellectual Takeout on May 19, 2021 and is crossposted here with permission. Like nearly all Americans, President Joe Biden believes that a college degree is the ticket to both individual economic advancement and uplifting the poor. To put his money where his mouth is, he has proposed $256 billion in […]

Was Thomas Jefferson America’s First Abolitionist?

May 20, 2021
By Robert F. Turner

Editor’s Note: The original version of this article stated, “It was Thomas Jefferson who in 1769 drafted the law that, when enacted three years later, permitted the freeing of Virginia slaves.” The “three” here is incorrect and has been corrected to “thirteen.” Most Americans appear to believe that Thomas Jefferson raped the slave child Sally […]

Instructor’s Statement on Freedom of Expression in the Classroom

May 18, 2021
By Mark Mercer

To my students: University students should be free from threat of institutional censure to state any opinion they wish and to state their opinions using whatever language they wish. At our university, however, students do not enjoy this freedom of expression. Various documents at Saint Mary’s University constrain what students may say and how they […]

The Screwed-Up Emails: Part I

May 15, 2021
By Ray Sanchez and David Richardson

Editor’s Note: The following is the first in a series of satirical articles loosely inspired by C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters. In honor of C.S. Lewis, who “discovered” the first set of correspondence. “Satire’s nature is to be one-sided, contemptuous of ambiguity, and so unfairly selective as to find in the purity of ridicule an […]

Liberty Fund’s Mission More Vital Than Ever

May 13, 2021
By Mike Sabo

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by RealClearWire on May 12, 2021, and is crossposted here with permission. The rise of critical race theory, along with the popularity of the New York Times’s 1619 Project, presents a serious challenge to the concept of “E Pluribus Unum.” According to Richard Reinsch, the editor of Liberty Fund’s […]

Let’s Hire China to Run Our Schools and Universities

May 12, 2021
By Philip Carl Salzman

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The Epoch Times on May 8, 2021 and is crossposted here with permission. The internationalization of labor has been a longstanding policy of government and business. The main reason is the low cost of labor in developing countries such as China, compared to the cost of labor in modern […]

Teaching Academic Integrity

May 11, 2021
By Douglas Groothuis

One of the least enjoyable aspects of college teaching is policing students for cheating. Instructors face the procedural issue of finding cheating as well as the moral issue of warning against it and advocating for academic integrity. Programs such as Turnitin check papers for plagiarism against a database of published material and other student papers. […]

Legislatures: It’s Time to Defund Universities

May 10, 2021
By Philip Carl Salzman

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The Epoch Times on May 5, 2021 and is crossposted here with permission. Our universities have been uniformly corrupted by neo-Marxist political ideology. They no longer teach the great wealth of knowledge of Western Civilization, or engage in research to advance that knowledge. Instead, they indoctrinate their students […]

Field Notes on Recent Trends in Higher Ed Litigation

May 9, 2021
By Anonymous

Editor’s Note: The following is a reproduction of a pair of emails received by the editors of Minding the Campus. We thought they would attract broad interest and publish them here with the correspondent’s consent. The correspondent has chosen to remain anonymous. The messages have been lightly edited for readability. Three interesting articles about higher ed crossed […]

Academia Becomes More Ideological, More Coercive

May 8, 2021
By Philip Carl Salzman

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The Epoch Times on April 30, 2021 and is crossposted here with permission. Universities as a community of autonomous scholars delving into knowledge and seeking to expand it is a model long out of date. With the explosive growth of university, scientific, and granting agency bureaucracies, coercive oversight and […]

Sustainable Development in Higher Education: Useful Concept or Trojan Horse?

May 6, 2021
By W. Alexander Bell

Having worked within the humanities for a number of years now, I have first-hand experience with the ways in which words and concepts can get politicized and abused. Sometimes, familiar words take on new meanings (e.g., racism, gender), while other times, new concepts get mainstreamed without the general public being made aware of what they […]

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Nebraska’s Critical Race Theory Debate

“Nebraska’s governor is publicly pressuring the state university system’s Board of Regents to pass a resolution against critical race theory. ... The resolution in question, proposed by Regent Jim Pillen, another Republican, who is running to succeed term-limited Ricketts, says that 'America is the best country in the world and anyone can achieve the American Dream here.' Critical race theory doesn’t 'promote inclusive and honest dialogue and education on campus' and its proponents 'seek to silence opposing views and disparage important American ideals,' the resolution also says.” - Inside Higher Ed, 7/28/21

Post-COVID Optimism on College Finances

“A year later, with COVID-19 loosening its grip on campuses, the economy and American psyches, and many institutions' budgets boosted by a major infusion of federal funds, it's not surprising to find campus financial managers in a better place. Three-quarters of respondents to Inside Higher Ed's 2021 Survey of College and University Business Officers, conducted this month with Hanover Research, express confidence in their institution's financial stability over the next decade. The same proportion says their college or university is in better financial shape than it was a year ago, and two-thirds say it is stronger than it was in 2019.” - Inside Higher Ed, 7/28/21

Safe Spaces: Balancing Academic Freedom and Wokeness

“I want to come out in favor of safe spaces. Not everywhere, or for all purposes, but in general I think there should be a strong presumption in favor of limited and exclusive safe spaces for any group that wants to establish one. ... My main claim is that 'safe spaces' for students must include ideologically selected groups, just as it includes social groups such as fraternities and sororities. Freedom of association is the key to understanding academic freedom. And academic freedom, not freedom of speech, is the bedrock principle of universities and colleges.” - The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, 7/28/21

Cal State universities to require coronavirus vaccination, won’t wait for full FDA approval

“Cal State is the nation’s largest four-year public university system, with about 485,000 students on 23 campuses. ... In April, Cal State leaders had said they planned to implement a vaccine mandate after the Food and Drug Administration gives full approval to at least one of the shots that now have emergency-use authorization. But Cal State now is removing that caveat and accelerating the mandate. Its decision follows a similar recent action by the University of California system.” - Washington Post, 7/27/21

CDC changes course on school guidance, advising everyone to wear masks

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday changed its guidance for schools, recommending everyone over the age of 2 — and not just the unvaccinated — wear masks inside school buildings, a shift that comes in response to rising concerns about the delta variant of the coronavirus. The announcement came as schools across the country weighed how to mitigate the spread of the new variant in classrooms and hallways, a question that has been fiercely debated in school board meetings — where some parents have flung obscenities at school leaders — and statehouses.” - Washington Post, 7/27/21

Med Schools Are Now Denying Biological Sex

“In other words, some of the country’s top medical students are being taught that humans are not, like other mammals, a species comprising two sexes. The notion of sex, they are learning, is just a man-made creation. The idea that sex is a social construct may be interesting debate fodder in an anthropology class. But in medicine, the material reality of sex really matters, in part because the refusal to acknowledge sex can have devastating effects on patient outcomes.” - Common Sense with Bari Weiss, 7/27/21

Senate panel to hold hearing on student loan bankruptcy reform, Durbin says

“Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will hold a hearing Aug. 3 on student loan bankruptcy reforms to explore ways to lower the barriers borrowers face in discharging their education debt. ... Consumer advocates and liberal lawmakers including Durbin have long urged the department to revise its bankruptcy policy and called on Congress to revisit the restrictive standards it imposed. Federal and private student loans can be cleared through bankruptcy, but the hurdles are high and discharges are rare.” - Washington Post, 7/27/21

Schumer, Warren call on Biden to extend student loan pause and wipe out $50K per borrower

“Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) on Tuesday called on President Biden to extend the pause on federal student loan payments and wipe out $50,000 per borrower. The trio held a press conference Tuesday at the Capitol to push Biden toward renewing and dramatically expanding relief for millions of Americans who owe the federal government more than $1.6 trillion in college debt.” - The Hill, 7/27/21

Johns Hopkins University signals plans to move forward with controversial private police force

“Johns Hopkins University has selected a Massachusetts police commissioner as its new vice president of public safety, officials said Tuesday, a move that signals the school will move forward with highly contested plans to form a private police force. Branville Bard Jr. will oversee security for all of Johns Hopkins University, its medicine campuses and other facilities worldwide, according to a statement from the university. He will also 'play a leading role in the development and implementation of the Johns Hopkins Police Department.'” - Washington Post, 7/27/21

Ed and State departments recommit to international education

“The U.S. departments of Education and State released a joint statement Monday expressing 'a renewed U.S. commitment to international education.' The agencies' pledge does not contain policy specifics, but rather offers broad assurances and principles. They include the department following 'a coordinated national approach to international education' by facilitating study abroad opportunities, research with other nations and internationalization of American classrooms.” - Higher Ed Dive, 7/27/21

Transnational Education is a Double-Edged Sword

Classical Schools Designed to Produce Well-Rounded Citizens

Critical Race Theory Teaches that Discrimination Against Whites is Essential